Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,435

Here is where things stand on Thursday, January 29:

Fighting

The death toll from a Russian attack on a passenger train in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on Tuesday rose to six, after the remains of several bodies were recovered from the wreckage, the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office said on the Telegram messaging app.
At least six people were injured in a Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, the head of the regional military administration, Ivan Fedorov, said on Telegram.
Russian forces attacked several locations across Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, killing a 46-year-old man and injuring at least two other people, the head of the regional military administration, Oleksandr Hanzha, said on Facebook.
One person was killed in a Ukrainian attack on the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka in Russia’s Belgorod region, the regional emergencies task force reported, according to the country’s TASS state news agency.
A Ukrainian drone attack killed one person in the city of Enerhodar, in a Russian-occupied area of Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, Russia’s locally appointed official Yevhen Balitsky said, according to TASS.
Fedorov has ruled out installing anti-drone netting as a mode of defence, saying that “there are more effective ways to combat Russian attacks”, Ukraine’s Ukrinform news agency reported.

Military aid

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that France will deliver more “French aircraft, missiles for air defence systems, and aerial bombs” to Ukraine this year, following a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Regional security

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at an event in Paris that a 2035 target for rearming Europe “would be too late”.

“I think rearming ourselves now is the most important thing,” Frederiksen said. “Because when you look at intelligence, nuclear weapons, and so on, we depend on the US,” she added.

Switzerland plans to inject an additional 31 billion Swiss francs ($40.4bn) into military spending starting from 2028 by increasing sales taxes for a decade.

“The world has become more volatile and insecure, and the international order based on international law is under strain,” the Swiss government said, noting that other European countries have also been increasing their defence spending.

Politics and diplomacy

Vladislav Maslennikov, a top European Affairs official at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told TASS that restoring relations with the European Union will only be possible if European countries “cease their sanctions policy”, stop “pump[ing] weapons into the Kyiv regime, and sabotag[ing] the peace process around Ukraine.”

President Macron said at an event in Paris that European countries must focus on asserting their “sovereignty, on our contribution to Arctic security, on the fight against foreign interference and disinformation, and on the fight against global warming”.

“France will continue to defend these principles in accordance with the United Nations Charter,” said Macron, who has turned down an invitation for France to join Trump’s Board of Peace, which some critics say is an attempt to replace the United Nations.

Peace talks

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that negotiations over Ukraine’s Donetsk region, which is part of the Donbas region that is now 90 percent occupied by Russian forces, are “still a bridge we have to cross” in talks between Russia and Ukraine.

“It’s still a gap, but at least we’ve been able to narrow down the issue set to one central one, and it will probably be a very difficult one,” Rubio said.