As we enter the 707th day of the war, these are the most important developments.

Here is the situation as of Wednesday, January 31, 2024.

Battle

• Four people were killed by Russian shelling in two villages in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region near the Russian border, while a woman died in a fresh attack on the devastated eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, local officials said.
• Three people were also injured after Russian drones hit Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, according to local officials. The attack also sparked a fire and caused damage to apartment blocks and infrastructure.
• The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia fired a total of 35 attack drones and two guided missiles at energy and military infrastructure near the front line and other Ukrainian regions, with air defense systems destroying 15 of the 35 drones.
• Russia said it shot down 11 drones fired by Ukraine over Crimea, which it occupied and annexed in 2014 – a move that was not internationally recognized. The Ukrainian military said it hit a Russian air defense radar station on the peninsula. Russian news agencies said several drones suspected of being launched by Ukraine were also shot down over Belgorod, Bryansk, Kaluga and Tula – all regions in Russia.
• Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency GUR, said he expected the Russian offensive on the Eastern Front to stall by spring. In recent months, Russia has stepped up its attacks in the region, trying to encircle towns like Avdiivka. Budanov said they had only made “some progress in some areas.”
• The Ukrainian government has submitted to parliament an amended version of its controversial military mobilization law, which includes a new provision that would allow certain people to serve in the armed forces despite being convicted of a crime. The bill aims to lower the conscription age from 27 to 25 years.
• Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence, said Russia had shown “no willingness” to return the bodies of 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war that Moscow claims were killed Crash of a military transport plane last week.
• Ukraine said it temporarily disrupted communications from military units in a cyberattack that took down a server used by the Russian Defense Ministry.

Politics and diplomacy

• Bill Burns, director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), wrote on the website of Foreign Affairs magazine that Ukraine would likely face a tough year in the fight against Russia in 2024 and that the US would stop aiding Kiev an “own goal of historic proportions”. A huge aid package for Ukraine is currently being held up in Congress because some Republicans want to tie it to changes in U.S. border policy.
• Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza wrote in a letter to his lawyer that he would be in solitary confinement for four months after being transferred to a new Siberian penal colony. In the letter released by his wife, he said the measure was punishment for not standing up when a security guard ordered him to “stand up,” which authorities viewed as a “malicious violation.” Kara-Murza, a critic of President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine, was sentenced to 25 years in prison last April after being found guilty of treason.
• Russian investigators have charged two 17-year-olds with sabotage for Ukraine after they set fire to an equipment box on the side of a railway track in Moscow. The two were taken into custody and face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.

weapons

• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Russia has more than doubled anti-aircraft missile production and intends to further increase production, but that there are “questions” regarding the production of engines and launchers that need to be resolved.
• According to Politico, Ukraine is expected to receive its first batch of the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), a new long-range precision bomb developed by Boeing, as early as Wednesday. The new bomb can travel about 145 km (90 miles) and will give Ukraine “greater impact that it didn’t have,” a U.S. official told the magazine.