Ukraine War: Key Developments – January 19, 2026
Table of Contents
Russian attacks have resulted in multiple civilian casualties across several Ukrainian regions, while critical infrastructure continues to be targeted. Negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian representatives are ongoing, but tensions remain high amid geopolitical disputes involving the united States, Europe, and Russia.
Fighting
- Russian attacks in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed three people, including a 20-year-old woman, and injured 11 others, Governor Oleh Syniehubov reported on Telegram Sunday.
- In Ukraine’s Kherson region, two people were killed and one injured due to Russian attacks involving drones, air strikes, and shelling, according to Governor Oleksandr Prokudin’s Telegram post Sunday.
- Six people were injured in Russian attacks on Dnipropetrovsk, and five were injured in Sumy, local officials said, as reported by the Kyiv Independent.
- A drone strike on the border village of Nechaivka in the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia region of Ukraine killed one person and wounded another, Moscow-installed Governor Yevgeny Balitsky said on Telegram.
- A Ukrainian attack in Russia’s Belgorod region killed a woman and injured a man, the regional task force reported on Telegram.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defense stated it downed 140 Ukrainian drones in a 24-hour period, according to Russia’s TASS state news agency.
Energy Crisis
- International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi announced the start of “crucial repair works” on an “essential backup line” connecting Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to the grid, facilitated by another IAEA-brokered ceasefire.
- “A Ukrainian team is conducting the repairs, with an IAEA team on the ground monitoring progress,” Grossi said on X.
- Russian shelling damaged an energy facility in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region, causing power outages, according to the regional electricity distribution company’s Telegram post.
- More than 200,000 consumers in the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia region of Ukraine were left without electricity Sunday following a Ukrainian drone strike Saturday, Balitsky said on Telegram.
Politics and Diplomacy
- Chief Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov said Ukrainian and Russian representatives meeting in Miami, Florida, over the past two days discussed security guarantees for Ukraine “in detail,” focusing on “practical mechanisms for their implementation.”
- US negotiators present included Stephen Witkoff, Jared Kushner, US Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll, and White House staffer Josh Gruenbaum, umerov said, adding that talks are set to continue in Davos, Switzerland.
- Kremlin investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev celebrated US President Donald Trump imposing 10 percent tariffs on European countries for sending troops to defend Greenland, as Trump continues to threaten the self-governing Danish territory and NATO member. “Transatlantic unity is over,” Dmitriev said in the post, “Leftist, globalist EU/UK elites failed,” he added, before directing specific criticism at european leaders, including EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, in a stream of posts.
- Kallas, in her own post on X, said that China and Russia “are the ones who benefit from divisions among Allies,” adding that it was vital not to let the dispute over Greenland “distract us from our core task of helping to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.”
- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said a US invasion of Greenland “would make [Russian President vladimir] Putin the happiest man on earth,” because it would “legitimise his attempted invasion of Ukraine,” in an interview with the La Vanguardia newspaper, published Sunday.
