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Ukraine says it has shot down a Russian spy plane and command aircraft

Ukraine has said it shot down a Russian A-50 spy plane and Il-22 command aircraft in the area of the Sea of Azov.

Army chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said on the Telegram messaging app:

Ukraine’s Air Force destroyed an enemy A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft and an enemy IL-22 air control centre. I am grateful to the Air Force for the perfectly planned and executed operation in the Azov Sea region!

Closing summary

• Russia is mobilising about 1,000-1,100 recruits to its armed forces every day, Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR), said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine published on Monday.

• Russia said it had given more than 200 Ukrainian prisoners of war lengthy prison sentences, with some getting a life sentence, AFP reported. The state-run outlet RT quoted an Investigative Committee source as saying that 242 soldiers were sentenced in occupied Ukraine.

• Ukraine said it shot down a Russian A-50 spy plane and Il-22 command aircraft in the area of the Sea of Azov.

• The Kremlin said Russia was developing relations with “our partner” North Korea in all areas and would build on the agreements reached between the countries’ leaders when they met at a Russian space launch centre last year.

• The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said that Russia had probably “substantially inflated” the number of people whom it says have joined the country’s armed forces, with new recruits being disproportionately drawn from some of Russia’s most impoverished and rural communities.

• The UK announced that it would send 20,000 service personnel to one of Nato’s largest military exercises since the cold war.

• The UN and its partners appealed for $4.2bn (£3.3bn) from donors to support communities in Ukraine devastated by the war, as well as Ukrainian refugees, in 2024. The UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, urged diplomats in Geneva: “Please do not forget Ukraine while there are many other places in the world that grab our attention.”

Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier today he had arrived in Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos and meet top Swiss officials.

Here are some photographs of the Ukrainian president in Berne:

Russia mobilising about 1,000 soldiers every day – official

Russia is mobilising about 1,000-1,100 recruits to its armed forces every day, Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR), said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine published on Monday.

The Kyiv Independent reports:

The main factor motivating men to join the military is the pay, according to Skibitsky. He said that while the salary level may vary, those fighting in Ukraine make about 220,000-250,000 rubles ($1,700-1,900) a month.

“Russian prisoners of war frankly admit that they joined the army because they are paid, citing mortgages, families and so on. And this motive is currently the main one for those people who voluntarily go for mobilisation, sign contracts and fight,” Skibitsky said.

Skibitsky said that those driven to join the army for financial reasons are primarily from Russia’s regions where salaries are low and there are higher levels of unemployment.

A top Ukrainian commander has said Russia hopes to claw back ground it lost in the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, with Ukrainian troops staging smaller counterattacks in what has been described as “active defence”.

Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s No 2 commander, told Reuters that Russia was hoping to seize the initiative as the full-scale invasion neared its second anniversary.

Syrskyi said Ukrainian soldiers were deploying “active defence” tactics: keeping the enemy on its toes by seeking opportunities to strike while they seek to regain the initiative.

Engagements on both sides were taking place on a smaller scale in order to conserve ammunition and personnel, he added, suggesting Russia had also learned to react and stem losses.

“Offensives at the level of a battalion are a major rarity,” Syrskyi said, adding that wider use of drones had forced the change in tactic.

Russia says it has sentenced more than 200 Ukrainian prisoners of war

Russia said it has given more than 200 Ukrainian prisoners of war lengthy prison sentences, with some getting a life sentence, AFP reports.

“More than 200 Ukrainian military personnel have been sentenced to long prison sentences for committing murder of civilians and mistreating prisoners [of war],” Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, said in an interview to the state news outlet RIA Novosti.

Bastrykin, who did not specify whether the soldiers were sentenced in Russia or occupied Ukraine, vowed that Moscow would “continue” its efforts to prosecute Ukrainian military staff, including “high-level officials”.

State-run outlet RT quoted an Investigative Committee source as saying that 242 soldiers were sentenced in occupied Ukraine. These claims are yet to be independently verified.

On 3 January, Russia and Ukraine said they had swapped hundreds of captive soldiers in their first publicly announced exchange in months.

The US deputy treasury secretary, Wally Adeyemo, will travel to Europe and Japan this month, where he will coordinate with allies on the use of a new Russia sanctions authority that takes aim at financial institutions, a treasury spokesperson told Reuters.

Adeyemo will travel to Rome, Berlin, Frankfurt and Tokyo from 16-23 January.

He is scheduled to meet G7 partners as well as key private sector representatives, including financial institutions and academics, to discuss the executive order, the spokesperson said.

Summary of the day so far

Here are all the key developments in the last few hours:

• Ukraine has said it shot down a Russian A-50 spy plane and Il-22 command aircraft in the area of the Sea of Azov.

• The Kremlin has said Russia was developing relations with “our partner” North Korea in all areas and would build on the agreements reached between the countries’ leaders when they met at a Russian space launch centre last year.

• The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said that Russia has probably “substantially inflated” the number of people whom it says have joined the country’s armed forces, with new recruits being disproportionately drawn from some of Russia’s most impoverished and rural communities.

• The UK announced that it would send 20,000 service personnel to one of Nato’s largest military exercises since the cold war. Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, followed this up with a speech in which he warned that he believed that 2024 would see the world become more dangerous and require Britain and its allies to deal with “irrational” powers such as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

• The UN and its partners have appealed for $4.2bn (£3.3bn) from donors to support communities in Ukraine devastated by the war, as well as Ukrainian refugees, in 2024.

Thanks for following – I’m handing the blog back to my colleague Yohannes Lowe now.

The EU’s eastern states are demanding that the bloc impose import duties on Ukrainian grains, citing unfair competition, Hungary’s agricultural ministry has said.

Reuters reports:

The ministry said the farm ministers from Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia had sent a letter to the European Commission requesting the measures, saying cheaper agricultural products from Ukraine were eating into their export markets.

The five signatories are among six EU member states that produce significantly more wheat and maize than they need, which is key for European food safety and the EU’s strategic sovereignty, the ministers said.

“This is why Brussels needs to introduce measures that protect the markets of member states bordering Ukraine while helping them make use of their full export potential,” read the letter signed by the ministers, who included Hungary’s farm minister, István Nagy.

“One of these could be introducing import duties on the most sensitive agricultural products.”

Ukraine’s larger farm sizes make the country’s grain exports cheaper and that is pushing EU farmers out of their traditional export markets, the ministers said.

Farmers in Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia “have suffered significant damages” since the EU suspended import quotas and customs on grain from Ukraine last year, they said.

The ministers are also calling on the European Commission, the bloc’s executive, to examine in a report whether Ukraine’s production guidelines are in line with EU standards.

Grain exports have been a rare source of tension between Kyiv and its EU neighbours as Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia became alternative transit routes for Ukrainian grain to help offset slower exports via Ukraine’s Black Sea ports after the Russian invasion in 2022. Farmers in those countries protested against these shipments, claiming that they were distorting local markets.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has held a phone call with Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, in which they discussed Ukraine, Russian state media reports.

Reuters has the full writeup from the speech made earlier by the UK defence secretary, Grant Shapps:

This year must mark an “inflection point” to decide the future of British defence, Shapps said as he set out steps to better protect the UK against threats posed by a number of conflicts that are “likely to grow”.

In a speech setting out his view that 2024 will see the world become more dangerous and require Britain and its allies to deal with “irrational” powers, Shapps said the government was striving to increase defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product – something he urged other democratic nations to follow.

In five years’ time, we could be looking at multiple theatres including Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Ask yourself … is it more likely that that number grows or reduces? I suspect we all know the answer. It’s likely to grow.

So 2024 must mark an inflection point.

He said Britain was spending more money in cash terms on defence than it ever had, adding that the government was increasing funds for modernising its nuclear deterrent and replenishing stocks and should continue to do so, while studiously refusing to call directly for additional funds.

He said:

We’ve made the critical decision to set out our aspiration to reach 2.5% of GDP on defence, and as we stabilise and grow this economy, we’ll continue to strive to reach that as soon as possible.

In reference to Nato members who were not reaching the goal of spending 2% of GDP, Shapps added: “But now is the time for all allied and democratic nations across the world to do the same thing and ensure their defence spending is growing too.”

Asked whether the government would go beyond current spending, a spokesperson for the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said it was a matter for the finance minister, though the government was expanding defence spending.

Keen to underline Britain’s engagement in the world, Shapps said Britain was committing 20,000 military personnel to serve across Europe in a Nato exercise in the first half of this year, as well as warships and fighter jets.

He also said Britain had shown it would “step up to the plate when it is needed” through its strikes, coordinated with the US, against the Houthis in Yemen to protect international shipping.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has arrived in Switzerland to participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos and meet Swiss officials.

He wrote on the Telegram app:

In Bern, I will hold talks with the heads of both chambers of the parliament, heads of the parties and factions, and President Viola Amherd.

UN aid chief: 'please do not forget Ukraine'

The United Nations has appealed for $4.2bn (£3.3bn) from donors to support Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees in 2024.

UN aid chief Martin Griffiths urged diplomats in Geneva:

Please do not forget Ukraine while there are many other places in the world that grab our attention.

We are deliberately reducing the amount of money we are asking for – not because we think the needs are diminishing or the war is getting any better for the people of Ukraine – but because we need to prioritise.

We understand well that we are up in a severe competition with other parts of the world, the brutal truth of the competition of aid programmes with each other.

We continue to remain in negotiation with the Russian government about how to get access to those people who are perhaps in the most urgent of need, since it has now been two years since any real, effective, regular, reliable humanitarian aid has reached them.

As part of the appeal for funding, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is asking for $3.1bn to help 8.5 million people in dire need of humanitarian aid in 2024. The UN refugee agency is seeking $1.1bn to support 2.3 million Ukrainian refugees and their host communities.

OCHA received 67% of the $3.9bn it appealed for last year. It has reduced its appeal for 2024 to prioritise the people most in need as other humanitarian crises around the globe, including in Gaza and Sudan, require urgent funding.

OCHA said more than 14.6 million people, or 40% of Ukraine’s population, will need humanitarian assistance this year due to Russia’s invasion and attacks.

Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees, said:

Let us not forget. I’m very worried that two years into this crisis, we already have to say this.

We had to say, until recently, ‘don’t forget other crises’ because everybody was focusing on this one. This volatility is a killer, literally.

Russia’s foreign and defence ministers Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Shoigu have held telephone calls with their Iranian counterparts today, Russian state news agency RIA reports.

Russia and Iran have drawn close in recent months, and Iran has provided Russia with weaponry to be used in Ukraine. The two sides have also criticised Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip.

Noting that the support package announced on Friday is bigger than the two previous packages, Shapps emphasised the significance of sustaining help:

There is such obvious read across from what happens in Ukraine.

The west just gets bored if you leave them long enough. It becomes an open season.

We are constantly working together to get Ukraine what it needs.

We have worked very closely on helping the Ukrainians to open up the Black Sea.

He added that this helps Ukraine get its economy going, enabling it to pay for its war effort.

Ukraine says it has shot down a Russian spy plane and command aircraft

Ukraine has said it shot down a Russian A-50 spy plane and Il-22 command aircraft in the area of the Sea of Azov.

Army chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said on the Telegram messaging app:

Ukraine’s Air Force destroyed an enemy A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft and an enemy IL-22 air control centre. I am grateful to the Air Force for the perfectly planned and executed operation in the Azov Sea region!

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