Sitrep for Jan. 19-24, 2026 (as of 11 a.m. UTC+3)

Frontline Situation Update

In the Kharkiv region, fighting continues in the Vovchansk direction. Russia’s Ministry of Defense has claimed the capture of the village of Symynivka, south of Vovchansk. There are reports of advances there, but no confirmation of the village’s capture has appeared. According to DeepState, the Russian Armed Forces are advancing in the area of the village of Synelnykove.

The Rubicon UAV unit is also operating in this direction. Its operators are disrupting Ukrainian logistics and attacking the positions of Ukrainian drone operators, complicating the situation for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In addition, Russian assault troops have been observed east of Vovchansk, in the area of the villages of Vovchanski Khutory (east of Vovchansk) and Hrafske (west of Symynivka).

Whether Vovchansk itself has been captured remains unclear. By late 2025, Russian assault troops had not yet penetrated the southwestern part of the town, but they have now been spotted there and Ukrainian drones are striking them. The scale of what is happening is also unclear: whether this is isolated infiltration or there is a significant number of assault troops accumulated in that part of the town.

In the Siversk direction, Russian forces this week slightly straightened the frontline west of the Bakhmutka River, which runs through Siversk.

The most notable developments in recent days have been in the Pokrovsk direction. New videos have emerged filmed near the village of Hryshyne, northwest of the town of Pokrovsk.

This sector remains one of the priority areas for the RuAF. In addition, DeepState has expanded the zone of Russian control in the northern part of Pokrovsk, although some Ukrainian sources insist that Russian pressure toward Hryshyne is still being contained.

On other sections of the frontline, positional fighting continues without any significant changes.

French researcher Clément Molin, through analysis of satellite imagery, has mapped Ukraine’s defensive fortification lines.

According to his findings, three main defensive lines running from south to north have been constructed west of the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, and the town of Druzhkivka. These lines are intersected roughly every 10 kilometers [6.21 mi] by perpendicular fortifications, forming what are effectively kill zones. All of this points to ongoing work to strengthen the defense of the remaining Ukrainian-controlled part of the Donetsk region.

To the east and south of Kramatorsk, small barrier lines are visible, including barbed wire, concrete pyramids and anti-tank ditches. Meanwhile, there are still noticeably fewer fortifications west of the town of Kostiantynivka and south of Druzhkivka. As previously noted, the triangle between Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka and the village of Sofiivka lacks sufficient fortifications.

Fortifications running through the village of Novomykolaivka in the Zaporizhzhia region have been completed and now form a continuous line more than 100 kilometers [62.1 mi] long. To the east of this line, building any additional fortifications is now virtually impossible due to the proximity to the frontline, as Russian drones would strike any equipment used there. North of the town of Orikhiv, two major defensive lines were built back in 2024, and even farther north there are signs of preparations for a third line to secure a potential withdrawal from Orikhiv.

Overall, compared with the Donbas, there are noticeably fewer fortifications in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Molin separately outlined how, in his view, the AFU should complete its defensive lines—for example, west of Kramatorsk and the town of Lyman. Additional defensive lines are also needed to link the main existing fortifications west of Pokrovsk and in the Dnipropetrovsk region. He also emphasized the need for ring-shaped defensive lines around the city of Zaporizhzhia.

The 63rd Mechanized Brigade of the AFU posted a video showing a Russian soldier accidentally entering a Ukrainian dugout, assuming it had been abandoned. Ukrainian troops positioned around the bend heard him speaking Russian and captured him. It turned out that the soldier was carrying a smoke grenade (likely to be used in case of a hostile drone threat), a bomb with a fuse (apparently intended to be thrown into an enemy dugout; anti-tank mines such as the TM-62 are sometimes used for this purpose), as well as a Russian flag to wave at his own drone when he needs to show his commander his position. Despite the fact that the story ended well for everyone involved (the Russian soldier was frozen and hungry, practically non-combat-capable), it highlights an important problem: the Ukrainian troops in the dugout were a mortar crew, were not in forward positions, and if the Russian soldier had not given himself away by speaking, he could have caught the Ukrainians by surprise. Commanders of the RuAF often deliberately send individual assault troops to search for the positions of UAV operators or mortar crews.

Ukrainian and Russian Strikes

This week, daily Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure continued, in particular targeting the cities of Kharkiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih and Kyiv. Kyiv remains a priority target of Russia’s air campaign.

In response, Ukrainian forces are carrying out retaliatory strikes against substations and thermal power plants in Belgorod and other regions, as well as in the occupied territories. The AFU’s Unmanned Systems Forces published reports which, sometimes alongside strikes on artillery systems, also listed strikes on energy facilities in the occupied territories.

It is important not to lose sight of the fact that the scale of damage is fundamentally different. This winter, the RuAF succeeded in creating an emergency situation in Ukraine with prolonged outages of electricity and heating. On Russian territory, to our knowledge, only temporary disruptions have occurred, posing no threat to the population. It is also worth noting that conditions in the occupied territories are scarcely covered by Russian media and do not generate public resonance.

On Jan. 20, the AFU struck an ammunition storage facility in Debaltseve, located in one of the buildings of a former metallurgical machinery plant. The strike footage clearly shows and audibly captures a secondary detonation; photographs of artillery shell fragments scattered across the town have also been published. Satellite imagery confirms the complete destruction of the storage facility. Three servicemen were reported killed in the strike. In our view, attacks on ammunition depots can directly influence the situation on the corresponding section of the frontline and are therefore more militarily effective than strikes on oil refineries.

In the early hours of Jan. 21, during the interception of a Ukrainian airstrike on the Krasnodar region, allegedly targeting the Afipsky oil refiner, one of the surface-to-air missiles struck a residential building in the village of Novaya Adygea. At least one civilian was reportedly killed and eight others were injured. The white trail observed behind the low-flying object is a smoke trail. Such a trail is produced by rocket engines using composite solid propellant. The white trail seen behind aircraft, by contrast, is a contrail. Contrails form at altitudes of roughly 8-12 km [26300-39400 ft] under specific conditions: thin air, low pressure, high moisture content, and very low temperatures. These atmospheric conditions are absent at low altitudes, where cruise missiles and drones operate, making contrail formation impossible.

Therefore, based on the video, it can be stated with confidence that the object that struck the building was powered by solid fuel and was thus a surface-to-air missile, most likely from an S-300 or S-400 air defense system. Later, videos emerged showing the missile’s entire flight path from launch to impact. The ASTRA Telegram channel believes the missile was launched from approximately the southern direction. We conducted geolocation using two videos and concluded that it was launched from the southwest, near the Afipsky oil refinery. It should be noted that for air defense systems, it is normal to fire in pursuit of a target. Surface-to-air missiles can fly either on an intercepting or a chasing trajectory.

On Jan. 21, another Russian FAB-500 air-dropped bomb fell in Belgorod. Less than one percent of air-dropped bombs equipped with Universal Gliding and Correction Module (UMPK) still fail to reach their targets and fall short. According to ASTRA’s tally, at least 143 accidental releases of Russian munitions occurred in 2025 over Russian and occupied territories.

A video has been published showing the Russian Courier unmanned ground vehicle equipped with Peroed-M turrets—anti-drone jammers. The turrets did not prevent a drone from filming the video and striking the robot. The reason may be that the jammer was either not switched on or not connected to the portable Repeynik ground surveillance radar, with which it is designed to operate. This radar is said to be able to detect drones at distances of up to 20 km [12.4 mi] horizontally and up to 10 km [6.7 mi] vertically. However, this is likely an exaggeration for marketing purposes, as buildings and terrain elevations interfere with this type of radar.

American Textron Inc. published a press release announcing that it won a Pentagon contract under the USAI program to produce and deliver 65 MSFV armored personnel carriers to Ukraine. Despite the Ukraine aid budget approved by Congress, one might have expected the Pentagon bureaucracy to resist signing contracts with manufacturers, but this did not happen.

French carmaker Renault has agreed to cooperate with French defense company Turgis Gaillard to produce long-range loitering munitions similar to the Shahed-type drones. Initially, they plan to produce 600 drones per month, reassigning employees from automotive assembly lines to this work. In our view, this is a logical—though somewhat belated—step in the context of a prolonged industrial war. Automotive plants are well suited for mass producing simple, standardized products with a high degree of repeatability, and single-use strike drones fit squarely into this category. Automotive assembly lines offer standardized processes, established component logistics, quality control and the ability to rapidly increase output. Integrating a new product into an existing production process and rewriting assembly instructions is far easier than building a defense manufacturing plant from scratch.

Video footage has been released showing the use of Russian Yolka interceptor drones, which are launched using a handheld device. The drones are reportedly equipped with an advanced target acquisition and tracking system incorporating elements of artificial intelligence, effectively functioning as an electro-optical homing seeker.

Peace Talks

In an interview with NBC News, US President Donald Trump said that Europe should focus on the war in Ukraine rather than on Greenland. Speaking separately at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he added that responsibility for working toward a peaceful settlement in Ukraine should lie with Europe, not the United States. "They have to work on Ukraine, we don’t," he said. Taken together, these remarks underscore Trump’s recurring emphasis on limiting US strategic interests to the Western Hemisphere. Trump also commented on Ukraine’s energy situation following Russian attacks, saying that the climate there was "even colder than in Canada" and that life without heating at temperatures below minus 20 degrees Celsius was extremely difficult.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that, during their meeting in Davos, he and Trump agreed on the delivery of PAC-3 missiles for Kyiv’s Patriot air defense system.

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