Ukraine-Russia battle newest: Ukrainian parliament and 1 million properties in Kyiv with out energy after Putin’s strikes

With president Donald Trump not due to address the elite global gathering until Wednesday, it fell to his treasury secretary to take up his defence in Switzerland.

“I think our relations have never been closer,” Scott Bessent said, playing down the rift among Western countries over Greenland. “Calm down the hysteria. Take a deep breath.”

He added: “We are in the middle of President Trump’s policies. And of course, Europe is an ally, the US-Nato membership is unquestioned. We are partners in trying to stop this tragic war between Russia and Ukraine, but that does not mean that we cannot have disagreements on the future of Greenland.”

Britain and Denmark will hold defence talks today focusing on security in the Arctic region, the British government said, at a time when US president Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland threaten to upend historic alliances.

Defence secretary John Healey will be in Copenhagen today, his ministry said.

He will discuss how European nations can step up security in the “high north”, a term used to refer to the European Arctic which includes the island of Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark.

The UK and Denmark want to protect critical national infrastructure in the Baltic and high north.

They will discuss a planned exercise later this year by the Joint Expeditionary Force, a UK-led northern European rapid response military partnership.

Support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, as well as counter-drone cooperation, will also be on the agenda.

Drone fragments caused a fire at the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region without inflicting any injuries or damage, local emergencies centre said this morning.

The fire was extinguished, it said.

Ukrainian drones struck towns in southern Russia, injuring 11 people and prompting the evacuation of several residents, local officials said.

A major deal to fund Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction will no longer be signed in Davos with Europe and Donald Trump now at loggerheads over Greenland, according to the FT.

Six officials aware of the disagreements between European capitals and Washington confirmed that a planned announcement of an $800bn “prosperity plan” for Ukraine will now be delayed.

The agreement was going to be between Ukraine, Europe and the US, the report added.

While one of the officials confirmed “no signing as of now,” another said “nobody is in any mood to stage a grand spectacle around an agreement with Trump right now”.

Another official told the FT that European capitals could not simply ignore the US president’s actions on Greenland while trying to make progress on other Trump-related matters such as Ukraine.

One of the officials said Greenland and the Board of Peace controversy – with Trump inviting Putin to join despite his ongoing aggression against a European neighbour – had “eclipsed” a previously planned focus on Ukraine at the Swiss meeting.

Ukrainian drones struck towns in southern Russia, injuring eight people and prompting the evacuation of several residents, local officials said in the early hours today.

The governor of the Adygean Republic in Russia’s North Caucasus, Murat Kumpilov, said a drone struck an apartment building in a village in the Takhtamukaysky district, injuring eight people, including a child. Seven were being treated in hospital, he said.

Kumpilov said at least 15 vehicles were set on fire.

In the adjacent Krasnodar region on the Black Sea, governor Venyamin Kondratiev said a drone fell near an apartment building in a village south of the main regional centre of Krasnodar.

The building’s residents had been evacuated and temporary shelters set up.

Kondratiev said an attack on the coastal town of Primorsko-Akhtarsk had damaged two private homes. Drone fragments had also hit the ground in Sochi, the region’s major coastal town, but caused no damage.

Oleksandra Oliynykova, the Ukrainian tennis player, made a distinctive impression at the Australian Open, not only for her unconventional playing style and striking body art but also for a poignant message subtly conveyed after her first-round loss to defending champion Madison Keys.

Following her defeat on Rod Laver Arena, Oliynykova appeared at a post-match news conference wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a powerful plea: “I need your help to protect Ukrainian women and children but I can’t talk about it here.”

This statement navigated the Grand Slam guidelines, which typically discourage players from using competition venues for political declarations.

The player said she came close to being hit in an attack before coming to Australia to play. “There was an explosion just near my home and a drone hit the home just across the road,” she told Melbourne Age newspaper. “My apartment was literally shaking because of the explosion.”

She has also called for a ban on world number one Aryna Sabalenka and other Belarusian and Russian players from tennis, saying their presence was “very wrong” with the war going on.

Envoys for US president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin said that their meeting in Davos yesterday on a possible future peace deal to end the Ukraine war had been “very positive” and “constructive”.

“Dialogue is constructive and more and more people understand the fairness of Russia’s position,” Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev said after talks with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner at “USA House” at Davos.

Witkoff said: “We had a very positive meeting,” Russia’s RIA news agency reported. The meeting lasted for two hours, a source who spoke on condition of anonymity said.

Trump’s continued push to bring the war in Ukraine to an end has seen his envoys hold meetings with both Russian and Ukrainian delegations but no deal has yet been reached.

Ukraine’s European allies, currently fighting off Trump’s threats against Greenland, are concerned the United States could force Ukraine into accepting territorial concessions.

Ukraine’s military is working to replace Chinese-made drones with domestically produced models to help the war-hit nation move away from imports and sanctioned supply lines, the newly appointed defence minister said.

Mykhailo Fedorov said Ukraine would continue to rely on drones as a tool of asymmetric warfare – using novel weapons and methods against a larger opponent.

“It is important to find a replacement for Mavics and other Chinese drones,” Fedorov said, referring to a common consumer model produced by the Chinese company DJI.

“This direction must be developed.”

Fedorov said that Ukraine plans to create a local version with the same camera, but a longer flight range, and that testing could begin as soon as this month.

Imported drones and components remain crucial, however, and many come from China, which is subject to western sanctions and is seen as friendly to Russia.

Ukraine’s parliament building is among thousands left without electricity, heating and water after Russia’s overnight strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid, officials said.

“After another Russian missile and drone attack, Ukrainian cities have been left without electricity, water, and heating. The Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of Ukraine is currently without these basic services as well,” Ruslan Stefanchuk, the parliament’s speaker, said.

Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a lawmaker from the Holos party, said on the Telegram app that parliament’s support office would work remotely today due to a lack of water and heating in the building. There were no parliamentary sessions scheduled on Tuesday.

Yesterday, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said the Russian attacks cut heating supplies to 5,635 multi-storey residential apartment buildings.