Donald Trump has told the World Economic Forum in Davos that he’ll be meeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy today. But the Ukrainian president’s team says he’s still in Kyiv. Follow the latest.
Wednesday 21 January 2026 16:54, UK
That’s all for our coverage on the Ukraine war for today.
Scroll through the blog below to catch up on the latest developments, including that thousands of people in Kyiv are still without heat as the city freezes, while NATO chief Mark Rutte has urged European allies not to forget Ukraine while the row over Greenland continues to dominate conversation.
We’ll be back with major developments when they next arise.
Russia’s nightly aerial attacks on Ukraine throughout the nearly four-year war continue to cause destruction on the ground.
The images below show residents near the city of Chornomorsk, Odesa, stood at the site of the latest drone strike from Moscow.
A Russian port facilitating oil exports was taken out of action for two weeks following a Ukrainian drone attack, sources have told the Reuters news agency.
The strike on 31 December damaged a berth at the Black Sea port of Tuapse as well as a nearby refinery owned by Russian energy company Rosneft, according to the Krasnodar regional operational headquarters.
The port and refinery have both been repeated targets of drone attacks by Kyiv.
Reuters reports that according to three industry sources and financial market data, the Tuapse port has now resumed oil product exports.
Donald Trump says he will meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Davos later today, as we reported at 14.34.
But, as our defence and security editor Deborah Haynes points out, the Ukrainian president said yesterday he was delaying his travel plans.
He wanted to be sure documents on economic and security measures were ready to be signed with the US, she says.
Haynes has just posted on X, saying Zelenskyy’s spokesperson says that the Ukrainian president is still in Kyiv, despite Trump’s claim of talks in Davos later.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff says he is “hopeful” about his meeting with Vladimir Putin tomorrow.
Witkoff confirmed earlier that he and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner would travel to meet the Russian president, and that Russia had requested the meeting. Russia’s TASS news agency said the meeting would take place in Moscow.
Asked by the Associated Press news agency about his expectations for the meeting, Witkoff said: “I’m hopeful that all meetings will go well on that subject. We need a peace.”
He confirmed he would meet with Ukrainians at a later unspecified time.
Donald Trump says he’ll meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy today, despite the Ukrainian president pulling out of the World Economic Forum event in Davos.
Ukraine’s leader had initially said he would only travel to Switzerland if documents on security guarantees with the US and a prosperity plan were ready to be signed there.
Addressing world leaders, Trump says he’s dealing with Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy, both of whom, he says, wants to make a peace deal to end the nearly four-year war.
He then tells the World Economic Forum that he’ll be meeting with Zelenskyy today, adding “they’ve got to get that war stopped”.
Renault is set to produce drones for Ukraine after striking a deal with a French defence company, according to a report.
The Financial Times reports that the car company will work with Turgis Gaillard to make drones at two of its sites.
It’s not known exactly how many drones will be produced, the FT said, citing an interview from Renault director Fabrice Cambolive with French broadcaster BFM Business.
“We were contacted for our production and creative industrial expertise. This project is ongoing and is led by the defence ministry. We confirm our participation in this project, at the request of the state,” he was reported as saying.
The move is backed by the French government, which requested for car and defence companies to collaborate on drone production.
Russia’s long-sought shift towards a multipolar world is not happening while Donald Trump seeks to “exert ultimate power”, says our international correspondent Diana Magnay.
World leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney have been warning this week that the world is shifting away from the rules-based international order amid recent events including the row over Trump’s ambitions to seize Greenland.
“We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it,” Carney said during a speech in Davos.
Magnay says it is “ironic” that while Russia was “so determined” that the world would become a multipolar world with “numerous different axes”, that “doesn’t seem to be the case at all, because Donald Trump wants to be the hegemon”.
“He wants to exert absolute power over his own country and also elsewhere. He wants to grab territory.”
Magnay adds that there is now a “fundamentally reversed world order that we have to come to terms with and find our place in in the West”.
Away from geopolitics and the situation on the ground in Ukraine, Kyiv’s anti-corruption bureau has said it is investigating a former presidential aide over alleged corruption.
The unnamed former senior official from the president’s office, who is also a former board member of Ukraine’s biggest oil and gas company Naftogaz, is alleged to have been involved in a green energy embezzlement scheme.
In a statement on social media, the bureau said the apparent scheme involved claiming green energy payments for facilities in Russian-occupied territories in 2022.
Nine suspects in total have been identified in the case.
Some 600,000 people have fled the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv this month as Russian strikes push the city towards a “humanitarian catastrophe”, according to a report.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko has told The Times that the situation there is “critical”, as residents continue to be cut off from heating, water and electricity amid Moscow’s attacks on the country’s energy grid and infrastructure.
Overnight attacks yesterday left more than 5,635 homes without heat during -15C temperatures.
Many of the buildings were being reconnected for a second time after a previous attack earlier this month, Klitschko said.
Emergency services have set up heated tents in the city to house residents cut off from the grid.
“The Russians want to make a humanitarian catastrophe in our hometown, to make people freeze during the winter,” Klitschko told The Times.
Schools and universities have extended their winter holidays, and many companies have moved to remote work or reduced their operating hours due to the energy emergency in Kyiv.
Be the first to get Breaking News
Install the Sky News app for free