Russia Deserves No Consideration in Settling its War vs Ukraine

Russian cutthroats again descended into hell by targeting a passenger train near Kharkiv that killed five passengers. Russian drones struck a passenger train on January 27, hitting a locomotive and passenger car and causing a fire, Ukrainian officials said.

“The strike on a passenger train is a direct act of Russian terror against civilians. There was no military target,” Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said.

Actually, the past few days were drenched in Ukrainian blood as the Russians used drones and missiles to hit civilian targets across Ukraine killing senior citizens, mothers and children.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the train attacked in the Kharkiv region was carrying 200 passengers. It can only be described as terrorism and genocide just as the effect of bombed out apartments and frigid temperatures that the civilians are compelled to endure. Prosecutors said fragments of five bodies had been found at the scene of the attack.

“There is not and cannot be any military justification for killing civilians in a train carriage,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram, adding that two people were also wounded in the attack. Prosecutors posted images of the smoldering carriage on social media. 

Zelenskyy said the latest bombardment undermined peace efforts and urged allies to step up pressure on Moscow to end the war.

"Every such Russian strike erodes the diplomacy that is still ongoing and undermines the efforts of partners who are helping to end this war," he wrote on social media.

It is evident that regardless of Russia’s claims and promises and President Donald Trump’s naïve belief, Moscow will never abandon its mission of enslaving all of Ukraine. Afterward, the countries to the west will also be imperiled.

Russia struck cities across Ukraine with drones and a missile overnight, killing a couple near Kyiv a day after the attack on the passenger train, ahead of a new round of peace talks due at the weekend. According to all sides, the last remaining points pertain to security guarantees for Ukraine and surrendering Ukrainian land to Russia.

According to the Financial Times, Washington has indicated that security guarantees will only be promised to Ukraine if it agrees to surrender territory to Russia in the Donbas, according to a report.

Sources close to the discussions told the Financial Times that the Trump Administration would provide additional weapons to strengthen Ukraine’s military in the event of a peace deal if Kyiv withdraws its forces from the region. Zelenskyy has repeatedly stated that Ukraine will not give up any occupied land without a referendum on territory.

European and Ukrainian officials see Washington’s position as an attempt to place pressure on Kyiv to agree to a deal, with doubts raised over whether the White House is ready to make binding commitments on security. Without a doubt, this pressure on Kyiv will anger Ukrainian American voters, who have said that they will remember this offense during upcoming 2026 and 2028 elections.

In the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, a 58-year-old man was killed in a drone attack. A 72-year-old was killed in her home by Russian shelling in the southern Kherson region.

Russian drone and missile attacks have knocked out power, lighting and heat to millions of Ukrainians across the country.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia had launched 165 attack drones overnight, and officials said an infrastructure facility in the western Lviv region was hit.

State gas company Naftogaz said the attack had left one of its facilities on fire in western Ukraine, describing it as the fifth attack of its kind this month.

Media in southern Ukraine reported that the woman had a four-year-old daughter who survived the strike. Officials said four people, including two children, sought medical attention after the attack.

"When I carried her out, the girl started crying very hard, and then she began to shake violently," Marian Kushnir, a journalist who was a neighbor of the deceased couple, told Radio Free Europe.

Zelenskyy condemned the attack on the apartment block, as well as another strike with short-range rockets on what he described as a residential area without military targets in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia.

“We will respond fairly to Russia for this and other similar attacks," he wrote on social media.

Ukraine and Russia met for US-brokered peace talks in Abu Dhabi last week, with further meetings expected on Sunday, February 1, but Russia has not relented in bombing Ukrainian cities. Both countries have struck each other’s energy infrastructure.

A massive Russian drone attack on Odesa in southern Ukraine struck several apartment and university buildings, killing at least three people, injuring dozens of others, and leaving an unknown number still stuck under rubble, officials said on January 27.

Russia sent a swarm of over 50 drones into the city in an attack that began around 2:20 am. Odesa Oblast Governor Oleh Kiper wrote that the strikes damaged dozens of residential buildings, a preschool, and a church, initially reporting 23 injuries. That figure subsequently rose to 35, Suspilne reported, citing Public Health Director Olena Kolodenko.

“Emergency workers have pulled out 14 people, among them one child. It is tentatively known that people may still be stuck under the rubble,” Kiper said in his initial response to the attack.

Odesa Mayor Serhiy Lysak wrote on Telegram hours later on Jan. 27 that emergency workers had recovered the first known fatality from the attack after hours of excavations. That number had risen to three dead dug out of the ruins as of 3 pm, with work ongoing.

“The destruction is colossal, and repair work will require extended time to return equipment to working condition,” energy provider DTEK wrote in a statement identifying its facilities as among those hit.

Lysak specified in a separate Telegram post that 43 buildings and 122 apartment units fell under the drone attack in Odesa’s Prymorskiy Neighborhood, the downtown area near the Black Sea that includes much of the city's famous port. Three other buildings were damaged in the neighborhood of Perespylsky, which includes the rest of the main ports.

Overnight on January 28, Russian forces launched missile and drone attacks on several Ukrainian regions, including Kyiv and surrounding areas, local authorities reported.

Russia launched one Iskander-M ballistic missile and 146 drones at Ukraine overnight, the Air Force said. Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 103 drones. At least 36 drones and the missile made it through, striking 22 locations.

Explosions were heard in Ukraine’s capital around 1:26 am local time, according to Kyiv Independent journalists on the ground. Local authorities reported that air defense systems were activated to intercept incoming Russian drones.

Kyiv Oblast Gov. Mykola Kalashnyk reported that two people, a man and a woman, were killed in the Bilohorodka community, located on the outskirts of the capital. Several other people were also treated by paramedics but did not require hospitalization.

One of the victims was a mother who was at home with her 4-year-old child when their apartment came under attack, Hromadske reported.

The second victim was the woman’s partner. At the time of the attack, they were both on the second floor of the apartment, while the child was on the first floor. Both adults died from a direct hit.

The 4-year-old child was carried out of the burning building by Radio Liberty war correspondent Marian Kushnir, Ukrainian TV channel 1+1 reported.

These vicious attacks are leading up to yet another round of talks this Sunday, February 1. It is apparent to all that Russia will not change it demands and Washington will not stop supporting Moscow. Ukraine is left to fend for itself in a war that it didn’t start. Russia wants all of Ukraine though it hasn’t yet said so. Ukrainian soldiers and civilians across the country are locked in an existential war for their independence, sovereignty and future.

President Trump offered his ludicrous explanation for the continuation of the war. The media has quoted him as saying absurdly he’s having a difficult time ending the war because both Putin and Zelenskyy hate each other. Mutual hatred is not the reason for the war. Age-old, traditional Russian aggression, imperialism and hatred for Ukraine and Ukrainians were the causes of the war. Ukrainians have come to hate Russia and Russians with the number of deceased Ukrainians littering the streets and countryside. That’s the painful reason.