Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where things stand:
Russian forces are attempting to tie down Ukrainian forces with fighting in the eastern Donbas region, Ukraine has said. Moscow is reportedly assembling additional troops there for an expected offensive in the coming weeks, perhaps targeting the Luhansk region. “The battles for the region are heating up,” said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of Donetsk. In Luhansk, fellow governor Serhiy Haidai said shelling there had subsided because “the Russians have been saving ammunition for a large-scale offensive”.
Weeks of intense fighting continued to rage around the city of Bakhmut and the nearby towns of Soledar and Vuhledar, Ukraine’s presidential office said. The UK’s Ministry of Defence said Russia was continuing to make small advances in its efforts to encircle the Donbas city of Bakhmut. “While multiple alternative cross-country supply routes remain available to Ukrainian forces, Bakhmut is increasingly isolated,” the ministry said on Twitter.
The western area of the Luhansk region is likely to be the focus of any new Russian offensive, Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, who has been tipped to take over the Ministry of Defence, has said. In an interview with the Financial Times, he said that offensive would most likely be launched by “proper mechanised brigades” rather than the ill-trained reservists and Wagner mercenaries who have been suffering heavy casualties in recent battles.
Ukraine has faced temperatures as low as -20C this winter, at the same time as dealing with a humanitarian crisis as Russia hits key civilian infrastructure, analysis has shown. Areas in Dnipro, Donetsk and Kharkiv are particularly vulnerable, according to research. Some areas are housing tens of thousands of displaced people through the winter, at the same time as crucial infrastructure – including energy and housing – is being targeted by Russian missiles and artillery.
Any replacement of Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, will not take place this week, David Arakhamia, who is the head of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s party, said on Monday. “We are waiting for the appointment of the heads of the ministry of internal affairs and security service of Ukraine,” he wrote on social media. On Sunday evening, Arakhamia said Kyrylo Budanov would replace Reznikov as defence minister. The announcement came after a large-scale corruption scandal in the defence ministry.
The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, has warned the world is walking into a “wider war” over Ukraine. Addressing the UN general assembly just weeks before the first anniversary of Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine, Guterres said: “The prospects for peace keep diminishing. The chances of further escalation and bloodshed keep growing.”
The EU’s legislature is preparing plans to host Volodymyr Zelenskiy should he decide to come to Brussels to attend an EU summit later this week, according to reports. The Ukrainian leader is expected to address a special session of the European parliament, the Financial Times writes, adding that the proposed plan is subject to security concerns that risk derailing Zelenskiy’s trip.
Germany’s plan to quickly assemble two battalions of Leopard 2 tanks from European allies and send them to Ukraine is progressing slower than expected. Several states have yet to decide whether they can spare vehicles from their own stocks. In Europe, other than Berlin, only Poland and Portugal have so far made concrete promises to contribute Leopard 2 tanks. Ukrainian soldiers are supposed to start being trained on Leopard 2 tanks in Germany and Poland from this week. “Germany’s commitment stands,” the government spokesperson Wolfgang Büchner said on Monday.
Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, has proposed his country should provide some 75bn Norwegian kroner (£6.1 bn) in aid to Ukraine over five years. Half of the aid in 2023 will fund Kyiv’s military requirements while the rest will go to humanitarian needs, although this split could change in coming years, he said. The announcement comes after Støre’s government came under pressure to increase support for Ukraine, after earning billions in extra oil and gas revenue from Russia’s war.
Canada’s defence minister, Anita Anand, shared an image of the first Canadian-donated Leopard tank arriving in Poland. “Alongside our allies, we’ll soon be training the armed forces of Ukraine in the use of this equipment,” she tweeted.
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, will not be meeting President Vladimir Putin during his visit to Moscow this week, the Kremlin has said. Grossi is expected to meet officials from the Russian state nuclear energy firm Rosatom and the foreign ministry, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Moscow expected a “substantive dialogue”.
Russia’s oil and gas revenues plunged 46% in January, compared with the same month in 2022, under the impact of the price cap on oil exports imposed by western allies over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s finance ministry said budget revenue in January was 35% lower compared with the same month in 2022, the last month before Russia sent troops into Ukraine.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, worked for Soviet intelligence while living in Switzerland in the 1970s, Swiss newspapers have reported, citing declassified archives. Under the code name “Mikhailov” and officially in Geneva as a representative of the Russian Orthodox church at the World Council of Churches (WCC), Kirill’s mission was to influence the council and push it to denounce the US and its allies, the papers reported.
Ukraine’s main Catholic church has said it will move to a new calendar that would see Christmas celebrated on 25 December, rather than 7 January, as part of Kyiv’s efforts to break cultural links to Russia.
The move by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) was welcomed by culture minister Oleksandr Tkachenko, who posted to social media:
This decision is appropriate to the demands of our time and public opinion.
