Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 334

Here is the situation as it stands on Monday, January 23, 2023:

Weapons and diplomacy

• European Council President Charles Michel has urged the bloc’s leaders to push forward with talks on using $300bn of confiscated Russian central bank assets for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
• Berlin will not stand in the way if Poland wants to send its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Germany’s foreign minister said.
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, under pressure to allow the shipment of German-made tanks to Ukraine, said decisions on weapons deliveries would be in coordination with allies.
• French President Emmanuel Macron said he does not rule out the possibility of sending Leclerc tanks to Ukraine.
• Germany and France vowed to assist Ukraine for as long as needed and to support efforts to prosecute war criminals.
• American lawmakers pushed the US government to export M1 Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine, saying that even sending a symbolic number would be enough to push European allies to do the same.
• The United Kingdom still wants an international deal to provide Ukraine with the German-made tanks that Kyiv says it needs but whose transfer needs Germany’s consent, UK foreign minister James Cleverly said.
• The Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania made a joint call to Germany to step up its leadership and send its main battle tanks to Ukraine, putting further pressure on Berlin to move faster on aiding Kyiv.
• Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a surprise trip to Kyiv, meeting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and pledging that UK would “stick by Ukraine as long as it takes”.
• A senior adviser to Zelenskyy urged Kyiv’s allies to “think faster” about stepping up their military support, days after they failed to agree on sending battle tanks coveted by Kyiv.
• A close ally of President Vladimir Putin said deliveries of offensive weapons to Kyiv that threaten Russia’s territories will lead to a global catastrophe and make arguments against using weapons of mass destruction untenable.

Fighting

• Russia increased shelling of Ukraine’s eastern regions outside the main front line in the Donbas industrial area, officials from the Zaporizhia and Sumy regions said.
• Russia’s defence ministry said for the second straight day that its forces were improving their positions in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhia region.

Economy

• Western countries are working to structure price caps on Russian refined petroleum products to ensure a continued flow of Russian diesel, but the markets are complicated and there is a chance things do not go to plan, US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said.