Category World News

Here is where things stand on Sunday, January 11:

Fighting:

• Russian forces launched artillery and drone attacks on Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region on Saturday, killing a 68-year-old man, wounding three others and causing fires to break out in residential buildings, according to Ukraine’s emergency service.
• Russian shelling also killed another person in the Kramatorsk district of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the service said.
• Three other Ukrainians were killed, and nine more were wounded, in Russian attacks on the areas of Yarova, Kostyanynivka and Sloviansk in Donetsk, according to Governor Vadym Filashkin.
• Ukraine’s General Staff reported 139 combat clashes on Saturday and said that Russia launched 33 air strikes, deployed more than 4,430 drones and carried out 2,830 attacks on Ukrainian troops and settlements.
• Russian forces advanced near the villages of Markove and Kleban-Byk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to the Ukrainian battlefield monitoring site DeepState, but no other major changes were reported.
• In the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, engineers are working “around the clock” to restore electricity to residents after thousands of apartments lost power during Russia’s Thursday attacks, said Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the city’s military administration.
• Heat supplies have been returned to roughly half the homes that lost power, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko added.
• Russia’s TASS news agency reported that two people were wounded in a Ukrainian drone attack on the southwestern Russian city of Voronezh.
• The governor of Russia’s Belgorod ‍region, which ‍borders Ukraine, said on Saturday that 600,000 people in the area were without electricity, heating and water after a Ukrainian ⁠missile strike.
• Ukrainian forces also carried out a drone strike on Russia’s Volgograd region, sparking a fire at an oil depot in the Oktyabrsky district, regional authorities said.
• The Ukrainian military said ‌on Saturday it had struck the Zhutovskaya oil depot in Volgograd overnight.
• Russian air defence systems, meanwhile, intercepted and destroyed 33 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions, the agency reported.

Politics and diplomacy

• The United Nations Security Council will host an emergency meeting on January 12 to “address Russia’s flagrant breaches of the UN Charter”, after Russia fired an Oreshnik hypersonic missile near the Polish border, Ukrainian ‍Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.
• The foreign minister also spoke out about the antigovernment protests rocking Iran, saying that “Iran’s support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and its oppression of its own citizens are part of the same policy of violence and disrespect for human dignity”.
• The deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, insisted that Russia will not accept European or NATO troops in Ukraine and that “European dimwits want a war in Europe after all”.
• “Well, come on then. This is what you’ll get”, the deputy chairman added, accompanied by a video of the Oreshnik strike.
• The Institute for the Study of War wrote in its latest report that Russia’s Oreshnik strike was likely “aimed to scare Western countries from providing military support to Ukraine, particularly from deploying forces to Ukraine as part of a peace agreement”.
• Ukraine’s lead negotiator, ⁠Rustem Umerov, “once again reached out to our American partners”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. “We continue communication with the American side practically every day,” he said.
• South Africa kicked off a week of naval drills, also attended by Russia, Iran and China.
• Captain Nndwakhulu Thomas Thamaha, South Africa’s joint task force commander, told the opening ceremony that the drills are “a demonstration of our collective resolve to work together”.

Sanctions

• Zelenskyy pledged on X that “we will continue strengthening the sanctions toolkit” and that “all lines of pressure on Russia and individuals associated with it must be maintained”.
• In reference to recent news that US President Donald Trump has greenlit a bill to sanction countries that buy Russian oil, Zelenskyy said: “What is important is that the US Congress is back in motion on tougher sanctions against Russia – targeting Russian oil. This can truly work.”

Energy

• Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev said Russian oil products have “significantly increased” after Bloomberg reported that Russian refined fuel flows hit a four-month high in December, driven by stronger diesel shipments from ports in the Baltic Sea. Dmitriev added on X that “fake warmonger narratives are bad for decision-making”.
• Separately, Bloomberg also reported that Russia’s crude oil production dropped to its lowest level in a year and a half in December, hitting 9.32 million barrels per day.

The United States has carried out another round of “large-scale” attacks against the ISIL or ISIS group in Syria following an ambush that killed two American soldiers and a civilian interpreter in the city of Palmyra last month.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Saturday that the attacks occurred at about 17:30 GMT and hit “multiple ISIS targets across Syria”.

“Our message remains strong: if you harm our warfighters, we will find you and kill you anywhere in the world, no matter how hard you try to evade justice,” CENTCOM said.

The statement did not say whether anyone was killed in the strikes.

Grainy aerial video accompanying the statement, posted on X, showed several separate explosions, apparently in rural areas.

CENTCOM said the attacks were carried out alongside partner forces, without specifying which forces had taken part.

The US is calling the response to the Palmyra attacks Operation Hawkeye Strike. The ambush on December 13 involved a lone gunman, who Syria’s Ministry of Interior said was a member of the security forces and had been set to be fired for his hardline views.

The US military launched Operation Hawkeye Strike on December 19, with a large-scale strike that hit 70 targets across central Syria that had ISIL infrastructure and weapons.

It said on December 30 that its forces had killed or captured about 25 ISIL fighters following the launch of Operation Hawkeye Strike.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has for years been the US’s main partner in the fight against ISIL in Syria, but since the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Washington has increasingly been coordinating with the central government in Damascus.

Syria joined the global coalition against ISIL after reaching an agreement late last year, when Syrian President Ahmed ‍al-Sharaa visited the White House.

Syrian officials said last month that leading ISIL figure Taha al-Zoubi had been arrested in the Damascus countryside.

US President Donald Trump has long been sceptical of Washington’s presence in Syria, ordering the withdrawal of troops during his first term, but ultimately leaving American forces in the country.

About 1,000 US troops remain in Syria.

Nicaragua’s left-wing government has announced the release of dozens of prisoners following pressure from United States President Donald Trump’s administration.

The government of President Daniel Ortega said in a statement on Saturday that “tens of people who were in the national penitentiary system have gone home to their families”.

The statement did not specify the exact number of people freed, or whether they had been detained for political reasons.

While the government described the move as a gesture to commemorate 19 years of Ortega’s government, Nicaragua is under considerable pressure from the US over its human rights record and a years-long crackdown on opposition leaders and activists.

Saturday’s prisoner release also reflects the growing pressure that left-wing governments in Latin America face to appease demands from the Trump administration, which has moved to exert greater dominance across the Americas region.

Tensions have soared since the US military attacked Venezuela on January 3 and abducted the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, who is facing US charges of narcoterrorism and drug trafficking, which he denies.

On Friday, the US Embassy in Nicaragua praised the release of opposition figures in Venezuela following Maduro’s removal from power, calling on Ortega’s government to follow suit.

“In Nicaragua, more than 60 people remain unjustly detained or missing, including pastors, religious workers, the sick, and the elderly. Peace is only possible with freedom!” the Embassy posted on social media.

A human rights NGO that tracks political prisoners in Nicaragua identified 19 people released on Saturday, the Reuters news agency reported.

Opposition leader and former prisoner Ana Margarita Vijil told Reuters that she did not know the exact number of people released, but said the group included a former mayor, Oscar Gadea, and an evangelical pastor, Rudy Palacios.

Palacios was detained in July after criticising the Nicaraguan government for human rights violations. He had also supported demonstrators who took to the streets to demand Ortega’s removal in 2018.

Ortega responded to those protests with a crackdown that left at least 350 people dead and hundreds detained.

Liberales Nicaragua, a coalition of opposition groups, praised the prisoners’ release on Saturday.

Mohamed Salah scored, and Egypt eliminated the defending champions, Ivory Coast, to move into the 2025 CAF Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) semifinals with a 3-2 victory.

Liverpool forward Salah nabbed his fourth goal of the tournament – Egypt’s third of the game – in the 52nd minute of Saturday’s encounter, and the Pharaohs needed it, as Ivory Coast threatened to twice come back from two goals down.

Egypt, however, held on in Agadir despite relentless Ivorian pressure, and booked a semifinal date with 2021 champions Senegal in Tangier on Wednesday.

Ivory Coast had a woeful start, as Franck Kessie lost the ball in the midfield after a poor touch and Odilon Kossounou fell over instead of cutting out Emam Ashour’s ball for Omar Marmoush, who scored in the fourth minute.

Ramy Rabia produced a brilliant block to preserve the lead, and then scored himself with a header from a corner in the 32nd.

Ivory Coast finally pulled one back five minutes before the break, when Ahmed Abou El Fotouh bundled in a dangerous Yan Diomande free kick, which Kossounou headed on.

Salah restored Egypt’s two-goal cushion early in the second half, when Rabia caught the Ivorian defence out with a long ball for Ashour, who set up Salah with the outside of his boot.

Guela Doue pulled another one back with his heel in a goalmouth scramble, after goalkeeper Mohamed El-Shenawy clawed the ball away in the 73rd, but the equaliser never came.

Egypt are bidding for a record-extending eighth AFCON title.

Earlier, three-time champions Nigeria, who lost the final to Ivory Coast in the last edition, beat Algeria 2-0 to set up a semifinal meeting with Morocco.

The Super Eagles are bidding to win the title for the first time since 2013.