Family of Briton missing in Ukraine ‘very worried’; German foreign minister pledges more weapons – as it happened

It is 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

• Russia’s artillery fire in Ukraine has gone down dramatically from its wartime high, in some places by as much as 75%, according to US and Ukrainian officials. The drop in shelling is further evidence of Russia’s increasingly weak position on the battlefield nearly a year into its invasion, officials have told CNN. The officials did not give a clear or single explanation behind the striking decline in artillery fire.

• The Russian mercenary group Wagner has said it is fighting “heavy, bloody battles” for control of the town of Soledar as part of Moscow’s months-long offensive to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Fighting in Soledar, a small town about six miles (10km) north of the key city of Bakhmut, has reached its western outskirts as Ukrainian and Russian forces fight for control of the town’s salt mine, the tunnels of which have been eyed by Wagner as they can accommodate troops and armoured vehicles.

• Wagner’s claims appeared to be confirmed by the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD), which suggested that most of Soledar was in Russian hands after Moscow continued to make “tactical advances”. The MoD said the efforts in Soledar over the past four days appeared to be aimed at encircling Bakhmut, although it added it believed that scenario was unlikely at present.

• But Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, insisted Bakhmut and Soledar were holding on despite widespread destruction. He cited new and fiercer attacks in Soledar, where he said no walls have been left standing and the land is covered with Russian corpses. Ukrainian officials, led by the commander in chief, General Valery Zaluzhniy, have warned that Russia is preparing fresh troops for a new, major offensive on Ukraine, possibly on the capital Kyiv.

• Western officials have warned that Ukraine will not be able to take back a significant amount of territory from Russia without an increase in military capability, including tanks and armoured vehicles. Russian and Ukrainian forces are currently too closely matched for the Ukrainians to be able to mount a major offensive, a western official said on Tuesday. They said a reported Ukrainian call for 300 tanks was “not an unreasonable number” to create the force mass needed for them to go on the attack.

• Russia has appointed Col Gen Alexander Lapin as its new chief of staff of the country’s ground forces, according to state-owned news agency Tass. Lapin’s appointment comes despite fierce criticism over his performance in Ukraine as commander of Russia’s central military district, after Russian forces were driven out of the city of Lyman in eastern Ukraine, a key logistics hub.

• Russia will continue developing nuclear weapons to guarantee the country’s sovereignty, its defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said. Moscow will keep building up its nuclear triad of ballistic missiles, submarines and strategic bombers, he said, as well as increasing the “combat capabilities of the aerospace forces”.

• A Russian warship armed with hypersonic cruise weapons has held exercises in the Norwegian Sea, according to the country’s defence ministry. Vladimir Putin sent the frigate to the Atlantic Ocean last week, which was read as a signal to the west that Russia will not back down over the war in Ukraine.

• Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said its cooperation with the EU is “more important than ever” because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Speaking at a press conference at the signing of a third joint declaration with Europe at Nato’s headquarters in Brussels, Stoltenberg also said he was “confident” Finland and Sweden would join Nato, just days after Stockholm said it had done all it could to satisfy Turkey’s reservations about its membership.

• The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has announced the EU will impose new sanctions on Belarus. The EU is continuing efforts to up the pressure on Moscow to end its war in Ukraine and extend measures to those countries that support Russia. On Sunday, the Belarusian defence TV channel said Russia and Belarus have expanded their joint military training exercises in Belarus, amid growing concern that Moscow is pressuring its closest ally to join the war in Ukraine.

• The head of the European Council, Charles Michel, says Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine has strengthened both the EU and Nato and brought them “closer together”. Speaking at a joint press conference with von der Leyen and Stoltenberg, Michel said the Russian president “wanted less Nato but he has achieved the opposite”.

• Russia’s security council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, said the conflict in Ukraine has become “a military confrontation between Russia and Nato, and above all the US and Britain”. Patrushev, who was speaking in an interview with Argumenti i Fakti newspaper, is one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies and seen as one of the major hardline influences on the Russian leader. The US has denied Moscow’s claims that it wants to destroy Russia, and President Joe Biden has warned that a conflict between Russia and the Nato alliance could trigger World War Three.

• Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, made a surprise trip to the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv today and confirmed that Berlin had promised to send more weapons to Kyiv, the German foreign ministry said. Baerbock met with her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, who said he had “no doubts further German military aid will come” after Berlin announced it would supply Kyiv with Marder infantry fighting vehicles and an additional Patriot air defence battery.

• Ukrainian troops are set to begin training on the Patriot missile system in the US as soon as next week, US officials said. The training programme will take place at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, with the programme expected to take “several months”, one said. During Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to the US in December, Joe Biden announced $1.85bn (£1.54bn) in new military assistance to Kyiv, including the delivery of a Patriot missile battery system. The US is also reportedly considering sending Stryker armoured combat vehicles to Ukraine. The move could be announced next week, but no final decision has been made, Politico reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

• Britain has not yet made a final decision on whether to send battle tanks to Ukraine, a Downing Street spokesperson has said. No 10’s comments came after reports emerged yesterday that the UK is considering supplying Ukraine with British tanks, the first time a western country has indicated it may supply its homemade heavy armour to Kyiv in the war against Russia.

• Italy’s attempts to supply Ukraine with a missile defence system have been delayed by technical issues. It was reported on Monday that a decision on the supply of new arms to Ukraine had been delayed until next month because of political tensions, cost considerations and equipment shortages.

• Armenia has refused to host Russian-led military drills this year. Russia had announced earlier this month that Armenia would host the annual exercises of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a Russian-led alliance of post-Soviet countries which comprises Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The move by Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, reflects Yerevan’s growing tensions with Moscow and Vladimir Putin’s increasingly loose grip on Russia’s regional allies in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

• A group of Russian doctors has urged President Putin to “stop torturing” jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. An open letter, signed by 170 representatives of Russia’s medical community, said “it is obvious that [Navalny] does not receive sufficient medical assistance, and keeping him in the ShIZO (punishment cell) is absolutely worsening his state of health”.

• Two British men have gone missing in Ukraine, the UK Foreign Office has said. The men were named in reports as volunteers Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Parry. The pair were last known to have been travelling from Kramatorsk to Soledar on 6 January, according to Sky News. Images of Parry taken shortly before he disappeared have been published by Reuters. His family said in a statement released by the UK’s foreign office that they were “very worried and concerned” about his health.

The family of a British man who has gone missing in Ukraine say they are “very worried and concerned” about his health in a statement released by the UK’s foreign office.

The men have been named in reports as volunteers Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Parry. The pair were last known to have been travelling from Kramatorsk to Soledar on 6 January, according to Sky News.

Parry’s family said in a statement:

We are very worried and concerned about the health and whereabouts of Chris right now.

He is an extraordinary person who is compassionate and caring and would not be dissuaded from his work in Ukraine liberating elderly and disabled people.

Russia’s artillery fire in Ukraine has gone down dramatically from its wartime high, in some places by as much as 75%, according to US and Ukrainian officials.

The drop in shelling is further evidence of Russia’s increasingly weak position on the battlefield nearly a year into its invasion, officials have told CNN.

The officials did not give a clear or single explanation behind the striking decline in artillery fire. It is possible Russia may be rationing artillery rounds due to low supplies, or it could be part of a broader reassessment of tactics in the face of successful Ukrainian offences.

Earlier this month, Russia suffered its worst military losses since the war in Ukraine began, when a deadly Ukrainian missile strike hit Makiivka, a small city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Russia’s defence ministry said 63 soldiers had been killed in the strike.

The Makiivka strike destroyed Russian supplies and raised questions among Russian military bloggers about the basic competence of top military officials.

Referring to the Russians’ dwindling stockpiles, one US defence official said:

Maybe this one strike is a drop in the bucket, but the bucket is getting smaller.

It comes as Ukraine is enjoying increased military support from its western allies, as the UK mulls sending battle tanks for the first time and Germany and the US announcing it would provide Ukrainian troops with armoured fighting vehicles.

US officials also believe the 36-hour ceasefire announced by Vladimir Putin last week to mark Orthodox Christmas was an attempt to pander to Russia’s extensive Christian population, the news channel reports.

Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, made a surprise trip to the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv today and confirmed that Berlin had promised to send more weapons to Kyiv, the German foreign ministry said.

Baerbock met with her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, who said he had “no doubts further German military aid will come” after Berlin announced it would supply Kyiv with Marder infantry fighting vehicles and an additional Patriot air defence battery.

Ukrainians “should know that they can rely on our solidarity and support,” Baerbock said in a statement on her ministry’s website.

She also said it was important not to lose sight of Ukraine’s place in Europe and its desire to join the EU, as Ukrainians “see their future in Europe, in the EU”.

That is why I would also like to talk about the progress made in the accession process. As the Federal Government, we want to make very concrete offers to Ukraine in order to make progress in strengthening the rule of law, independent institutions and the fight against corruption, as well as in aligning with EU standards.

10 Jan 202311.51 EST

Nadia Khomami

An online auction of Banksy prints for Ukraine was targeted by thousands of “hostile attacks” from within Russia, a charity has revealed.

Banksy, a world-renowned graffiti artist, originally announced the set of 50 new limited edition screenprints via the Legacy of War Foundation to raise funds to support “our friends in Ukraine”. The international charity, based in the UK, provides support to civilians affected by conflict.

View image in fullscreen

Fans had to register online for the prints, which depict a mouse sliding down the side of a box with “FRAGILE” printed on it, and cost £5,000 each. But according to the Legacy of War Foundation, there has been a problem with rogue registrations.

Read the full story here:

Armenia has refused to host Russia-led military military drills this year, in a move that reflects Yerevan’s growing tensions with Moscow and Vladimir Putin’s increasingly loose grip on Russia’s regional allies in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

Russia had announced earlier this month that Armenia would host the annual exercises of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a Russian-led alliance of post-Soviet countries which comprises Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

But Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, was cited by Interfax news agency as saying:

The Armenian defence minister has informed the CSTO Joint Staff that in the current situation, we consider it unreasonable to hold CSTO exercises on the territory of Armenia. At least, such exercises will not take place in Armenia this year.

Pashinyan’s move followed his refusal to sign a summit declaration from a meeting of the leaders of CSTO member nations in his country’s capital in November.

During a “family” photograph of CSTO leaders, Pashinyan stepped away from Putin, later railing against the recent failures of the CSTO.

View image in fullscreen

He expressed frustration at the lack of a response to his formal request for the CSTO to intervene on Armenia’s behalf after his country came under fresh attack from across the border with Azerbaijan in September.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in an on-and-off conflict for three decades over Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but largely controlled by the majority ethnic Armenian population.

Asked about Pashinyan’s announcement, the Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would ask Yerevan to clarify its position.

Western officials have warned that Ukraine will not be able to take back a significant amount of territory from Russia without an increase in military capability, including tanks and armoured vehicles.

Western countries have already announced a step-up in their military aid to Ukraine this year. Last week, the US and Germany said they would provide 50 Bradley and 40 Marder fighting vehicles respectively.

That followed an announcement by France that it would provide a number – estimated at about 30 – of light AMX-10 RC armoured vehicles in what appeared to be a coordinated sequence of announcements.

Kyiv is hoping for a further breakthrough at or in the run-up to the next meeting of the “Ramstein” contact group of western defence ministers, which is scheduled for 20 January. Chaired by the US, the group coordinates military aid to Ukraine.

Britain is currently considering supplying a handful of Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, with a Downing Street spokesperson saying today that a final decision has yet to be made.

Russian and Ukrainian forces are currently too closely matched for the Ukrainians to be able to mount a major offensive, a western official said today.

They said a reported Ukrainian call for 300 tanks was “not an unreasonable number” to create the force mass needed for them to go on the attack. An initial report from Sky News suggested the UK was considering supplying about 10 Challenger 2s.

The official said:

The Ukrainians won’t be unable to win back significant amounts of territory without changes to their force posture from last year. The force ratios between the Russians and the Ukrainians are too finely balanced.

The UK, with a total fleet of 227 Challenger 2 tanks, has a small supply compared with what is made by Germany and the US.

There are about 2,000 Leopard 2s in service in Europe with 13 different countries, but because they were originally made in Germany, the approval of Berlin would be required if any are to be re-exported to Ukraine.

The official added:

Something needs to break that deadlock, especially if they (the Ukrainians) are to win territory back and go on the offensive. Main battle tanks and APCs (armoured personnel carriers) are part of that mix.

I think the Ukrainians would look to all partners who might provide tanks won’t be particularly worried about where they come from just so long as they come in sufficient volume.

It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

• Ukrainian troops are set to begin training on the Patriot missile system in the US as soon as next week, US officials have told CNN. The training programme will take place at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, with the programme expected to take “several months”, one said. During Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to the US in December, Joe Biden announced $1.85bn (£1.54bn) in new military assistance to Kyiv, including the delivery of a Patriot missile battery system. The US is also reportedly considering sending Stryker armoured combat vehicles to Ukraine. The move could be announced next week, but no final decision has been made, Politico reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

• The Russian mercenary group Wagner has said it is fighting “heavy, bloody battles” for control of the town of Soledar as part of Moscow’s months-long offensive to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Fighting in Soledar, a small town about six miles (10km) north of the key city of Bakhmut, has reached its western outskirts as Ukrainian and Russian forces fight for control of the town’s salt mine, the tunnels of which have been eyed by Wagner as they can accommodate troops and armoured vehicles.

• Wagner’s claims appeared to be confirmed by the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD), which suggested that most of Soledar was in Russian hands after Moscow continued to make “tactical advances”. The MoD said the efforts in Soledar over the past four days appeared to be aimed at encircling Bakhmut, although it added it believed that scenario was unlikely at present.

• But Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, insisted Bakhmut and Soledar were holding on despite widespread destruction. He cited new and fiercer attacks in Soledar, where he said no walls have been left standing and the land is covered with Russian corpses. Ukrainian officials, led by the commander in chief General Valery Zaluzhniy, have warned that Russia is preparing fresh troops for a new, major offensive on Ukraine, possibly on the capital Kyiv.

• Russia has appointed Col Gen Alexander Lapin as its new chief of staff of the country’s ground forces, according to state-owned news agency Tass. Lapin’s appointment comes despite fierce criticism over his performance in Ukraine as commander of Russia’s central military district, after Russian forces were driven out of the city of Lyman in eastern Ukraine, a key logistics hub.

• Russia will continue developing nuclear weapons to guarantee the country’s sovereignty, its defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said. Moscow will keep building up its nuclear triad of ballistic missiles, submarines and strategic bombers, he said, as well as increasing the “combat capabilities of the aerospace forces”.

• A Russian warship armed with hypersonic cruise weapons has held exercises in the Norwegian Sea, according to the country’s defence ministry. Vladimir Putin sent the frigate to the Atlantic Ocean last week, which was read as a signal to the west that Russia will not back down over the war in Ukraine.

• Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said its cooperation with the EU is “more important than ever” because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Speaking at a press conference at the signing of a third joint declaration with Europe at Nato’s headquarters in Brussels, Stoltenberg also said he was “confident” Finland and Sweden would join Nato, just days after Stockholm said it had done all it could to satisfy Turkey’s reservations about its membership.

• The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has announced the EU will impose new sanctions on Belarus. The EU is continuing efforts to up the pressure on Moscow to end its war in Ukraine and extend measures to those countries that support Russia. On Sunday, the Belarusian defence TV channel said Russia and Belarus have expanded their joint military training exercises in Belarus, amid growing concern that Moscow is pressuring its closest ally to join the war in Ukraine.

• The head of the European Council, Charles Michel, says Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine has strengthened both the EU and Nato and brought them “closer together”. Speaking at a joint press conference with von der Leyen and Stoltenberg, Michel said the Russian president “wanted less Nato but he has achieved the opposite”.

• Russia’s security council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, said the conflict in Ukraine has become “a military confrontation between Russia and Nato, and above all the US and Britain”. Patrushev, who was speaking in an interview with Argumenti i Fakti newspaper, is one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies and seen as one of the major hardline influences on the Russian leader. The US has denied Moscow’s claims that it wants to destroy Russia, and President Joe Biden has warned that a conflict between Russia and the Nato alliance could trigger World War Three.

• Britain has not yet made a final decision on whether to send battle tanks to Ukraine, a Downing Street spokesperson has said. No 10’s comments came after reports emerged yesterday that the UK is considering supplying Ukraine with British tanks, the first time a western country has indicated it may supply its homemade heavy armour to Kyiv in the war against Russia.

• Italy’s attempts to supply Ukraine with a missile defence system have been delayed by technical issues. It was reported on Monday that a decision on the supply of new arms to Ukraine had been delayed until next month because of political tensions, cost considerations and equipment shortages.

• Sweden’s domestic security agency (Sapo) has warned it expects Russia to increase activities threatening the country’s telecoms and power network. Sapo head Charlotte von Essen also warned of an increased spread “of conspiracy theories and anti-state messages, which in the long run risks undermining trust in society’s institutions, politicians’ decision-making and the state’s legitimacy”.

• A group of Russian doctors have urged President Vladimir Putin to “stop torturing” jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. An open letter, signed by 170 representatives of Russia’s medical community, says “it is obvious that [Navalny] does not receive sufficient medical assistance, and keeping him in the ShIZO (punishment cell) is absolutely worsening his state of health”.

• Two British men have gone missing in Ukraine, the UK Foreign Office has said. The men were named in reports as volunteers Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Parry. The pair were last known to have been travelling from Kramatorsk to Soledar on 6 January, according to Sky News. Images of Parry taken shortly before he disappeared have been published by Reuters. Parry’s mother, Christine Parry, said she was feeling “raw” after her son’s disappearance.

Good afternoon from London. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong still here with all the latest from the Russia-Ukraine war. I’m on Twitter or you can email me.

The Russian TV channel Dozhd, also known as TV Rain, has been granted a five-year broadcasting licence in the Netherlands after its licence had been cancelled in Latvia, the Dutch media authority announced.

The permit will “provide a commercial television broadcasting service as a commercial media institution”, the regulator said.

One of the few independent TV channels in Russia, TV Rain shifted to broadcasting from Latvia and other countries in July when it was forced to shut its Moscow studio after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Latvia cancelled TV Rain’s licence in early December after the company was branded a threat to national security.

In a statement, the channel said:

TV Rain will move its editorial centre to Amsterdam. The Amsterdam studio will become the channel’s main studio.

It said it had appealed the Latvian media watchdog’s “unjust” decision.

Sweden’s domestic security agency (Sapo) has warned it expects Russia to increase activities threatening the country’s telecoms and power network.

Russia’s actions were “unpredictable” but “we can expect that Russian security-threatening activities against Sweden will increase”, Associated Press cited the Sapo head, Charlotte von Essen, as saying at a security conference in Salen, central Sweden.

She said the sectors “where there is reason to be particularly vigilant to counter espionage and sabotage” are telecommunications, electricity supply and the transport of “critical material”.

Von Essen said:

From the Russian side, there is an interest in disturbing these areas. These are sectors where attacks against Sweden could cause damage to the rest of Europe as well.

Her agency expects Russia to make use, “to a greater extent than before, of non-official platforms such as the Russian diaspora, institutions and companies in Sweden”, she said.

She also warned of an increased spread “of conspiracy theories and anti-state messages, which in the long run risks undermining trust in society’s institutions, politicians’ decision-making and the state’s legitimacy”.

She added:

Both the threat of assassination and the threat to our constitution can arise in broad extremism. This is a development that plays into the hands of foreign power.

Ukrainian troops are set to begin training on the Patriot missile system in the US as soon as next week, according to a report.

The training programme will take place at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, with the programme expected to take “several months”, a US official told CNN.

Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of defence for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, said:

I’m not going to be able to give you a specific timeframe for the completion of the training.

It comes after Pentagon press secretary, Brig Gen Pat Ryder, said last week that the US was looking at a variety of options for where to conduct the Patriot missile training “to include potential training here in the US, overseas, or a combination of both”.

During Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to the US in December, Joe Biden announced $1.85bn (£1.54bn) in new military assistance to Kyiv, including the delivery of a Patriot missile battery system.

Zelenskiy said this would significantly enhance Ukraine’s air defence shield and prevent Russia from hitting critical infrastructure – “our cities, our energy”.