Jack Lopresti, UK volunteer for Ukraine: What Ukrainians are living through is in our DNA. Britain remembers 1940 — being bombed, fighting alone for survival.

What Russia is doing now is simply evil: nightly air attacks, murdered civilians, war crimes, kidnapped children.

1/ Lopresti: Appeasement doesn’t work. Invasions can’t be negotiated away. Dictators must be deterred and defeated.

Peace by surrender is easy.

A just peace means Ukraine controls its own future, its alliances, its army, and its path to NATO and the EU.

2/

West is finally squeezing Russia’s shadow fleet — and oil revenues with it.

On Jan 22, French commandos seized the tanker Grinch off Spain: false flag, under sanctions, carrying 730,000 barrels of Russian oil. It’s one of at least 5 tankers captured this month, The Economist. 1/ Nearly 700 mostly aging tankers now move embargoed oil for Russia and Iran — up to 1,500 if counting occasional users.

In Dec, they carried 5M barrels per day, about 11% of global seaborne oil. One in 5 tankers now sails “dark.” 2/

Belgian PM De Wever: When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, I thought we were back in the 1980s — a tyrant attacking a democracy.

I expected an American leader to say, “Mr. Putin, get out of Ukraine.” Instead, Washington says it takes no side between Putin and Zelenskyy.

1/ De Wever: When tyranny invades democracy and the U.S. says it won’t take sides, you know it’s not the 1980s — it’s the 1880s.

This is a new age of imperial thinking and gunboat diplomacy. It may fade after Trump — or get worse.

2/

Vsevolod, Kyiv resident: When it’s +2°C inside your apartment, you can’t do anything there.

We spend the day at our volunteer hub, then crash wherever friends can take us for the night. There’s no heating almost for a month. 1/ Oleksandr: It’s 5°C in my apartment, humidity is 70%, everything is soaked.

I’ve filed 10 complaints to the city and 10 more through the 1557 system [responsible for utility services]. You can see the result — no response. 2/

Russia’s bomber production is breaking down: only 2 of 4 Tu-160M bombers promised since 2022 have been delivered — United24.

For Ukraine, this means fewer bombers to strike cities, energy infrastructure, and civilian homes. 1/ Russia’s key bomber manufacturer, Tupolev, replaced its CEO again in January 2026 after repeated failures to deliver aircraft on time.

This is the second leadership shake-up in a year, driven by missed military contracts and lawsuits from the Russian Defense Ministry. 2/

Russia is funding its war in Ukraine with African gold.

Since 2022, Kremlin has extracted and smuggled more than $2.5B worth of gold, which Moscow used to pay for Shahed drones and North Korean weapons — United24.
1/ After Western sanctions blocked gold exports to Europe, Russia rerouted its supply chains to Africa, laundering gold through third countries and re-exporting it under false labels.

Mali, which is not under gold sanctions, became a key loophole.
2/

Cooper, Canadian combat medic in Ukraine: I wanted more with my life.

Every foreigner says that it is right to fight for Ukraine's freedom. I just wanted purpose.

If helping people comes with that, then that’s good too. I see it as my duty.
1/ Cooper, with a Colombian volunteer, pulled out a wounded comrade under fire. He was shot, struggling to breathe.

Cooper: He went into shock on the way to the bunker. I honestly didn’t think he’d make it.
But he did, he is a fighter.

The wounded soldier survived.
2/

German Defense Minister Pistorius: It is so important that we as Germany stand clearly in NATO, that we stand for supporting Ukraine, even if it costs a lot of money.

If we don't, Ukraine would be dead tomorrow, and second, it would cost us much more than the support now. 1/ Pistorius: The world after Feb 24, 2022 has become different. Next month begins the 5th year of Putin's brutal war of aggression against Ukraine.

The rules-based international order is under pressure like never before. There is a military threat again in Europe. 2/

Portuguese Azov Sergeant Tuga: Russians know that Azov is there and they heard English. Usually they kill themselves.

We just talk in English or broken Ukrainian. They easily understand we are not Ukrainians. They yell. We heard shots inside and after that nothing more. 1/ Tuga: Russia's worst nightmare about NATO boots on the ground.

The Russians don't like us because we killed them. The worst nightmare for them is foreigner former NATO military fighting with Azov. We are happy to be like that. 2/

The Kyiv metro stopped operating on the morning of Jan 31 due to a power outage.

Passengers stranded on metro lines were forced to exit through tunnels along the tracks, The Kyiv Independent. 1/ Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal: A cascade shutdown in Ukraine's power grid in the morning on Jan 31, following disruptions to transmission lines between Romania and Moldova, as well as between western and central Ukraine. 2/

EU is weighing a major sanctions shift on Russian oil.

Brussels is considering scrapping the price cap and instead banning EU maritime services — insurance, transport, shipping — for Russian oil at any price, Bloomberg. 1/ Unlike the price cap, it would bar EU companies from enabling Russian oil exports outright, making sanctions harder to evade and easier to police. 2/

American strategist, military historian Sarah Paine: We’re barreling toward World War III. Once a nuclear power starts losing, it may use nukes.

That’s the end of everything — nuclear winter. Wars aren’t won by grabbing land; they’re won at the strategic level.

1/ Paine: Putin is already overextended on the current front. Opening a second front would be a gift — Russia can’t handle the first one.

Its navy is weak, boxed in by narrow seas. If he tries to overreach, it won’t end well.

2/

Caroline Nordengrip, former Swedish politician, volunteer for Ukraine: I didn’t want Russians to advance any further, so I joined the army.

I remember the day when a Swedish soldier was wounded. If we were 15 minutes late, he would die.

1/ Nordengrip: Two days before the full-scale invasion, our foreign minister said Sweden can’t legally send weapons to Ukraine. I knew that was false.

I asked her directly — she said she wasn’t sure. We changed the policy.

2X

Rasti, Ukrainian POW of 30 months: Russians beat me for 12 hours, of which about 4 hours were electric shocks.

There was an electric shocker for dogs, for animals. Sometimes I couldn't remember my mother's name. 1/ Rasti: When Russians continued to torture me, hatred for them accumulated. I assured myself that I would return to the ranks anyway. The sooner, the better.

A year before I was released from captivity, I already knew that I will return to combat. 2/

Zelenskyy: The three of us need to meet — me, Trump, and Putin.

At minimum, we need direct contact with Russia’s leader. Without that, our teams won’t be able to agree on territorial issues.

1/ Zelenskyy: We are open to talks in any format with Russia and the United States.

We want Europe involved at some stage, because EU membership and the coalition of the willing are core parts of Ukraine’s security guarantees.

2/

“We are already leaning toward the idea that there will be no heating in our building until the end of winter,” says Daria, a resident of a high-rise building on Kyiv’s left bank.

The Kyiv Independent shows how people in Ukraine’s capital are living today. 1/ After a series of Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on January 9, 20, and 24, a 17-story residential building in Kyiv’s Rusanivka district has been without central heating for weeks and fully disconnected from the power grid. 2/

Karla Webber, mother of U.S. soldier Andrew killed in Ukraine: Andrew and I played Wordle every day. Even when he couldn’t play, he checked in — a check mark meant he was okay.

On July 29, 2023, there was no check mark. Then, I learned a Russian drone killed my son.

1/ Karla Webber: When I learned a Russian drone killed my son, I fell on the ground and started screaming. I couldn’t stop. It was so bad the neighbors came.

2/

Colombian soldier in Ukraine: I’ve had good and bad experiences here. I got to travel, had a lot of freedom. Strangers gave me food, clothes, and even paid for my tickets when I had nothing.

From bad: there is a lot of discrimination, and sometimes payments weren’t on time. 1/ Q: Have you heard about Colombians fighting for Russia?

Colombian soldier in Ukraine: Yes. Many go because they’re offered more money. The problem is they go there and don’t come back. That’s their problem. 2/

Sarah Paine: Russia is a vassle state of China, and there's no way they're going to dig their way out of that one anytime soon.

There was a wonderful opportunity around 2000-ish when oil prices went way up. Instead, Putin rose to power on a diet of wars. 1/ Sarah Paine: What you're witnessing is precipitous American decline. We got a lot of people in high places who lack the expertise.

You can have a perfectly good hairdresser, but when you make the hairdresser the car mechanic, you're going to have a car that doesn't run. 2/

Dennis Wilder, ex-CIA: Purges [Zhang Youxia, 2nd person after Xi, dismissal] do hurt Xi within the party.

Many party members are uncomfortable with the power of Xi and his mercurial ways.

There are real questions about whether the party wants him to stay after 2027. 1/ Wilder: There is no question that leadership decision-making in the PLA will be affected for a long time. Xi has to pick a whole group of successors and replace virtually the entire Central Military Commission. 2/

Q: About giving up land for peace, what do you say to that?

Ukrainian serviceman: So much blood of Ukrainian people in this ground. It will be a shame to give any part. If we give some, Russia will take more.

BBC in Pokrovsk. 1/ “It is scary when the drones spot you. There are a lot of drones, they fly around the clock. We always wished for good weather, meaning fog because at such times we could resupply. The rest of the time we just sat there without going out, so that the drones wouldn't spot us.” 2/