Russia-Ukraine updates: Fighting rages in centre of Soledar
Wagner, the Russian mercenary group, claims the Ukrainian town is under its control but says ‘urban battles’ are still ongoing.
This live blog is now closed. Thank you for joining us. These were the updates on the Russia-Ukraine war for Wednesday, January 11:
This live blog is now closed. Thank you for joining us. These were the updates on the Russia-Ukraine war for Wednesday, January 11:
- The head of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group claims to have secured control of the salt mining town of Soledar in Ukraine’s east but uncertainty remains as battles rage in the town centre.
- The governor of eastern Kharkiv says the city was hit by Russian attacks hours after a surprise visit by Germany’s top diplomat Annalena Baerbock and Ukraine’s foreign minister.
- Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has revoked the citizenship of Viktor Medvedchuk, once seen as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top ally in Kyiv and accused of high treason.
- Russian and Ukrainian officials agree to exchange 40 prisoners of war during a meeting in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
Wagner Group says it found body of a missing Briton in Ukraine
Forces belonging to Russia’s Wagner group found the body of one of two British voluntary workers who had been reported missing in eastern Ukraine, the group said in a statement.
It did not mention the name of the dead man but said documents belonging to both Britons had been found on his body.
A photo posted alongside the statement appeared to show passports bearing the names of Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Parry, the two missing men.
Poland says willing to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine
Poland is ready to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine that Kyiv requested, Polish President Andrzej Duda announced on a visit to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
Warsaw is willing to deliver the tanks “within the framework of an international coalition”, Duda said after meeting his Ukrainian and Lithuanian counterparts
“As you know, there are a number of formal conditions that have to be met … but most of all, we want this to be an international coalition,” Duda said, adding that he is counting on other countries to contribute to deliveries.
Any decision by Poland to send German-made Leopard tanks to Ukraine would require the green light from Berlin.
Deal on safe zone for Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant getting harder: IAEA
Brokering a deal on a safe zone around Ukraine’s Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is getting harder because of the involvement of the military in talks, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog has said.
“I don’t believe that [an agreement] is impossible, but it is not an easy negotiation,” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said in an interview with Italian public television RAI.
Grossi, who previously said he hoped to broker a deal on protecting the plant before the end of 2022, said talks with Kyiv and Moscow had become more complicated because they involve not just diplomats, but also military officers.
“It has become … a longer and more difficult [negotiating] table,” said Grossi, who was speaking in Italian.
Zelenskyy says fighting ongoing in Soledar
Zelenskyy said that fighting was continuing in Soledar, an eastern Ukrainian city that Russian mercenary group Wagner claimed to control earlier, and that the front was “holding”.
“The terrorist state and its propagandists are trying to pretend” to have achieved some successes in Soledar, Zelenskyy said in his daily address, “but the fighting continues.”
He said the Donetsk front was holding “and we are doing everything to strengthen the Ukrainian defence without any break, even for one day”.
Greece, Malta lag in sanctioned Russian assets
Greece and Malta lag behind their European Union peers in freezing Russian assets sanctioned over Moscow’s war against Ukraine, according to an EU official and an internal document, as the bloc considers using the assets to help Kyiv.
The 27 EU countries have so far reported freezing some 20.3 billion euros ($22bn) of sanctioned Russian assets, with Italy, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria each announcing more than a billion euros.
Almost every other EU country has frozen millions worth of assets, according to the document from the EU’s executive European Commission seen by the Reuters news agency.
Greece and Malta defended their work on sanctions. Greece confirmed it had notified the bloc of freezing assets worth 212,000 euros. Malta said it had frozen 222,000 euros worth, compared with 147,000 euros in the EU document.
Wagner Group says Soledar ‘liberated’, about 500 Ukrainians killed
The head of Russia’s private military firm Wagner has said his forces had completely “liberated” the eastern Ukrainian mining town of Soledar, killing approximately 500 pro-Ukraine troops.
“I want to confirm the complete liberation and cleansing of the territory of Soledar from units of the Ukrainian army … Ukrainian units that did not want to surrender were destroyed,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a statement. Minutes earlier, Zelenskyy had said fighting continued.
Wagner forces “killed about 500 people. The whole city is littered with the corpses of Ukrainian soldiers,” he said.
Russia promotes general in military shake-up
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu appointed Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov as the combined forces group commander for what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Russia had previously promoted Sergey Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon” by the Russian media for his reputed ruthlessness, to be its top battlefield commander only last October following a series of Ukrainian counteroffensives.
Surovikin will remain as a deputy of Gerasimov, the defence ministry said.
Announcing the appointment, the defence ministry said the changes were designed to increase the effectiveness of managing military operations more than 10 months into the conflict.
Inside the Wagner Group – Russia’s mercenary force
The Wagner Group is shadowy, but it has been tracked to Ukraine, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, Mali, and elsewhere.
It is known as a deadly fighting force of mercenaries and linked to Russia’s military interests around the world. Al Jazeera spoke to one fighter about what life is like as a soldier for hire. Listen below.
Russia, Iran discuss energy and transport projects
In a phone call, the Kremlin said, Putin discussed energy and transport projects with Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi.
Moscow and Tehran have moved to forge closer relations following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February.
In a readout of the call, the Kremlin said the two leaders had discussed deepening their “mutually beneficial projects in the energy, transport and logistics sectors” and their desire to “normalise” the situation in Syria.
Ukrainian refugees are the largest ‘flight movement’ since WWII: Germany
In 2022, about eight out of 10 people seeking protection in Germany came from Ukraine as part of the largest flight of people in Europe since World War II, the interior ministry said.
After Russia’s invasion in mid-February, 1,045,185 people who fled Ukraine were registered in Germany, it said, adding that most of them were women and children.
Putin’s “criminal war of aggression against Ukraine has triggered the largest flight movement in Europe since World War II,” said interior minister Nancy Faeser.
In addition to the Ukrainian refugees, more than 244,000 people filed asylum applications last year, 27.9 percent more than the year before.
The majority of asylum applications came from people from Syria, followed by nationals of Afghanistan, Turkey and Iraq.
“In other parts of the world, people are also fleeing war and terror, which is reflected in the significant increase in the number of asylum applications filed in 2022,” said Faeser.
Estonia tells Russia to reduce number of diplomats in Tallin
Estonia has told Russia to reduce the number of diplomats at its embassy in Tallinn by February, the foreign ministry said.
The ministry said that Russia should cut the number of diplomats to eight, equivalent to the number of Estonian diplomats in Moscow.
“In light of the fact that during the war of aggression, the staff of the Russian embassy is not engaged in advancing Estonian-Russian relations, it is our view that there are no grounds for the current size of the Russian embassy,” the ministry said.
Moscow said the expulsions were the latest example of “Russophobia”.
“It is long been no secret that Estonia is one of the most hostile states towards Russia,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Russophobia has been elevated to the level of an official doctrine,” she said, adding that Moscow would respond to any “hostile actions” taken by Tallinn.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Estonia has expelled three diplomats.
‘Heavy fighting continues in Soledar’, Ukrainian official says
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister says Russian forces are trying without success to break through defensive lines to capture Soledar as fierce fighting rages on.
“Heavy fighting continues in Soledar,” Hanna Maliar wrote on Telegram.
“The enemy has again replaced its units after sustaining losses, has increased the number of Wagner [mercenaries] and is trying to burst through our forces’ defences and fully seize the city but is not having success,” she said.
EU prepared for a long war: Sweden
The EU is prepared for a long war and will support Kyiv for as long as it takes, Sweden’s foreign minister, Tobias Billstrom, said.
“Despite Russia’s continued attempts to divide us, unity within the EU and across the Atlantic has been strong. The EU is prepared for a long war and will continue to stand by Ukraine’s side with political, economic, military and humanitarian support for as long as it takes”, Billstrom told a news conference.
He added that the EU would continue working on more sanctions against Moscow.
In December, the bloc passed the ninth package of measures since the start of the invasion in February 2022.
EU becoming a NATO vassal: Russia
Russia says the EU is becoming a vassal of NATO, citing the signing of a joint declaration in which the two organisations pledged to deepen their cooperation in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Earlier on Tuesday, NATO and the EU pledged to “take our partnership to the next level” in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the move “confirms the complete subordination of the European Union to the tasks of the North Atlantic bloc, which is an instrument to guarantee US interests by force”.
She added that the Europeans faced “the unenviable fate of an American vassal, losing their positions in world politics and economics, falling into increasing dependence on Washington with every step”.
The statement is in line with Moscow’s previous comments that Western powers are involved in the war so they can see the fall of Russia.
Who controls what?
Here are four maps we update daily, charting the latest war developments.
Situation in annexed regions ‘difficult’, says Putin
Putin says that the situation in the areas of Ukraine that Russia annexed was “difficult in places”.
However, at a televised meeting with officials, Putin said Russia had all the resources it needed to improve life in the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claimed to have annexed in a “referendum” that Kyiv and its allies have referred to as illegal and a “sham”.
Ukraine must ‘be ready’ at the Belarus border, says Zelenskyy
Ukraine must “be ready” at the Belarus border even though it sees only “powerful statements” coming from its neighbour, Zelenskyy said on Telegram.
He spoke after visiting the Lviv region, where he discussed border protection and the security situation in northwestern Ukraine.
“We discussed state border protection, the operational situation on the border with the Republic of Belarus, and counter-subversive measures in these territories,” he said.
“We understand that apart from powerful statements, we do not see anything powerful there, but nevertheless we must be ready both at the border and in the regions”.
Kyiv has made multiple warnings that Russia may try to use Belarus to launch a new ground invasion of Ukraine from the north.
Zelenskyy’s office released footage of him at the coordination meeting and said the president also took part in a ceremony honouring the memory of Ukrainian soldiers killed in battle following Russia’s invasion last February.
NATO, EU to launch joint task force to protect critical infrastructure
NATO and EU will launch a task force to boost the protection of critical infrastructure in response to last year’s attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines and Russia’s “weaponising of energy”.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the sabotage of the gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea last September showed the need “to confront this new type of threat”.
“This is a task force where our experts from NATO and the European Union will work hand-in-hand to identify key threats to our critical infrastructure, to look at the strategic vulnerabilities that we do have,” she said in Brussels, speaking alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
Western and Russian officials have traded blame over the Nord Stream blasts.
Stoltenberg said: “Resilience and the protection of critical infrastructure are a key part of our joint efforts, as we have seen both with President Putin’s weaponising of energy and … the sabotage of the North Stream pipelines.”
Greece, Malta lag behind other EU members in freezing Russian assets
Greece and Malta lag behind their EU peers in freezing Russian assets, an internal document and an EU official says as the bloc considers confiscating the funds to help Kyiv.
EU countries have so far reported freezing about 20.3 billion euros ($22bn) of sanctioned Russian assets.
Almost every EU member has reported placing holds on millions of euros, but Greece has only notified the bloc of freezing assets worth 212,000 euros ($227,600), and Malta 147,000 euros ($158,000).
“That is a bit surprising,” said the EU official, who spoke to the Reuters news agency on the condition of anonymity.
“Either they don’t have much, or they are not doing their job, or they have done something but not communicated to us even though they had chances,” the official said.
The EU has blacklisted about 1,300 individuals and 120 entities as part of the sanctions it has placed on Russia. It has also imposed economic sanctions on Russian trade and the country’s transport, energy, banking, media and defence sectors.
Belarus and Russia reinforce air defence units
Russian and Belarusian air defence forces have been reinforced with new missile units, according to Belarus’s Ministry of Defence.
“Anti-aircraft missile units advanced to designated areas and took up combat duty,” the ministry said. It did not disclose how many units or missiles or where they were deployed.
Belarus plans aviation drills with its close ally Russia beginning on Monday.
Ukraine has repeatedly warned that Putin might try to use Belarus to launch a new invasion from the north, a step that would open a significant new front in the war.
Russian airborne units surround Soledar, says defence ministry
Russia’s defence ministry says its airborne units have surrounded the Ukrainian town of Soledar, which has been the focus of intensified fighting for months, from the north and the south.
At the same time, Russia’s air force struck Ukrainian positions in the city, Russian agencies reported.
In its daily briefing, the defence ministry said assault units were fighting for Soledar.
The situation in Soledar is ‘unclear’: AJ correspondent
Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler, reporting from Kyiv, says the situation in Soledar is “unclear” as both sides report differing battleground reports.
“Earlier, we heard from the head of the Russian mercenary group, Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, [who] claimed that his troops were in control of Soledar”, Butler said, but “Ukrainian defence officials, for now, say their troops are still fighting intense battles.
“What we know is over the past few days, officials at Britain’s ministry of defence have said they do expect Soledar to come under Russian control in the following days”, Butler added.
For Russia, capturing Soledar would be seen as a battlefield gain after months of military losses and would help them make their way to Bakhmut, which has been the site of intense fighting for months.
Number of Ukrainians in Poland pass 9 million: Polish EU representative
The number of Ukrainians who crossed into Poland since the war began has passed nine million, Poland’s representative for the EU said in a tweet.
The number of refugees crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border has reached 9 million. The vast majority of them are women & children.
All people fleeing from war are provided with the best possible assistance. The refugees are welcome in 🇵🇱 where they can continue to live in peace. pic.twitter.com/8QqfNe2DPV
— Poland in the EU (@PLPermRepEU) January 9, 2023
According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Poland spent 8.36 billion euros ($8.98bn) on housing, healthcare and other services for Ukrainians in 2022, the highest among member countries.
Russia does not control Soledar: Ukrainian military
Ukraine’s military denies that Russian forces have taken control of Soledar and added that the intensity of battles in the area could be compared with fighting in World War II.
Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the eastern military command, told Ukrainian television the battle for Soledar was essential and that Ukrainian forces had not allowed Russian forces to break through the front lines.
He added that the military command was “working now on how to stabilise the situation with the maximum impact for the enemy and minimum losses for Ukraine”.
Al Jazeera is unable to verify battleground reports independently.
Russia, Ukraine agree to prisoner swap during Ankara meeting
Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova and her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets have agreed to a prisoner swap during a meeting in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
The commissioners agreed on 40 prisoners of war each. Moskalkova said on Telegram the two discussed providing humanitarian assistance to citizens of the two countries.
They are later expected to visit the Turkish presidential palace, where President Tayyip Erdogan is scheduled to make a speech for the conference at 11:30 GMT.
A Turkish source said issues such as the Black Sea grain transport and a possible humanitarian corridor were expected to be discussed in the meeting.