Live – War in Ukraine: US Congress disagrees on aid to Kiev

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that the Il-76 military transport plane that crashed over the border was shot down by Ukrainian forces and that Moscow knew it was carrying Ukrainian prisoners.

“The intelligence of the Ukrainian army knew that we were carrying 65 soldiers (Ukrainian, editor's note). They shot him by mistake or on purpose, but they did it,” Vladimir Putin said.

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, wrote this Friday that any talk of new funding for Ukraine and strengthening of the border with Mexico is “still born”.

“If rumors about the content of the bill (currently being debated in the Senate, the other chamber of Congress, editor's note) are true, it will die before it reaches the House of Representatives,” he assured in a letter. US Congressmen.

Ukrainian authorities announced on Friday that they had returned the bodies of 77 dead Ukrainian soldiers. “The remains of 77 Ukrainian defenders were returned to government-controlled territory,” the Coordination Center for Ukrainian Prisoners of War said. “This resettlement has been planned for a long time,” he said.

Germany has identified a vast “pro-Russian disinformation campaign” using thousands of fake X accounts (formerly Twitter) and aimed at stoking anger over the country's support for Ukraine, Der Spiegel said on Friday.

Experts commissioned by the German Foreign Ministry used special software to monitor messages published on X online sites between December 20 and January 20, the weekly writes. They found more than 50,000 fake user accounts that, together, posted more than a million messages in German on X.

The regional prosecutor's office announced today that an eleventh person has died following a Russian strike on Tuesday in the large city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine.

“Despite the efforts of doctors, a 61-year-old woman died in hospital last night,” they lamented in a telegram.

Paris has identified a “coordinated ploy by Russia” to spread disinformation involving France that French “mercenaries” are allegedly fighting for Q in Ukraine, the Armed Forces Ministry announced on Friday.

“Relevant state services have identified and pursued Russia's concerted maneuver to publish and amplify this disinformation through pro-Russian information networks and state media such as Sputnik News, RT and RIA Novosti,” the ministry said in a statement.

A plane was shot down in the Belgorod region of Russia on Wednesday morning. Moscow accuses Kyiv of being behind the crash of the plane and its “65 prisoners of war”. Currently, there is no evidence to confirm the Russian version.

European interior ministers on Thursday discussed the future of the reception of some 4.2 million Ukrainians who currently benefit from temporary protection status in the EU until March 2025.

“Unfortunately as you know, the war is not over. And the temporary protection measures must end in March 2025. This is sooner than it seems,” declared Belgian Foreign Secretary for Asylum and Migration Nicole de Moor. A six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The White House on Thursday urged US senators to reach an agreement on essential aid to Ukraine, after reports that Donald Trump was scrambling to make any progress on the issue. According to the US media, the right's big wish for the presidential election is to encourage Republicans to oppose the deal, which would deprive his rival, Democratic President Joe Biden, of a political victory before the November election.

In recent weeks, Republican elected officials have pressured the Biden administration by tying any new aid to Ukraine to a crackdown on immigration, one of Donald Trump's campaign themes.

Here's the latest key information on the conflict:

– The day before the Russian military plane crashed near the border with Ukraine, the UN Russia and Ukraine blamed each other at the Security Council meeting. Russia announced an investigation into “terrorism,” which Moscow accused of deliberately shooting down a plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners, according to Russian officials. Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets, for his part, demanded that the UN and the Red Cross access the crash site.

– Ukraine announced Thursday that it had shot down 11 of 14 drones launched by Russia, injuring several in the country's south.

– Investigative journalists in Ukraine have recently been targeted by “intimidation” measures that may be related to their investigations into corruption in the country, the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) lamented on Thursday, as it “condemns increasing pressure against Ukrainian media”.

– The Russian judiciary sentenced Igor Girkin, an ultra-nationalist and veteran of the Ukrainian Front, to four years in prison in 2014 for “extremism” after he supported an attack on Ukraine and became a critic of the Kremlin.

Welcome to this live broadcast dedicated to the war in Ukraine. Find the latest information and strong images related to this conflict here.