Russia-Ukraine War: List of Key Events, Day 1,409 | Russia-Ukraine War

These are the key developments of the 1,409th day of the Russian war against Ukraine.

Here’s where things stand on Saturday, January 3:

Struggle

• Two people were killed, including a three-year-old child, and at least 31 people were injured in a Russian ballistic missile attack on a five-story residential building in central Kharkiv, Ukraine, the region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, wrote on Telegram.
• The Russian Defense Ministry denied responsibility for the attack, saying it was provoked by the detonation of Ukrainian munitions and aimed to distract from a deadly attack the day before on the village of Khorly, in part of the Russian-occupied Kherson region.
• The death toll of drone strike in a hotel and cafe in Khorly has increased to 28 people, the region’s Russian-installed governor, Vladimir Saldo, told Russia’s official TASS news agency. Saldo also said more than 60 people were injured in the attack. Ukraine responded to the strike by saying it did not target civilians.
• Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said in a Facebook post that Ukrainian authorities have decided to evacuate more than 3,000 children, along with their parents, from 44 front-line settlements in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions due to Russian aggression.
• A Ukrainian attack on the power grid in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhia region has left 1,777 homes without electricity, Russian-installed regional governor Yevgeniy Balitsky wrote on Telegram.
• Russian forces shot down 64 Ukrainian drones overnight Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said, according to TASS.
• Ukrainian monitoring site DeepState reported that Russian forces seized more land in the Myrnohrad and Pokrovsk regions of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as well as in Svitle in the Ternopil region.
• The Russian army has captured more than 5,600 square kilometers (2,160 square miles), or almost 1 percent of Ukraine’s territory. in 2025according to an analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which works with the Critical Threats Project.
• According to the AFP news agency, the area of ​​land seized by Russian forces last year was larger than the previous two years combined, but smaller than the 60,000 square kilometers (23,166 square miles) that Russia conquered in 2022, the first year of its all-out invasion.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday named Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov as presidential chief of staff, in the latest shake-up of Ukraine’s leadership.
• Zelenskyy also named Mykhailo Fedorov, a drone and digitalization specialist who served as first deputy prime minister and digital transformation minister, as defense minister. Fedorov, whose appointment must be approved by parliament, will replace Denys Shmyhal, a former prime minister who has been offered a new government post.
• RecepTayyip Erdogan, the president of Türkiye, told reporters in Istanbul that he would have a phone call on Monday with U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss peace efforts. Turkey hosted intermittent peace talks during Russia’s war against Ukraine.
• Erdogan also said that Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan would attend a meeting of the “coalition of willing countries,” a group of countries supporting Ukraine, in Paris in the coming days.