Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 20, 2026
Headlines mostly
Russian strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure cut power to electrical substations powering the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant on January 20, consistent with a recent warning from Ukrainian military intelligence ...
Russia downplayed the impact of Russian strikes on the Chornobyl NPP even as Russia continues to pose increasing threats to all of Ukraine's NPPs ...
Ulyanov is deliberately ignoring the context of this power outage amid the systemic threat and damages that Russia has caused to Ukrainian NPPs throughout the course of the war ...
Russian missile and drone strikes overnight on January 19 to 20 significantly damaged additional energy infrastructure throughout Ukraine, particularly Kyiv City ...
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that Ukraine received a shipment of air defense missiles on January 18, which significantly supported Ukraine's capability to down a majority of the Russian drones and missiles in the January 19 to 20 strike ...
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated the Kremlin's commitment to its original war demands against the background of expected peace talks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 20, and falsely accused Ukraine of beginning the war by attacking Russia ...
Drone operators of the Russian Rubikon Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies are increasingly conducting mid-range strikes against Ukraine's high-value, Western-provided air defenses and rocket launchers. Rubikon posted geolocated footage on January 20 showing a first-person view (FPV) drone striking a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) moving along a road on the night of January 19 to 20 near Novobakhmetieve (northwest of Pokrovsk and roughly 43 kilometers from the frontline).
A Russian milblogger claimed that the signal and image quality of the footage suggest that Rubikon used a drone leveraging communications with a Starlink system.
Rubikon also posted geolocated footage on January 17 of an FPV drone striking the launcher and AN/MPQ-53 radar station of a Patriot air defense system near Berezivka (just southwest of Kharkiv City and roughly 44 kilometers from the front line).
Russian milbloggers claimed that Rubikon used a BM-35 strike drone but disagreed whether Russian forces hit a real Patriot system or a decoy.
One milblogger noted that the FPV strike on the Patriot demonstrates how some Russian frontline drones can now fly far beyond Kharkiv City (roughly 23 kilometers from the frontline), especially with the help of “mothership drones” (such as Molniya fixed-wing FPV drones) that carry one or more shorter-range drones to areas far from the front line.
Russian forces equip Molniya-2 drones with Starlink satellite systems and have long leveraged “mothership” drones that can carry and extend the range of FPV drones, increasing the range and efficiency of Russian drone strikes against Ukraine's near rear.
ISW continues to assess that Russian forces are trying to exploit Ukraine's scarcity of air defense systems, underscoring Ukraine's urgent need for point-defense air defense systems to down reconnaissance and strike drones, as electronic warfare (EW) systems are likely insufficient to defend Ukrainian infrastructure and high-value targets from such a geographically pervasive threat.
Ukrainian forces reportedly created a tactical kill zone that denies Russian forces from using vehicles within 20 to 25 kilometers of the front line or using infantry within one kilometer of the front line near Kupyansk - a capability that Ukraine should deepen and expand across the entire theater. A Ukrainian drone unit reported on January 20 that Ukrainian forces created a kill zone using unmanned systems near Kupyansk that can destroy up to 88 percent of Russian forces before they approach Ukrainian positions ...
Russian forces are using training missiles to strike ground targets in Ukraine, possibly by equipping them with live warheads ...
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Colonel Pavlo Yelizarov as the new deputy commander of Ukraine's Air Force on January 20 ...
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-20-2026/