As we enter the 705th day of the war, these are the most important developments.

Here is the situation as of Tuesday, January 30, 2024.

Battle

• Russia claimed to have taken it Control of Tabaivka, a small frontline village in the northeastern Kharkiv region of Ukraine. Ukraine denied the claim and said fighting continued.
• Alexei Kulemzin, the Russian-appointed mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city of Donetsk, blamed Ukraine for a rocket attack that killed at least three people and injured three others.

Politics and diplomacy

• Hungary has signaled its willingness to compromise on a proposed 50 billion euro aid package from the European Union for Ukraine. Balazs Orban, a top adviser to Prime Minister Victor Orban, said Budapest sent a proposal to Brussels on Saturday showing it was willing to use the EU budget for the aid package and common EU debt to finance it to be issued if further “reservations” exist. The EU is due to hold an emergency budget summit on Thursday.
• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said they laid the groundwork for a meeting of their leaders during talks in western Ukraine and also agreed to cooperate on the controversial issue of Hungarian minority rights in Ukraine.
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that any progress in Ukraine would be “at risk” if Congress did not approve new aid for Kiev. Republicans are blocking a $61 billion aid package and want it tied to tougher immigration policies.
• NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg met senior officials in the US, including Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Stoltenberg is in Washington, D.C., to drum up support for a deal with Ukraine and will meet on Tuesday with members of Congress involved in the aid debate.
• British Foreign Secretary David Cameron called on Moscow to reveal the whereabouts of Vladimir Kara-Murza after his wife said he had been moved from a Siberian penal colony to an undisclosed location. Kara-Murza, who has Russian and British citizenship, was sentenced to 25 years in prison last April for treason and spreading “false information” about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

• Members of the Russian rock group Bi-2, who have condemned the war in Ukraine, are facing deportation to Russia after being arrested in Thailand for working without permits. Russian authorities labeled the band’s lead singer Igor Bortnick a “foreign agent” after he criticized President Vladimir Putin online.
• A Russian court sentenced a 72-year-old woman to five and a half years in prison after she shared two posts online about Russian military casualties in Ukraine. Human rights groups said Yevgeniya Maiboroda, from the southern Rostov region, was charged with spreading “false information” about the armed forces.

weapons

• Sales of U.S. military equipment to foreign governments rose 16 percent to a record $238 billion in 2023 as countries sought to resupply, according to the U.S. State Department Arsenals sent to Ukraine and prepare for major conflicts. Sales during the year included National Advanced Surface to Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) to Ukraine and weapons to Poland and Germany.