Russian strikes hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv late Tuesday, the regional governor said, just hours after a surprise visit by the German foreign minister together with her Ukrainian counterpart. Read our live blog to see how all the day's events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).
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10:41pm: Russia's Wagner says it controls Ukrainian town of Soledar, fighting continues, say agencies
The head of Russia's private military firm Wagner on Tuesday said his forces had taken control of the eastern Ukrainian mining town of Soledar but that fighting continued, Russian news agencies reported.
Ukraine had said earlier in the day that its forces were still holding out despite a Russian onslaught.
"Wagner units took control of the entire territory of Soledar. A cauldron has been formed in the centre of the city in which urban fighting is going on," Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a statement cited by Russian agencies.
"The number of prisoners will be announced tomorrow," he added, giving no further details.
10:33pm: Russia hits Ukraine's Kharkiv hours after German minister visits, says governor
Russian strikes hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv late Tuesday, the regional governor said, just hours after a surprise visit by the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock together with her Ukrainian counterpart.
"Stay in the shelters. The occupiers are bombing again!" governor Oleg Synegubov warned on Telegram. An AFP journalist heard several explosions in the city.
9:39pm: Zelensky says revoked Ukrainian citizenship of Putin ally
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday said he had revoked the Ukrainian citizenship of Viktor Medvedchuk, once seen as Russian leader Vladimir Putin's top ally in Kyiv and accused of high treason.
Medvedchuk, a former Ukrainian lawmaker who was handed over to Russia in a prisoner exchange last September, was stripped of his citizenship along with three others, Zelensky said in his daily address.
9:33pm: Ukraine says need for more weapons is crucial, since Russia plans escalation
The need for the West to supply Ukraine with an increased number of modern weapons is critical because Russia is gathering forces for another escalation, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.
"The free world has everything necessary to stop Russian aggression and bring about a historic defeat for the terrorist state," he said in a video address.
8:35pm: Basement bickering: Marriages under strain in war-hit Ukraine
Huddled in an underground shelter in war-battered eastern Ukraine, Oleksander and Lyudmila Murenets spend more time together these days than at any other point in their four decades of marriage. The tension is starting to show. Theirs is far from the only marriage in eastern Ukraine buckling under the stresses of wartime.
Throughout the Donbas region, the combination of fighting and freezing temperatures is forcing couples to spend long periods in close quarters, straining some relationships and strengthening others.
7:51pm: Ukraine says it still fights for Soledar amid Russian onslaught
Ukrainian forces were still holding out in the eastern mining town of Soledar on Tuesday evening despite a massive Russian onslaught, Ukraine's deputy defence minister said.
Britain Defence Ministry had said earlier that Russia had probably captured most of the town after four days of advances, a rare success for Moscow's troops after a string of humiliating retreats last year.
"Heavy fighting to hold onto Soledar continues. The enemy disregards the heavy losses of its personnel and continues to storm actively," Ukraine's Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said in a statement.
"The approaches to our positions are simply strewn with the bodies of dead enemy fighters," she said. "Our fighters are bravely holding the defence."
7:11pm: Family of Briton missing in Ukraine worried about his health
The family of a British voluntary worker missing in Ukraine expressed concerns for his health and whereabouts on Tuesday in a statement released by Britain's foreign office.
The family of Chris Parry, one of the two British nationals who the Ukrainian police have said were missing in east Ukraine, said: "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."
6:12pm: Ukraine FM says 'people will die' while Berlin weighs tank deliveries
Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Tuesday urged Berlin to supply his military with Leopard tanks during a visit from German counterpart Annalena Baerbock to war-battered eastern Kharkiv.
"The longer it takes to make the decision, the more people will die. The sooner this decision is made, the sooner this war will end with Ukraine's victory and there will be no more war in Europe," Kuleba told reporters during a press conference in Kharkiv with Baerbock.
5:05pm: Ukrainian troops to start training on Patriot system in US soon, says official
Ukrainian troops are expected to begin training on the Patriot missile defense system at a military base in the United States in the coming weeks, a US official said on Tuesday.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the training would occur at Fort Sill in Oklahoma.
Ukrainian troops have previously received some training in the United States, including on the Switchblade drones.
4:24pm: German minister promises weapons and EU accession help on surprise Ukraine trip
Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock made a surprise visit to the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv near the Russian border on Tuesday, promising more weapons as well as "concrete offers" to help the country's accession to the European Union.
In a statement ahead of a meeting with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Baerbock expressed Germany's support and 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.
She also said it was important not to lose sight of Ukraine's place in Europe and its desire to join the EU.
"That is why I would also like to talk about the progress made in the accession process," she said.
1:19pm: Donetsk governor says Russian forces using ‘scorched-earth tactics’ in Ukraine
Russian forces are escalating their onslaught against Ukrainian positions around the wrecked city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian officials said, bringing new levels of death and devastation in the grinding, months-long battle for control of eastern Ukraine.
“Everything is completely destroyed. There is almost no life left,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Monday of the scene around Bakhmut and the nearby Donetsk region town of Soledar.
“The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes,” Zelenskyy said. “This is what madness looks like.”
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the Donetsk region's Kyiv-appointed governor, on Tuesday described the Russian attacks on Soledar and Bakhmut as relentless.
“The Russian army is reducing Ukrainian cities to rubble using all kinds of weapons in their scorched-earth tactics,” Kyrylenko said in televised remarks. “Russia is waging a war without rules, resulting in civilian deaths and suffering.”
An exceptional feature of the fighting in the area is that some of it has taken place around entrances to disused salt mine tunnels which run for some 200 kilometres (120 miles) underneath the area, the UK ministry of defence noted Tuesday in its intelligence report.
“Both sides are likely concerned that (the tunnels) could be used for infiltration behind their lines,” it said.
12:12pm: EU to impose new sanctions on Belarus for supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine
The European Union will impose new sanctions on Belarus as it keeps up the pressure on Russia to end its war in Ukraine and extends measures to those countries that support Moscow, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday.
"We will keep pressure on the Kremlin for as long as it takes with a biting sanctions regime, we will extend these sanctions to those who militarily support Russia's war such as Belarus or Iran," von der Leyen said at a news conference.
"And we will be coming forward with new sanctions against Belarus answering their role in this Russian war in Ukraine."
11:06am: Wagner Group chief says Ukrainian forces fighting hard to defend Soledar
The Russian mercenary Wagner Group said on Tuesday it was fighting "heavy, bloody battles" for control of the town of Soledar as part of Russia's months-long offensive to capture Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.
"On the western outskirts of Soledar there are heavy bloody battles. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are honourably defending the territory of Soledar," Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on social media.
The Kremlin-linked businessman, who has been hit with Western sanctions, also dismissed allegations that Ukrainian forces were deserting front lines en masse in Soledar.
"Let's be honest with ourselves. The Ukrainian army is bravely fighting for Bakhmut and Soledar. Reports of their mass desertion are not true," Prigozhin said, cited by his press office on Telegram.
Soledar is around 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the war-battered city of Bakhmut, which has become the focus of fighting in recent months.
The capture of Bakhmut – a city with a pre-war population of 70,000 – is now one of Moscow's main military objectives almost a year into its Ukraine mission.
A Russian proxy official in Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, said on Tuesday on Russian state television that Soledar was "very close to liberation" by Moscow's forces.
He admitted that this came "at a very high price" and said Ukrainian forces were "still resisting".
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his late night address on Monday that his troops were withstanding "new and even tougher assaults" on Soledar.
He said the town had been flattened by the fighting. "Everything is completely destroyed," he said.
11:02am: Russia appoints new chief of staff of ground forces
Russia has appointed Colonel-General Alexander Lapin as chief of staff of the country's ground forces, state-owned news agency TASS reported on Tuesday, despite fierce criticism from leading hawks over his performance in Ukraine.
Lapin, previously commander of Russia's central military district, was blasted last October by hawkish allies of President Vladimir Putin after Russian forces were driven out of the city of Lyman in eastern Ukraine, a key logistics hub.
His appointment follows other sweeping changes to Russia's military leadership in the course of the 11-month war, in which Moscow's forces have seized large areas of south and eastern Ukraine but suffered a series of painful defeats and retreats.
On October 8, Russia named Air Force General Sergei Surovikin as the overall commander of its forces in Ukraine, shortly after the reported sacking of the commanders of the Eastern and Western military districts.
In August, the state-owned RIA news agency reported that the commander of the Black Sea Fleet had been fired after a series of humiliations including the sinking of its flagship and the loss of eight warplanes in an attack on a Russian base in Crimea.
After Russia lost Lyman in October, Lapin drew savage public criticism from Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, who have both sent units to Ukraine to bolster the efforts of the regular army.
10:54am: Russian warship held air defence exercise in Norwegian Sea, Moscow says
A Russian warship armed with hypersonic cruise weapons has held exercises in the Norwegian Sea, Moscow’s defence ministry said on Tuesday.
"The crew of the frigate 'Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov' conducted an air defence exercise in the Norwegian Sea," the ministry said.
"The crew ... conducted an exercise to repel the means of an air attack of a simulated enemy in the Norwegian Sea."
Last week, President Vladimir Putin sent the frigate to the Atlantic Ocean armed with new generation hypersonic cruise missiles. Russia says the Zircon missiles fly at nine times the speed of sound and have a range of over 1,000 kilometres (620 miles).
Moscow sees the weapons as a way to pierce increasingly sophisticated US missile defences.
10:49am: Russian forces probably control most of east Ukraine town Soledar, UK defence ministry says
Russian forces, including from the mercenary Wagner Group, are probably in control of most of the small town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine after tactical advances in the last four days, the British defence ministry said in a regular intelligence update on Tuesday.
Officials in Kyiv have said Moscow stepped up a powerful assault on Soledar in the industrial Donbas region, forcing Ukrainian troops to repel waves of attacks led by Wagner Group fighters around the salt mining town and nearby fronts.
Soledar is a few miles from the city of Bakhmut, where troops on both sides have suffered heavy losses in some of the most intense trench warfare since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago.
"Russia’s Soledar axis is highly likely an effort to envelop Bakhmut from the north, and to disrupt Ukrainian lines of communication," Britain added in its intelligence update.
10:30pm, January 9: Zelensky says defence of Soledar has helped Ukraine win time
President Volodymyr Zelensky has praised the resilience of Ukrainian forces fighting off waves of attacks in the eastern region of Donbas, saying they helped the country win time and gain strength.
"Thanks to the resilience of our soldiers in Soledar, we have won for Ukraine additional time and additional strength for Ukraine," Zelensky said in his nightly video address, referring to a mining town in the eastern Donbas.
Ukrainian military reports say the country's troops are withstanding heavy attacks by Russian forces redeployed in Soledar, near the city of Bakhmut, which Moscow has been trying to capture for months.
Zelensky did not spell out what he meant by gaining time and strength, but Ukrainian officials and senior officers have warned that Russia is planning a new major offensive in the coming months.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
