What the January 2024 attacks revealed about risk

What did the security picture look like on 11 January 2024? The reports from the preceding days pointed to sustained pressure on Ukrainian civilians and to consequences reaching well beyond the front line.

The heaviest blow came on 8 January 2024, when Russia launched a large missile and drone attack across Ukraine. At least four people were killed and 38 injured in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts. Ukraine said it shot down all eight drones and 18 of the 51 missiles.

Two days earlier, on 6 January 2024, local authorities said Russian forces had struck Pokrovsk Raion in Donetsk Oblast with S-300 missiles. At least 11 people were killed, including five children, and eight others were injured.

Beyond the battlefield

The war's effects also appeared in other countries' decisions. On 5 January 2024, Nepal suspended the issuance of permits for its citizens to work in Russia and Ukraine, after 10 Nepalis were killed while serving in the Russian Army.

Inside Russia, on 9 January 2024, authorities placed the exiled tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky on a wanted list over comments he had made about the war.

What the sequence shows

Taken together, the reports describe a conflict in which strikes reached oblasts far from the front, civilian casualties were recurring, and the war's human cost extended to foreign nationals. They also show Russian authorities acting against a critic abroad over his remarks on the war.

The figures on air defence were specific: Ukraine reported intercepting fewer than half of the missiles in the 8 January attack, though it said it downed every drone. That shows both what air defences could achieve and how many missiles still got through.