War in Ukraine: strikes on gas infrastructure, a peace agreement far from being achieved… an update on the situation

Every day, Midi Libre takes stock of the situation in Ukraine. This Wednesday, January 15, 2025, discover the latest news about this conflict.

Russian missile strikes against gas infrastructure

Russia fired a new salvo of missiles and drones at Ukraine on Wednesday, targeting in particular gas infrastructure and other energy facilities in the western regions of the country, Kyiv and Moscow announced. Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian air defenses had shot down about thirty Russian missiles out of the forty that were fired during the morning attack.

Russia also launched more than 70 drones. “Another massive attack by the Russians. It is the middle of winter, and the Russians' target remains unchanged: our energy infrastructure,”, the Ukrainian president wrote on the X platform. “Among their targets were gas and energy facilities that allow our people to live normally,”, he added. Ukrainians use natural gas for heating and cooking. Since their winter consumption is higher than daily production, the authorities have to replenish reserves during the summer.

Ukraine’s underground gas storage facilities are located in the western part of the country, particularly in the Stryi region. They have been made even more vulnerable since Kyiv refused to renew a deal that allowed Russian gas to transit Ukraine to supply Europe. The governor of the western Lviv region said two facilities were damaged in the attack. In the neighboring Ivano-Frankivsk region, the governor said local air defenses were repelling Russian attacks on facilities in the region. Both said no injuries had been reported.

Since March 2024, Russia has intensified its bombing of Ukraine’s energy sector, knocking out half of its available generating capacity and causing long power outages across the country. Cities, businesses, and residents have rushed to install new generating capacity, including solar panels, batteries, generators, and other equipment that have helped them increase their energy independence and survive the months of bitter cold. The capital, Kyiv, was also targeted Wednesday morning.

Hundreds of residents have taken shelter in the city’s underground metro stations. Volodymyr Zelensky, who is expected in Warsaw later today, has again called on his Western allies to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses. He also discussed licensing a Ukrainian air defense system.

Peace deal with Ukraine far from a given

Despite the campaign promises of Donald Trump, who will return to the White House on Monday, the advisers of the American president-elect now admit that the war in Ukraine will last several more months, if not longer. During his campaign, the businessman assured that he would end the conflict between Kyiv and Moscow “from day one”. Two of his advisers now admit that this was just campaign bluster, which he has always been fond of, and that Donald Trump probably did not appreciate the situation in its entirety.

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The assertions echo remarks by Donald Trump’s designated envoy to Russia and Ukraine, retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who told Fox News last week that he would like to have a “solution” to the war within 100 days, well beyond the president-elect’s initial timetable. John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who now works at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, said Kellogg’s 100-day time frame is itself far too optimistic. “For this to work, Trump has to persuade (Russian President Vladimir) Putin that his intransigence is harmful,” Herbst said. Donald Trump, however, repeated at length in rallies that an agreement between Russia and Ukraine was possible on the first day of his term, or even before.

At the end of October, however, as the electoral campaign was drawing to a close, he made a slight semantic shift, committing himself to ending “very quickly”to war. Since November 5 and his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, Donald Trump has only promised to “resolve the conflict”, throwing out the draft timetable he had outlined while admitting that it would be easier to obtain a ceasefire in Gaza than in Ukraine. “I think the situation between Russia and Ukraine is going to deteriorate,” he observed, responding to a question about the conflict in the Gaza Strip. “I think it's more difficult.” At the same time, contradictory signals are coming from Moscow on the possibility of a peace agreement. The idea of ​​direct talks with Donald Trump is welcomed, while dismissing the ideas put forward by the president-elect's advisers, which they consider unrealistic. “NO INTEREST” As for the Kremlin, it has never commented on the Trump team's updated schedule.

Representatives of the future Trump administration and the Ukrainian embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters. The Russian authorities are in even less of a hurry to sit down at the negotiating table as their army is advancing inexorably into Ukrainian territory. Many analysts also point out that Vladimir Putin has a greater interest in amplifying territorial gains despite their high human and material cost than in accelerating the organization of talks. John Herbst highlighted the recent comments made by Vassili Nebenzia, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, according to whom the peace plans mentioned by Donald Trump’s advisers were “of no interest.” While the exact outlines of a Donald Trump peace plan remain unclear, his advisers agree that he will have to rule out any Ukrainian membership in NATO in the short or medium term and establish a freeze on the front lines.

Most of them are also in favor of granting Ukraine a material security guarantee, for example by creating a demilitarized zone under the surveillance of European soldiers. So far, the proposals from Donald Trump and his advisers for Ukraine have been met with polite disinterest from the Kremlin, which has reminded the president-elect that he will have a hard time following through on his peace promises.

Volodymyr Zelensky calls for using $250 billion in Russian assets

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday called on his Western allies to spend $250 billion in frozen Russian assets to buy weapons for his country and help it fight off the Russian invasion.

“The strongest support for the Ukrainian military is to give it 250 billion. Ukraine will take this money, allocate a large part of it to domestic production and import of those types of weapons that Ukraine does not have,” he said at a press conference with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda.