January 17, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Forty-four people have died following a Russian cruise missile strike on an apartment block in Dnipro over the weekend, according to the city's mayor.

Mayor Borys Filatov gave the new death toll on social media on Tuesday. The count rose since the earlier announcement that 41 people had died, including four children, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Presidential Administration.

Filatov did not immediately provide the ages of the three other bodies that have been discovered since.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack by Moscow was a "war crime" and pledged to bring its perpetrators to justice in his evening address Monday.

OHCHR added that they believed “most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects, including shelling from heavy artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, missiles and air strikes.”

CNN's Sebastian Shukla contributed reporting.

A child's body was found in the wreckage of an apartment building in Dnipro on Tuesday, raising the death toll from a Russian missile strike Saturday to 41, according to Ukrainian officials. 

The strike is one of the deadliest single attacks of the war and is now confirmed to have killed at least four children.

Earlier Tuesday, a Ukrainian military official said 25 residents remain missing after 90% of the destroyed apartment block was “dismantled.”

Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration head Valentyn Reznichenko said 28 victims remain in hospital, 10 of them seriously injured.

On Monday the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that 7,000 civilians have died in Ukraine since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion on Feb. 24 last year. 

Tennis Australia announced on Tuesday that fans will no longer be allowed to bring the Russian or the Belarusian flag to the site of the Australian Open.

The decision comes after Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia “strongly condemn[ed]” the Russian flag being displayed in the stands at the grand slam.

Tennis Australia wrote in its statement:

The flag was seen during the first-round match between Ukraine’s Kateryna Baindl and Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova in Melbourne.

Read more here.

A high-level US delegation met Monday in Kyiv with top Ukrainian officials "to reaffirm the United States’ strong and steadfast commitment to Ukraine and its defense against Russia’s unprovoked aggression," according to a State Department readout. 

Here's who was on the US delegation:

Here's who they met with in Ukraine:

"Prior to the visit, the delegation made stops in Germany and Poland to review U.S. security assistance to Ukraine," the readout said. 

During the meetings, the leaders talked about how international assistance "has helped stabilize Ukraine's economy" as well as how the US and Ukraine could continue to have an economic and trade relationship when the war is over, according to the readout.

Leaders also discussed efforts to repair Ukraine's energy infrastructure, it added.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday visited the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant to mark the permanent presence of the UN nuclear watchdog at the site.

The head of the agency is in Ukraine this week to "establish a continuous presence of nuclear safety and security experts at all the country’s nuclear power facilities," the IAEA previously announced.

While the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant already has IAEA team members on location, experts will also be stationed at the Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant in western Ukraine in "the coming days," the IAEA said in a statement on Saturday, ahead of the director's visit.

Grossi will also visit the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant, as well as Chernobyl. Two IAEA members are expected to be posted at each site, the watchdog said.

A former commander in Russia’s Wagner private military company has fled to Norway and is seeking asylum after crossing that country’s arctic border, according to Norwegian police and a Russian activist.

Andrei Medvedev, in an interview with a Russian activist who helps people seek asylum abroad, said that he feared for his life after refusing to renew his service with Wagner.

Medvedev said that after completing his contract, and refusing to serve another, he was afraid of being executed in the same manner as Yevgeny Nuzhin — a defector from Wagner who was killed on camera with a sledgehammer.

A spokesperson for Norway’s Police Security Service confirmed to CNN Monday that Medvedev was in Norway and seeking asylum.

“This is so far a local police investigation,” Eirik Veum told CNN. “But the Security Service, we are informed, and follow the investigation of course.”

Some background: Wagner, headed by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, has emerged as a key player in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — recently doing much of the fighting in the small eastern town of Soledar.

The mercenary group is often described as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s off-the-books troops. It has expanded its footprint globally since its creation in 2014, and has been accused of war crimes in Africa, Syria and Ukraine.

Read more here.

Ukrainian troops have arrived at Fort Sill in Oklahoma to begin training on the Patriot missile system, the US Army base announced Monday. 

CNN was first to report that the training was set to begin as soon as this week.

Fort Sill is home to the Fires Center of Excellence where the US conducts Patriot training for its own military and other countries.  

The training will take “several months” on the advanced but complex long-range aerial defense system, according to Pentagon officials. It’s not clear how much the military can accelerate the training program.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday called the Russian attack on an apartment building in Dnipro a “war crime” and vowed to bring its perpetrators to justice.

“There is no doubt: everyone who is guilty of this war crime will be identified and brought to justice,” Zelensky said in his evening address. 

At least 40 people have died and 25 remain missing following the attack.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) named six members of the Russian military whom it claimed were involved in the strike, according to what the agency described as "preliminary investigation" findings.

Ukrainian soccer club Shakhtar Donetsk has launched a $25 million project for Mariupol soldiers and their families, the club announced Monday.

The launch of the "Heart of Azovstal" initiative comes after the club sold star player Mykhailo Mudryk to English Premier League side Chelsea.

Read more here.