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STORY: Stoltenberg was speaking in Seoul, the first stop on a trip that will also include Japan and is aimed at strengthening ties with Western allies in Asia in the face of the war in Ukraine and rising competition with China. Speaking at the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies, he thanked South Korea for its non-lethal aid to Ukraine, but urged it to do more, adding there is an "urgent need" for ammunition. South Korea has signed major deals providing hundreds of tanks, aircraft and other weapons to NATO member Poland since Russia invaded Ukraine. But President Yoon Suk-yeol has said a South Korean law that forbids supplying weapons to countries engaged in conflict makes it difficult to send arms to Ukraine.

ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge reports on the latest developments on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked for longer-range missiles and fighter jets, as Russian rockets hit civilian targets like apartment buildings.

STORY: There was no response to the allegations from Ukraine. Reuters was not able to independently verify the report. The alleged strike had been carried carried out using a U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket launch system, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. "The deliberate shelling of active civilian medical facilities and the targeted killing of civilians are grave war crimes of the Kyiv regime and its Western masters," the ministry said in a statement. Ukraine and its Western allies have also accused Russian forces of frequent war crimes in the conflict in which thousands of civilians have been killed and cities and towns pounded by artillery and air strikes. Russia denies targeting civilians.

STORY: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday (January 27) that the situation at the front remained extremely acute, particularly in the eastern Donetsk region where he reported major battles for Vuhledar, to the southwest of Donetsk, and Bakhmut, to the northeast. In a Friday evening address, Zelenskiy said Russian forces were not just storming Ukrainian positions but also destroying the towns and villages around them. In Bohoiavlenka village in Donetsk region, soldiers said fighting around the nearby town of Vuhledar had intensified, with Russian troops constantly trying to advance and capture it. Vuhledar had come under intense shelling in the past 24 hours, with seven buildings and two schools damaged, Yevhen Nazarenko, spokesman for the Ukraine army's 68th brigade, told Reuters. "They constantly use artillery fire, aviation. There is no single quiet minute here," he said. Thick black smoke rose over Bohoiavlenka and explosions could be heard in the background. Some homes were damaged.

STORY: “Today we commemorate the determination of the global coalition that stopped Nazism. Today we emphasize even stronger than before: never again to hatred, never again to indifference,” Zelenskiy said in a video speech. Holocaust Memorial Day remembers the six million Jews and others who were systemically murdered by Nazi Germany during World War II between 1941 and 1945.

ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge reports on Russian forces intensifying their attacks in the eastern part of the country.

STORY: Colonna met her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, to discuss humanitarian and military aid. The discussion is likely to have included the question of whether France is ready to supply Leclerc main battle tanks after the United States and Germany committed to send tanks, opening the door for other allies to do so. France has so far agreed to send AMX-10 RCs armoured combat vehicles, but stopped short of committing to sending the Leclercs. Paris argues that, unlike the German Leopards, which are omnipresent across Europe with as many as 2,000 available, there are only about 200 Leclercs. They are also no longer produced. "(We) announced, at the very beginning of the month of January, that France would deliver AMX-10 tanks," Colonna said in a news conference after their talks. The visit aims to send a message to Moscow amid Western fears that Russia, almost a year after invading Ukraine, may still want to launch an attack on the city to deprive Ukraine of its key maritime outlet for grain products.

STORY: Ukraine has been asking for hundreds of modern tanks in the hope of using them to break Russian defensive lines and recapture occupied territory in the south and east. The United States was wary of deploying its hard-to-maintain M1 Abrams tanks but ultimately promised 31 to persuade Germany to pledge its more easily operated German-built Leopards. Germany will initially send 14 tanks and approve shipments by allied European states, with the ultimate aim of equipping two battalions - in the region of 100 tanks. It said its Leopards should be operational in three to four months, and Britain said on Thursday it expected the 14 Challenger tanks it is sending to be in Ukraine in two months. Keeping up the momentum, Canada later said it would send Ukraine four of its Leopard 2 tanks. "These four tanks are combat-ready and will be deployed over the coming weeks. We will also deploy a number of Canadian armed forces members to train Ukrainian soldiers with the skills they need to operate this equipment, pending coordination with allies," Anand told reporters.

STORY: Iya Rudzitskaya – who is Jewish – has fled Kyiv twice. First in 1941, when German bombs started falling on the then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. She was just ten-years-old. The second time came last year, when Russian invaded Ukraine in February. Sitting in the small one-bedroom flat she shares with her son Arthur in Krakow, Poland, the 92-year-old says she did not believe a Russian invasion of Ukraine could ever happen. “Now it is incomprehension, because before the Germans were the enemy, you know. I don’t understand... the Russians' actions. They think that they are defending their country, they are defending themselves, but they came to us, they have destroyed the unfortunate Kharkiv, what do they need it for? There is nothing left there.” Her grandfather, Nuchim Waisblat, was once the main Rabbi in the Ukrainian capital. Her father Vladimir was a writer and book publisher for high-profile Ukrainian authors. In July 1941, during Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, Rudzitskaya woke up to the sound of bombs. “Dad said in panic that we to leave, we need to pack and leave, but it was already impossible to leave, because already by July 9th there was such terrible panic already. Everyone who could was fleeing, you understand: the communists, the Jewish people and all the others were leaving.” Her family fled first to Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine… From there, they travelled thousands of miles across the Soviet Union to Tashkent – the capital of present-day Uzbekistan. Rudzitskaya remembers they left just eight days before the Babyn Yar massacre took place. Nazis murdered some 34,000 Ukrainian Jews – one of the biggest single massacres of Jews during the Holocaust. Russian shells struck close to the Babyn Yar memorial in March of 2022. Rudzitskaya's family returned to Kyiv after the war. She got a job as a typographist and started her family. After passing through 10 different apartments since fleeing Kyiv with the help of a synagogue last year, Rudzitskaya and her son now have a somewhat stable flat. But she says she wants to go home and talk with her neighbors in a language they both understand. “I had my own daily routine, my own regime, everything. And here I am torn out of everything there. I already have a grave there, my parents' graves are there and next to it is my plaque with my name. You just need to put the last digits there and everything, everything will be in order.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is "not interested" in being alone in a room with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The United States and Germany have agreed to supply tanks to Ukraine after months of reluctance over fears of Russian escalation. CBS News senior White House and political correspondent Ed O'Keefe reports.

President Joe Biden has agreed to send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to the war-torn country as concerns mount over a new Russian offensive this spring.

STORY: The announcement that the U.S. and Germany will begin donating dozens of their main battle tanks to Ukraine's war effort, after weeks of diplomatic debate and speculation, is being heralded as a game changer by Kyiv. Germany says its overall goal is to send two tank battalions, which are typically comprised of three or four smaller units called companies, each with about 14 tanks apiece. The U.S. on Wednesday said it would send 31 of its most advanced battle tanks, the M1 Abrams. "Getting those vehicles will improve their ability to take ground. But, but I would be a little cautious about assuming that with them they will conquer the world." Stephen Biddle, adjunct senior fellow for defense policy at the Center for Foreign Relations, and professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University: “M-1 Abrams is widely regarded as the single best main battle tank in the world today. It's been around for a long time, but it's been upgraded repeatedly over the years, and it has performed in combat against Soviet and Russian made tanks very effectively. There's every reason to believe that it is a dramatically superior vehicle to the one the Russians are now fielding and to the ones that the Ukrainians are now fielding.” While Kyiv has praised the decision, Biddle doesn't expect the latest promised weapons to change the tide of the war. “The numbers that the Americans are talking about are not going to be militarily significant in and of themselves. All right. A couple of dozen tanks are not going to reverse the battlefield outcome in Ukraine. Hundreds are going to be needed. Now, the Leopard twos can be provided in those kinds of numbers, in part because lots of different European countries operate them.” The Leopard 2s are what Germany plans to supply to Ukraine. However, Biddle says the U.S. held back providing Ukraine with the M1 Abrams, initially out of the concern the Ukrainians wouldn't be able to handle the tank's complex logistical needs. There's also another catch: the Biden administration says the Abrams is meant for Ukraine’s long-term defense, and it will take months, not weeks, to arrive. That means they likely won’t be part of any expected spring offensives to break the deadlock in eastern Ukraine – where German intelligence believes Kyiv’s forces are taking casualties in the triple digits every day.