War

Here are the key developments on the 1,055th day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.Here is the situation on Tuesday, January 14:

Fighting
Ukrainian drones targeted a gas compressor station for the TurkStream pipeline that pumps Russian gas to Europe via Turkiye, the Defence Ministry in Moscow said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke of “energy terrorism” under the control of what he termed Ukraine’s “transoceanic friends”, following the attack on the Russkaya pumping station in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, about 320km (198 miles) from the Ukrainian-Russian front lines.
Russian forces are bypassing the key stronghold and vital logistics hub of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine that they have fought for months to capture. Instead, they are focused on cutting supply lines to the city by taking aim at a highway that leads from there to the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, Ukraine’s military said.
Ukraine stopped production at its coking coal mine in Pokrovsk, which feeds the country’s steel industry, because of the proximity of advancing Russian forces, the Reuters news agency reports.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he spoke with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and discussed the idea of Western “contingents” being deployed to Ukraine. Zelenskyy did not say whether he was talking about the West sending combat troops or peacekeepers.
Ukraine is not currently in a strong enough position for peace talks with Russia, NATO chief Mark Rutte said. “At this moment, clearly Ukraine is not there, because they cannot at this moment negotiate from a position of strength,” Rutte told European Union lawmakers.

Military aid
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he opposes any increase in arms deliveries to Ukraine if they would require cuts elsewhere in Germany’s budget.

Russian oil and gas
Ten EU countries have called for the 27-nation bloc to ban imports of pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia, according to Reuters. The 10 countries include the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia and Finland.
The EU is preparing its 16th package of sanctions targeting Russia’s economy, ahead of the third anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The prime minister of Moldova’s separatist Transnistria region said the abrupt curtailment of Russian gas supplies – resulting from the halting of gas transit through pipelines in Ukraine – not only plunged his region into an energy crisis but also shattered both its exports and imports.
Russia’s oil transit via Ukraine in 2024 fell by 16 percent to its lowest level since Kyiv gained independence in 1991, Ukrainian consultancy ExPro said.
United States President Joe Biden believes that oil prices will stabilise after Washington imposed the broadest package of sanctions yet targeting Russia’s oil and gas revenues, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.
At least 65 oil tankers have dropped anchor at multiple locations around the world, including off the coasts of China and Russia, since the US announced a new sanctions package against Russia on January 10, ship tracking data showed.