January 17, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told Ukraine's first lady Olena Zelenska that the alliance's support for her nation is "unwavering," as world leaders and policymakers gathered at the World Economic Forum Tuesday.

The European Commission president said Europe had implemented “the strongest sanctions ever which leave the Russian economy facing a decade of regression and its industry starved of any modern and critical technologies.”

She reiterated that there would be “no impunity” for Russia’s actions and that there would be “no let-up in our steadfast support to Ukraine.”

Some context: Western allies of Kyiv, including the US, the UK and the European Union, have remained steadfast in their support for Ukraine amid Russia's invasion.

Countries including Poland, France and the UK recently pledged to send tanks to the Ukrainian military, while the US announced a new $1.8 billion aid package to Ukraine in December.

The leaders of Poland and Lithuania said they are optimistic that Germany will authorize the export of Leopard tanks to Ukraine, as business tycoons and policymakers came together for the annual World Economic Forum Monday.

“If we still send a lot of military equipment for the defenders of Ukraine, cutting edge military equipment, they still have this potential to stop Russians,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said Tuesday during a panel session in Davos, Switzerland.

His comments came after Poland announced last week that it plans to send Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine. The country has called on the German government to supply “all sorts of weapons” to Kyiv, as it needs permission from Germany to export German-manufactured Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

Duda said he hopes “there are a few partners, a few allies, who will give tanks to Ukraine," when asked about his expectations as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has also attended the summit in Davos.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said that “someone has to take this leadership, to take the decision in order to support Ukraine," when asked about divisions within the alliance.

“I strongly believe that Chancellor Scholz will decide on this and I was a witness of a very important break point or turning point in the thinking or mentality of Germany,” he added.

Some context: Numerous countries in the Western alliance have pledged to soon send tanks for the Ukrainian military to use in its efforts to defend against Russia's invasion.

France, Poland and the United Kingdom for the first time answered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s longstanding call to supply modern battle tanks to Kyiv.

However, Scholz insisted that any such plan would need to be fully coordinated with the whole of the Western alliance, including the United States.

Scholz is scheduled to make an address at the World Economic Forum Wednesday.

Moscow is planning to increase its armed forces due to the “proxy war” that the West is waging, as Russia's faltering invasion of Ukraine approaches eleven months.

Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu announced earlier Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin had made a decision to increase the strength of the Russian Armed Forces to 1.5 million servicemen.

“Conceptually, Putin agreed” with the suggestions that were announced by the country's defence ministry, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

The details of the military expansion are yet to be finalized, Peskov said.

Previous Russian mobilization efforts: In September, Russia conducted a partial mobilization of its citizens after suffering a series of major setbacks on the battlefields of Ukraine. Officials suspended the mobilization in November, citing that the draft’s target of recruiting 300,000 personnel had been met.

That same month, Putin signed into law to conscript citizens with unexpunged or outstanding convictions for murder, robbery, larceny, drug trafficking and other serious crimes under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to be called up for military service to mobilize.

"The proxy war includes both elements of indirect participation in hostilities, and elements of economy, financial, legal war,” he commented.

Diplomatic relations between the Kremlin and Western leaders are historically low, as allies of Kyiv including the US, the UK and the European Union, have leveled economic sanctions against Russia in the wake of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

CNN's Uliana Pavlova contributed to this post.

Olena Zelenska said Russia's assault against Ukraine is contributing to "the collapse of the world as we know it," as politicians, business moguls and billionaires congregated at the World Economic Forum Monday.

“Russian aggression was never intended to restrict itself to the Ukrainian borders, this work will go further and make the crisis wider if the aggressor does not lose," she added.

Zelenska also referenced the deadly attack in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro Saturday, when a Russian cruise missile hit an apartment building and killed at least 44 people.

“These ordinary people at home on a Saturday — that's enough reason for Russia to kill," she said of the strike.

“There is nothing off limits for Russia. As we speak, in our city of Dnipro, people are still working and sorting through the debris of a residential area, of a house that was destroyed by an anti-ship missile. This missile was built to destroy aircraft carriers and was used against the civilian infrastructure."

Watch here:

Forty-four people have died following a Russian cruise missile strike on an apartment block in Dnipro over the weekend, according to the city's mayor.

Mayor Borys Filatov gave the new death toll on social media on Tuesday. The count rose since the earlier announcement that 41 people had died, including four children, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Presidential Administration.

Filatov did not immediately provide the ages of the three other bodies that have been discovered since.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack by Moscow was a "war crime" and pledged to bring its perpetrators to justice in his evening address Monday.

OHCHR added that they believed “most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects, including shelling from heavy artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, missiles and air strikes.”

CNN's Sebastian Shukla contributed reporting.

A child's body was found in the wreckage of an apartment building in Dnipro on Tuesday, raising the death toll from a Russian missile strike Saturday to 41, according to Ukrainian officials. 

The strike is one of the deadliest single attacks of the war and is now confirmed to have killed at least four children.

Earlier Tuesday, a Ukrainian military official said 25 residents remain missing after 90% of the destroyed apartment block was “dismantled.”

Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration head Valentyn Reznichenko said 28 victims remain in hospital, 10 of them seriously injured.

On Monday the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that 7,000 civilians have died in Ukraine since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion on Feb. 24 last year. 

Tennis Australia announced on Tuesday that fans will no longer be allowed to bring the Russian or the Belarusian flag to the site of the Australian Open.

The decision comes after Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia “strongly condemn[ed]” the Russian flag being displayed in the stands at the grand slam.

Tennis Australia wrote in its statement:

The flag was seen during the first-round match between Ukraine’s Kateryna Baindl and Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova in Melbourne.

Read more here.

A high-level US delegation met Monday in Kyiv with top Ukrainian officials "to reaffirm the United States’ strong and steadfast commitment to Ukraine and its defense against Russia’s unprovoked aggression," according to a State Department readout. 

Here's who was on the US delegation:

Here's who they met with in Ukraine:

"Prior to the visit, the delegation made stops in Germany and Poland to review U.S. security assistance to Ukraine," the readout said. 

During the meetings, the leaders talked about how international assistance "has helped stabilize Ukraine's economy" as well as how the US and Ukraine could continue to have an economic and trade relationship when the war is over, according to the readout.

Leaders also discussed efforts to repair Ukraine's energy infrastructure, it added.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday visited the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant to mark the permanent presence of the UN nuclear watchdog at the site.

The head of the agency is in Ukraine this week to "establish a continuous presence of nuclear safety and security experts at all the country’s nuclear power facilities," the IAEA previously announced.

While the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant already has IAEA team members on location, experts will also be stationed at the Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant in western Ukraine in "the coming days," the IAEA said in a statement on Saturday, ahead of the director's visit.

Grossi will also visit the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant, as well as Chernobyl. Two IAEA members are expected to be posted at each site, the watchdog said.