Russia-Ukraine war: Putin replaces general in charge of Russian forces in Ukraine – as it happened

Russia replaces general in charge of Ukraine war in latest military shake-up

Russia appointed Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, as its overall commander for the war in Ukraine on Wednesday, in the latest of several major shake-ups of Moscow’s military leadership during the stumbling invasion of its neighbour.

In a statement, the defence ministry said that Gerasimov’s appointment constituted a “raising of the status of the leadership” of the military force in Ukraine and was implemented to “improve the quality … and effectiveness of the management of Russian forces”.

Sergei Surovikin, a notorious general nicknamed “General Armageddon” by the Russian media, who was appointed as overall commander of the army in October, would stay on as a deputy of Gerasimov, the defence ministry said.

Read more here by Pjotr Sauer and Peter Beaumont:

Brokering a deal on a safe zone around Ukraine’s Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is getting harder because of military involvement in talks, the head of the U.N nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday.

The Soviet-era plant, Europe’s largest, was captured by Russian forces in March, soon after their invasion of Ukraine. It has repeatedly come under fire in recent months, raising fears of a nuclear disaster, Reuters reports.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Rafael Grossi said in an interview with Italian public television RAI:

I don’t believe that (an agreement) is impossible, but it is not an easy negotiation … It has become … a longer and more difficult (negotiating) table.

Grossi added the talks have become more complex as they involve not just diplomats, but military officers as well.

He said:

They are playing with fire. A nuclear accident is in nobody’s interest, not even the Russians.

The head of Russia’s private military firm Wagner said his forces had completely liberated the eastern Ukrainian mining town of Soledar, after Ukraine’s president said fighting is ongoing.

According to Reuters, Yevgeny Prigozhin said approximately 500 pro-Ukraine troops were killed.

“The whole city is littered with the corpses of Ukrainian soldiers,” Prigozhin said in a statement.

The remarks come after Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, mocked Russian claims to have taken over parts of the eastern city of Soledar, saying that fighting was still going on.

Zelenskiy said:

The terrorist state and its propagandists are trying to pretend that part of our town of Soledar … is some sort of a Russian possession. But fighting continues. The Donetsk theatre of operations is holding.

Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, discussed energy and transport projects with Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, in a telephone call on Wednesday, the Kremlin said.

In a readout of the call, the Kremlin said the two leaders had discussed how to further develop “mutually beneficial projects in the energy, transport and logistics sectors” and also stated their desire to “normalise” the situation in Syria, Reuters reports.

Russian conscript sentenced to years in prison after rebelling against superiors

A Russian conscript has been sentenced to five and a half years in prison after getting into an altercation with his superiors over poor training conditions, in the first known ruling against a soldier who criticised the Kremlin’s unpopular mobilisation.

In a widely shared video filmed on 13 November, draftee, Alexander Leshkov, is seen shouting profanities and shoving Lt Col Denis Mazanov at a training ground outside Moscow.

In the footage, Leshkov is heard telling his commander: “You are sabotaging the commander-in-chief’s direct orders [to supply and train mobilised soldiers],” adding: “You should be arrested.”

Read more here:

Here are the latest images coming out of Ukraine:

Sweden’s bid to join Nato is proceeding “in a good way” the country’s prime minister has said despite “different opinions” with Turkey on what needs to be done for Stockholm to join the military alliance.

Since Sweden confirmed its intention to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in May – an historic shift from neutrality triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – 28 Nato countries have ratified its membership bid. But Turkey continues to demand further action from the Swedish government in tackling military groups it considers terrorists, before approving Sweden’s Nato membership.

Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said “we are proceeding in a good way on the trilateral memo” between Turkey, Sweden and Finland, which is also bidding to join Nato.

One of Sweden’s core tasks, he said, was to strengthen domestic terrorism legislation, adding that his government was “doing exactly what we promised to do”.

Turkey sometimes names people “they would like to have extradited” from Sweden, he said, a matter that was in the hands of Swedish judges, not the government. Turkey and Sweden sometimes had “different opinions” on that, but he insisted it should not overshadow that “things are going well”.

Hungary is the only other member of the transatlantic military alliance that has failed to ratify Sweden’s Nato bid, but sources expressed optimism the Hungarian parliament would do so in February. All 30 Nato countries must approve Sweden and Finland’s membership application.

Kristersson declined to name a date when Sweden might join Nato.

Sweden’s defence minister, Pål Jonson, said a decisive change in Swedish public opinion on Nato came in December 2021 when Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, outlined plans for a new security architecture for Europe that would bar Sweden and Finland from ever joining the alliance. “That was a wake-up call,” Jonson said, adding that Russia’s plans for legally binding restrictions on Sweden’s sovereignty “did not go down well in Stockholm”.

Here are the latest images from Ukraine:

Poland plans to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine as part of an international coalition, the Polish president has said, according to reports.

Kyiv has been requesting heavy military vehicles such as the German-made Leopard 2, which would represent a significant step up in western support to Ukraine.

On a visit to Lviv, Andrzej Duda said:

A company of Leopard tanks will be handed over as part of coalition building … We want it to be an international coalition.

On Saturday, Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said the country did not intend to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine without the formation of a wider coalition.

Earlier today, a German government spokesperson said that it was not aware of any requests from its allies to send Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.

Estonia has demanded that the Russian government reduce the number of its embassy within the country, according to reports.

According to the press release of the ministry of foreign affairs, the Russian embassy was warned on Wednesday 11 January that the diplomatic staff should be reduced by half by 1 February.

The press release reportedly said: “Estonia considers the principle of parity very important in our relations with Russia. Considering that, in light of this war of aggression, the Russian embassy is not engaged in promoting Estonian-Russian relations, we believe that its (current) size is not justified. Now we have set a limit for the number of diplomats working in Estonia in order to achieve parity”.

Currently, eight diplomats and 15 other officials work in the Estonian embassy in Moscow, while 21 Russian diplomats and 23 other officials are located in Tallinn.

Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, has said he expects decisions later this month on further military support for Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters in Stockholm, Kristersson said he had recently told Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, that “we want to do more” adding that he expects “decision making in January”.

He declined to specify whether EU nations should be supplying Ukraine with tanks, a key demand of Zelenskiy’s, backed by France and Poland.

Germany, manufacturer and supplier of Leopard 2 tanks to other European nations, is coming under growing pressure to supply the vehicles to Ukraine and allow other European nations to do so the same. Sweden is one of 13 European countries that uses the powerful Leopard 2 tanks, which number some 2,000 at different states of readiness.

Speaking separately, Sweden’s supreme commander, Micael Bydén, said Ukraine had impressed allies with its willingness to fight and courage but will “probably need even more [western support] to win the war

Some pictures from the conflict today:

Soaring food and energy prices could persist ‘for next two years’

Soaring prices for energy and food could persist for the next two years, hurting global efforts to combat poverty and the climate crisis, a report prepared for next week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has warned.

The WEF’s annual global risks report found the international cost of living crisis unleashed by the Covid pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine topped the list of concerns in a survey of more than 1,200 global experts, policymakers and business leaders.

Sounding the alarm in the run-up to the annual gathering of world leaders in the Swiss mountain resort, it said the energy and food supply crunch was likely to persist for the next two years as the biggest risk to the world economy.

Read more here:

Ukraine war pushes civilian casualties from explosive weapons to a four-year high

Civilian casualties from the use of explosive weapons soared by 83% last year because of the war in Ukraine, according to a monitoring organisation that counts the number of deaths caused by conflict and war.

Action on Armed Violence said the total number reported killed and injured in 2022 was 20,776, the highest level since 2018, with 10,381 casualties in Ukraine alone, based on reports from English language media.

Its figure, though, is almost certainly a significant underestimate partly because media reports only capture the most serious incidents. The latest UN figures report 17,994 civilian casualties in Ukraine, 6,919 killed and 11,075 injured.

Read more here:

The European Union is “prepared for a long war” in Ukraine and will support Kyiv against Russia’s aggression for “as long as it takes”, said Sweden’s foreign minister Tobias Billstrom, whose country holds the EU’s presidency.

Speaking at a news conference, Billstrom said, according to Reuters:

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.

He said the EU would continue working on more sanctions against Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine after previous nine packages of measures were passed by the 27-nation bloc since the start of the invasion in February 2022.

Here are the latest images coming out of Soledar, where Ukrainian soldiers are defending the eastern town from Russian forces and Wagner mercenaries.

Ukraine’s military has denied that Russian forces have encircled and captured the eastern town of Soledar, after claims by the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, that the town had fallen.

The German government is not aware of any requests from its allies to send Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine, a government spokesperson has said.

The statement on Wednesday comes after Germany’s foreign minister visited the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv this week, promising more weapons and giving hope that Berlin will release Leopard 2 tanks to help break the deadlock in the near 11 months-long war.

The spokesperson said Germany was coordinating closely with the United States, France, Britain and elsewhere on military support for Ukraine, according to Reuters.

Germany promised last week, after months of equivocating, to send 40 tracked armoured Marder infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, in parallel with the US supplying 50 similar Bradleys.

On Monday, the UK indicated it was considering providing a small number of its Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, the first time any western country had suggested it was willing to send over its heaviest armour.

Ukraine is particularly keen to acquire Leopard 2s because there are more than 2,000 in Europe, in the service of 13 countries. But Berlin’s permission is required if they are to be re-exported, and Germany has been concerned about the dangers of escalating the conflict.

Here are images from Vlissingen, Netherlands, as US army vehicles, including hundreds of tanks, are being brought ashore as part of a mission to strengthen the Nato eastern flank.

Ukraine must “be ready” at its border with Russian ally Belarus even though it sees only “powerful statements” coming from its neighbour, Zelenskiy said on Wednesday.

The comments from Ukraine’s president came after visiting the Lviv region, where he discussed border protection and the security situation in north-western Ukraine, Reuters reports.

We discussed state border protection, the operational situation on the border with the Republic of Belarus, and counter-subversive measures in these territories… 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 warned that Russia may try to use Belarus to launch a new ground invasion of Ukraine from the north.

Zelenskiy made no reference to such warnings in comments on the Telegram messaging app, nor did the president refer to fighting under way in eastern Ukraine, where the Ukrainian military has denied losing control of the town of Soledar in fierce combat.

Nato and the EU are launching a task force to bolster the protection of critical infrastructure in response to last year’s attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines and Russia’s “weaponising of energy”, leaders said on Wednesday.

Speaking in Brussels, the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said, according to Reuters:

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.

Von der Leyen said the sabotage of the Russia-to-Germany pipelines in the Baltic Sea last September showed the need “to confront this new type of threat”, adding the task force would initially come up with proposals on transport, energy, digital and space infrastructure.

Officials in Sweden and Denmark investigating the Nord Stream gas pipeline attack have not named any possible culprits.

Nato secretary general Jens 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 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.

The 27 EU countries have so far reported freezing some 20.3 bn euros (£18 bn) of sanctioned Russian assets, with Italy, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria each notifying actions totalling more than a billion euros, Reuters reports.

Almost every other EU country has frozen millions worth of assets, according to the document from the EU’s executive European Commission, which was seen by Reuters.

By comparison, Greece had only notified the bloc of freezing assets worth 212,000 euros, and Malta 147,000 euros.

An EU official, who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said:

That is a bit surprising…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.

Here are some of the latest photos coming out of Ukraine and elsewhere:

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, addressed those attending the 80th annual Golden Globes on Tuesday in a pre-recorded video message.

“The war in Ukraine is not over yet, but the tide is turning,” said Zelenskiy. “There will be no third world war.”

Russia and Ukraine have agreed on an exchange of 40 prisoners of war, according to the Russian human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova who met with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets in Turkey.

Reuters reports:

Moskalkova and Lubinets met on the sidelines of an international ombudsman conference in Ankara. Photos showed them sitting on opposite sides of a table.

The initial talks lasted for some 40 minutes. A second round began at 0920 GMT.

Earlier, Moskalkova had said on the Telegram messaging app that she and Lubinets had discussed humanitarian assistance for citizens of both Russia and Ukraine.

They were later expected to visit the Turkish presidential palace, where President Tayyip Erdogan was scheduled to make a speech for the conference at 1130 GMT.

Ukraine’s military has denied that Russian forces have encircled and captured the eastern town of Soledar, after claims by the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, that the town had fallen.

Serhiy Cherevatyi, the spokesperson for the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said: “Russians say that it is under their control, it is not true.”

Russia’s capture of Soledar and its huge saltmines would have symbolic, military and commercial value for Russia. But the situation in and around Soledar appeared fluid and neither claim could be independently verified.

Prigozhin had released a photograph showing himself with a group of his fighters and a tank that he said was taken in one of the tunnels of a saltmine in the south-west of the town.

Prigozhin also insisted that only units of his paramilitary company – many of them convicts who have been offered a pardon if they fight for him – had been involved in fighting for the town.

You can read Peter Beaumont’s full write up here:

Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has visited the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv near the Russian border on Tuesday, promising more weapons as well as “concrete offers” to help Ukraine join the European Union.

Reuters reports:

In a statement ahead of a meeting with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Baerbock expressed Germany’s solidarity with Ukrainians living through Russia’s invasion and harsh winter conditions.

“This city is a symbol of the absolute insanity of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and of the endless suffering that people, especially here in the east of the country, are confronted with every day,” she said.

After Germany last week promised to send Marder fighting vehicles to Ukraine as part of increased military support, Baerbock promised more weapons, without specifying which ones.

“In Kharkiv we can see the courage, the resilience and therefore the hope for a life in peace,” Baerbock told a press conference after her arrival.

Senior Russian legislator Leonid Slutsky, echoing Moscow’s line that it launched the war to “denazify” Ukraine, said history would harshly judge the comments by Baerbock.

She “unfortunately cannot conceal her sympathy for the reincarnation of Nazism in the Ukrainian project and its clearly nostalgic notes,” he wrote on Telegram. Slutsky heads the foreign affairs committee in the Duma lower house of parliament.

Politico reports that Germany is facing pressure from France and Poland to supply Ukraine with the powerful Leopard 2 tanks.

Politico reports:

Supplying modern western tanks such as the Leopard 2 would be a big boost for Ukraine’s military, as Kyiv’s allies have so far only been willing to send older Soviet-era tanks that had still been in the stocks of eastern European countries, as well as other weapon systems such as howitzers and air defences.

A French official told Politico that Paris is turning the screws on Germany in the hope of extracting an agreement from Berlin to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine ahead of a Franco-German summit on January 22, the 60th anniversary of the Élysée partnership treaty between the two nations.

Similar pressure is coming from Poland, which wants to form a broad coalition among western partners to jointly hand over Leopards to Ukraine. “We encourage other countries to form a broad coalition for the transfer of more modern tanks to Ukraine, such as Leopard tanks,” deputy foreign minister Paweł Jabłoński told Polish public radio on Monday.

Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian MEP, has urged the EU to intervene in order to put pressure on Germany to supply the tanks.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, appeared in a video message during the Golden Globes telecast to thank his allies in the “free world.”

Having been introduced by Sean Penn, the Ukrainian president addressed the crowd, saying: “The war in Ukraine is not over yet, but the tide is turning, and it is already clear who will win.

“There are still battles and tears ahead, but now I can tell you who was the best in the previous year – you in the free world, who united around support of free Ukrainian people.”

He added: “There will be no third world war, it’s not a trilogy.”

Ukraine’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, Emine Dzheppar, has posted images depicting the aftermath of the Russian missile strike on Kherson.

One person has been reportedly killed and another injured in the attack.

Here is a video with recent footage of the fighting in Soledar:

US plans to train Ukrainian service personnel in the use of Patriot missiles provide further proof of Washington’s participation in the Ukraine conflict, Russia’s ambassador to the US said on Tuesday.

“The decision of the US defence department to organise a training course at Fort Sill in Oklahoma is yet another confirmation of Washington’s de facto participation in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of Kyiv’s Nazi criminals,” Anatoly Antonov said in a statement posted by his embassy.

Antonov said the real aim of the US administration was to “inflict as much damage as possible on Russia on the battlefield by the hands of the Ukrainians”.

A US official, speaking earlier on the condition of anonymity, said the training would occur at Fort Sill in the coming weeks.