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.
Michael Kofman, the director of the Russia studies programme at the CNA thinktank, has posted a series of tweets in which he discusses his thoughts on the current course of the war in Ukraine.
He writes that the Russian military was at its most vulnerable going into the winter, after its retreat from Kharkiv in September and Kherson in November.
Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilisation has since “helped stabilize Russian lines, raise manning levels, and establish reserves”, he says. “Consequently, Ukraine no longer enjoys a significant manpower advantage.”
Since October, Moscow has “likely doubled the force deployed in Ukraine, and significantly reduced the length of the front being defended after retreating from Kherson”, Kofman continues, adding that he estimates that there may be another 150,000 mobilised personnel still in Russia.
How strong the Russian defensive lines are in practice has yet to be truly tested. RU has manpower in quantity now & continues to pull equipment out of storage, but force quality appears relatively low. This limits offensive potential & force employment options. 7/
— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) February 6, 2023
He writes that the situation around Bakhmut “increasingly looks precarious” for Ukraine, and that he “wouldn’t be surprised if they ultimately withdraw from the city”.
He adds:
However, UA has strong defensive lines outside Slovyansk/Kramatorsk while RU looks ill positioned to sustain momentum.
Having lost Izyum and Lyman, RU has no supporting axis of attack into Donetsk from the north, nor have their forces been able to make breakthroughs in the south of Donetsk. Hence gaining Bakhmut, in my view, offers opportunities for RU that they're not positioned to exploit. 12/
— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) February 6, 2023
The battle for the town of Kreminna in northern Luhansk is arguably more significant than Bakhmut, Kofman says, because Kreminna “is a gateway to Rubizhne”.
UA had made progress at Kreminna and Svatove, though now under counter-attack by the VDV's 76th GAAD. Kreminna is a gateway to Rubizhne. For UA, a breakthrough the Svatove-Kreminna line can eventually lead to the RU logistical hub of Starobilsk. 14/
— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) February 6, 2023
Kofman goes on to say that he is “sceptical” that Russian forces will attempt a much larger scope offensive involving the cities of Kharkiv, Sumy and Kyiv, and that he believes Russia’s primary goal is Donbas.
How large of a RU offensive to expect is unclear, but I suspect it may prove underwhelming, focused largely on the Donbas. RU may not need another large mobilization wave, and instead could keep mobilization quietly rolling at a sustainable rate. 20/
— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) February 6, 2023
He ends his thread by saying:
In general [Ukraine’s army] is still advantaged going into 2023, backed by countries with much greater GDP and defense industrial capacity. However, that depends on sustainability of external material support, and in the end potential is not predictive of outcomes.
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.
Its finance ministry said budget revenue in January was 35% lower compared with last January, and that the budget deficit in January was 1.77tr roubles – about 60% of the shortfall that had been planned for the entire year.
Despite being the worst start to the year since at least 1998, the ministry said it remains on track to meet budget targets this year.
Updated
UN chief warns of 'growing' chances of further escalation in Ukraine
The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, has warned the world is walking into a “wider war” over Ukraine during a speech presenting his 2023 priorities.
Addressing the UN general assembly just weeks before the first anniversary of Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine, Guterres described the war as “inflicting untold suffering on the Ukrainian people, with profound global implications”.
He said:
The prospects for peace keep diminishing. The chances of further escalation and bloodshed keep growing. I fear the world is not sleepwalking into a wider war. I fear it is doing so with its eyes wide open.
Patriarch Kirill ‘was a KGB spy in Switzerland’ – reports
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, worked for Soviet intelligence while living in Switzerland in the 1970s, according to reports.
Citing declassified archives, Swiss newspapers SonntagsZeitung and Le Matin Dimanche reported that a Swiss police file “confirms that ‘Monsignor Kirill’, as he is referred to in this document, worked for the KGB”.
The papers said they had gained access to the file in the Swiss national archives.
Kirill, leader of Russia’s dominant religious group, lived in Geneva in the early 1970s, officially as a representative of the Russian Orthodox church at the World Council of Churches (WCC).
Under the code name “Mikhailov”, Kirill’s mission was to influence the council, already infiltrated by the KGB, the papers reported.
The Soviet objective was to push the council to denounce the US and its allies, and to tone down its criticism of the lack of religious freedoms in the Soviet Union, the archives show.
Updated
My colleague Dan Sabbagh is in Donbas in eastern Ukraine, where the power is out and temperatures are below zero.
Arrived in Donbas on assignment. It's -3C and the power's out for at least another hour. Ukrainians have to live with this every day. pic.twitter.com/JJ7gU1esJD
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) February 6, 2023
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russia’s Wagner group of mercenaries, has challenged Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to a dogfight for Bakhmut.
Prigozhin, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, published a video of himself in the cockpit of a military aircraft, saying:
Volodymyr Oleksandrovych [Zelenskiy], we have landed. We have bombed Bakhmut.
Tomorrow, I will fly a MiG-29. If you so desire, let’s meet in the skies. If you win, you take Artyomovsk [Bakhmut]. If not, we advance till [the River] Dnipro.
The short video was released by Prigozhin’s press service, which said it was filmed aboard a Su-24 bomber plane operated by Wagner.
Here are some of the latest images we have received from the frontline in Ukraine.
Updated
Russian forces are attempting to tie down Ukrainian forces with fighting in the eastern Donbas region as Moscow assembles additional troops there for an expected offensive in the coming weeks, perhaps targeting the Luhansk region, Ukraine has said.
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.
Moscow’s forces are located in the Donetsk region, which with neighbouring Luhansk makes up the Donbas region, an industrial area bordering Russia. Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of Donetsk, said:
The battles for the region are heating up. The Russians are throwing new units into the battle and eradicating our towns and villages.
Updated
Russians ‘eradicating towns’ in eastern Donbas as battles heat up
Russian forces are “throwing” new units in the eastern Donbas region ahead of an expected offensive in the coming weeks, according to Ukrainian officials.
Donetsk governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said the battles for the Donetsk region are heating up, adding that Russian forces are “eradicating our towns and villages”.
Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai said shelling there had subsided because “the Russians have been saving ammunition for a large-scale offensive”.
Weeks of intense fighting continue to rage around the city of Bakhmut and the nearby towns of Soledar and Vuhledar, Ukraine’s presidential office said.
Updated
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has tweeted his thanks to the Norwegian government and prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, for announcing a £6bn aid package over five years.
Grateful to the Norwegian people, 🇳🇴 government & personally @jonasgahrstore for announcing a new unprecedented 5-year assistance package to 🇺🇦 for the sum of NOK 75 billion. It is a significant contribution to our future victory over the aggressor & successful post-war recovery.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 6, 2023
A senior Ukrainian official has said no personnel changes will be announced at the defence ministry this week, amid reports that the country’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, may be reshuffled into another government job amid a corruption scandal.
David Arakhamia, head of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s parliamentary bloc, said there would not be an immediate reshuffle.
Posting to Telegram today, he wrote:
There will be no personnel changes in the defence sector this week.
The position of Reznikov, one of Ukraine’s better-known figures internationally, has been under threat after it emerged the defence ministry paid twice or three times the supermarket price of food to supply troops on the frontline.
On Sunday, Arakhamia said the defence ministry would be headed up by Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence. Reznikov, he added, would become minister of strategic industries, tasked with strengthening military-industrial cooperation, after a day of speculation about the defence minister’s future in Kyiv.
After Arakhamia’s statement there was no immediate comment from Reznikov, but earlier he had given a press conference, in which he suggested that his tenure as defence minister may not last much longer.
Updated
As the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches, the world heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk talks about the devastation of war and searching for signs of hope:
The walls were shaking and the dogs were hiding,” Usyk says quietly, a few hours after another wave of Russian bombs hits Kyiv on a mid-winter morning.
The world heavyweight champion is hard at work in his training camp outside the capital as he prepares for his planned unification bout with Tyson Fury in the coming months. But the greedy machinations of boxing matter little when set against the war in Ukraine.
Usyk, who looks lean and fit as he tugs thoughtfully at his close-cropped beard, wears a pristine white T-shirt. A beautiful black and white photograph of Muhammad Ali is printed on the front. The old promise of “float like a butterfly” ripples below the photo and Usyk grins while Ali dances across my Zoom screen. A friend gave him the shirt for his 36th birthday on 17 January, but a Ukrainian flag, signed with messages for the champion by soldiers on the frontline, hangs behind him in a reminder that he is on the edge of a war zone.
“I am outside Kyiv but my wife and my kids felt the attack this morning,” he says of the heavy shelling. “But, thank God, everything is fine with the family.”
Usyk used to be a joker, playing pranks in the gym and peppering interviews with quips, but he now carries the gravity of a country under siege. He leans forward, his head almost touching the screen, when I suggest it must be hard being away from his family when Kyiv is bombarded again.
“It’s not that difficult,” he says calmly.
The anxiety starts but people are prepared. They’re all thinking: ‘These dogs launched bombs or started shooting at us again.’ They are used to it so our people live with it. They go down into the bomb shelters where they can be safe.
Updated
Germany 'expects to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine soon'
Germany expects that it will soon have sufficient commitments from other EU countries to send Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, a German government spokesperson said.
Berlin has promised 14 of its own Leopard 2A6 tanks for Ukraine’s war effort, and has given partner countries permission to re-export further battle tanks to Kyiv. It hopes to assemble two full battalions of Leopard tanks in cooperation with other EU countries.
“Germany’s commitment stands,” the government spokesperson Wolfgang Büchner said today. He did not name any specific countries that had so far committed to sending the German-made tanks.
Updated
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”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief is working to set up a safe zone around the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Grossi said he worried the world was becoming complacent about the considerable dangers posed by the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest, which has repeatedly come under fire in recent months.
Updated
The EU is preparing to host Volodymyr Zelenskiy at a summit in Brussels this week, according to a report.
The Ukrainian leader is also expected to address a special session of the European parliament, the Financial Times writes, citing people briefed on the plans.
The proposed plan is subject to security concerns that risk derailing Zelenskiy’s trip, the paper says.
It comes after Ukraine’s president hosted a summit with senior EU officials including the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the head of the European Council, Charles Michel.
Asked about the prospect of a visit to Brussels on Friday, Zelenskiy told reporters:
Frankly speaking, there are big risks if I go somewhere. This is true.
Updated
Norway to send £6bn aid to Ukraine over five years
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.
Speaking at a news conference after meeting opposition leaders, Støre said:
We aim to secure a unified agreement on this in parliament.
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.
The wealthy Scandinavian country’s oil and gas revenues have soared to record levels over the past 12 months as energy prices tripled after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Norway replaced Russia as Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas.
Støre has previously dismissed any suggestion that the country was profiteering from the war. “It’s a notion I flatly refuse,” Støre said last week, adding that a major “multi-year support package” would be announced in the coming days.
Norway should also give 5bn kroner extra this year in aid to poor countries suffering from soaring global food prices in the wake of the Ukraine war, Støre said today.
Hello everyone. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here, taking over from Kevin Rawlinson to bring you the latest news from the Russia-Ukraine war. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
Updated
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.
Humanitarian groups have warned that attacks in the coldest winter months can “devastate” civilian lives, limiting access to energy and water to vulnerable groups such as displaced people and elderly people.
Antonio Voce, Ashley Kirk, Isobel Koshiw and Lucy Swan write:
Updated
Delays to German plan to assemble two battalions of Leopard 2 tanks
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, as 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.
Other states appear to be prevaricating over whether to contribute as they consider the gaps the donated tanks would leave in their own defence.
The Netherlands, which doesn’t own any Leopards but leases 18 of the tanks from Germany, last said a decision to donate some of them to Ukraine had not yet been made, “but we certainly do not rule it out”.
Sweden has yet to reach a decision on the issue as its own Nato application hangs in a precarious balance due to Turkey’s ongoing threat of a veto. Finland, meanwhile, has decided that it needs its Leopards to defend its own border with Russia, German magazine Der Spiegel claimed over the weekend.
Leaders in Oslo announced a week ago that Norway would donate some of its older Leopard 2A4 tanks, which it wants to replace with 54 new German-made Leopard 2 tanks from manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.
Slow decision-making processes in various European capitals have been pounced on in Berlin, where the government was for weeks painted as the main roadblock to further military support for Ukraine.
Updated
In the past year, about 200,000 Russians have fled their homeland for Serbia; a nation that retains close ties to Moscow but that has nevertheless condemned the invasion of Ukraine.
The AP reports that the Slavic country is Moscow’s closest European ally, with historic, religious and cultural ties that are bolstered by Kremlin political influence campaigns. Russia backs Serbia’s claim over its former province of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008 with western support. And Serbia has refused to impose sanctions on Moscow over the invasion.
At the same time, Serbia wants to join the European Union. Its populist president, Aleksandar Vučić, has denounced the invasion, and about 200,000 Russians have flooded into the country in the past year, with many seeking a new life in a brotherly land free of Kremlin oppression. Anastasia Demidova, who arrived in the Balkan nation from Moscow three months ago, told the news agency:
Here in Belgrade, we are not perceived with hostility, and that means a lot. I’ve been talking to a lot of Serbian people here and other foreigners. When they ask me ‘what are you doing here,’ I say: ‘We are against Putin and for a democratic Russia and we are against the war in Ukraine, obviously.
Others say they fled to avoid being drafted or because western sanctions crippled their businesses or took away their jobs. But they are maintaining links to their homeland, including financial ties, said the historian Aleksej Timofejev. Unlike their predecessors in the early 20th century, he said, they can’t go onward to the west because of the sanctions and still need visas to travel to richer countries in Europe.
They did not choose this country but came here because it is the only one that would have them.
Updated
Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Monday that he discussed the New Start nuclear arms control treaty with new US ambassador Lynne Tracy last week, Reuters is citing the Interfax news agency as reporting.
He added that Russia was committed to the treaty but that no date had been set for new talks, citing the conflict in Ukraine.
Talks between Moscow and Washington on the New Start treaty were scheduled for last November but were called off at the last moment.
Updated
Canadian defence minister Anita Anand has shared an image of the first Canadian-donated Leopard tank arriving in Poland.
“The first Canadian Leopard 2 main battle tank that we’ve donated to Ukraine has now arrived in Poland,” Anand said.
“Alongside our allies, we’ll soon be training the armed forces of Ukraine in the use of this equipment.”
The first Canadian Leopard 2 main battle tank that we've donated to Ukraine has now arrived in Poland. Alongside our allies, we’ll soon be training the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the use of this equipment.
— Anita Anand (@AnitaAnandMP) February 6, 2023
Canada will continue to #StandWithUkraine. 🇨🇦🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/ylO6rQaJWb
Ukrainian presidential advisor Anton Gerashchenko has shared a video of Ukrainian soldiers recently released from Russian captivity.
In the footage, one of the men claims to have been held for eight months while another says he is eating fruit for the first time in a year.
Ukrainian Defenders right after they were free from Russian captivity. Their first words and emotions.
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) February 6, 2023
📹: Coordination Center on Prisoners of War pic.twitter.com/OjQBe3nX6C
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said that his country is ready to provide necessary assistance to Turkey in the aftermath of the earthquake that struck the country earlier on Monday.
Shocked by the news about the death and injury of hundreds of people as a result of the earthquake in Turkey,” Zelenskiy tweeted.
I extend my condolences to the President Erdoğan , the people of Turkey and the families of those who lost their lives in the earthquake in Turkey and wish a speedy recovery to all the injured. We stand with the people of Turkey in this difficult time. We are ready to provide the necessary assistance to overcome the consequences of the disaster.”
Cumhurbaşkanı @RTErdogan'a, 🇹🇷 halkına ve 🇹🇷'deki depremde hayatını kaybedenlerin ailelerine başsağlığı dileklerimi iletiyor tüm yaralılara acil şifalar diliyorum. Bu zor zamanda 🇹🇷 halkının yanındayız. Afetin sonuçlarının üstesinden gelmek için gerekli yardımı sağlamaya hazırız.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 6, 2023
Updated
Ukraine’s defence minister to be moved from post
Ukraine’s defence minister, under pressure from a corruption scandal, is to be reshuffled into another government job, a close ally of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced late on Sunday.
Oleksii Reznikov is the latest top Ukrainian official to be replaced in a clamp down on corruption. He will reportedly be replaced by Kyrylo Budanov, chief of the GUR military intelligence agency.
One of Ukraine’s better-known figures internationally, Reznikov’s position has been under threat after it emerged the defence ministry paid twice or three times the supermarket price of food to supply troops on the frontline.
On Sunday night, David Arakhamia, chief of Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People parliamentary bloc, said Reznikov would become minister of strategic industries, tasked with strengthening military-industrial cooperation, after a day of speculation about the defence minister’s future in Kyiv.
War dictates changes in personnel policy,” Arakhamia said on his Telegram channel. “Times and circumstances require strengthening and regrouping. This is what is happening now and will happen in the future”
After Arakhamia’s statement there was no immediate comment from Reznikov, but earlier he had given a press conference, in which he suggested that his tenure as defence minister may not last much longer.
No one is in the chair for his whole life,” Reznikov had said earlier on Sunday amid speculation that he would be forced to resign or be reshuffled, and stressed that his position as defence minister “was up to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine in accordance with the constitution”.
Summary and welcome
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments as they unfold over the next hour.
Ukraine’s defence minister, under pressure from a corruption scandal, is to be reshuffled into another government job, a close ally of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has announced.
Oleksii Reznikov is the latest top Ukrainian official to be replaced in a clampdown on corruption. He will reportedly be replaced by Kyrylo Budanov, chief of the GUR military intelligence agency.
On the battlefield, fierce battles are being fought in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Zelenskiy described the fighting as “very difficult” in his latest address and reiterated the possibility of a Russian offensive this month.
If you have just joined us, here are all the latest developments:
Ukraine’s defence minister, under pressure from a corruption scandal, is to be reshuffled into another government job, a close ally of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has announced. Oleksii Reznikov will be replaced by Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence. His position had been under threat after it emerged the defence ministry paid twice or three times the supermarket price of food to supply troops on the frontline.
Ukraine is bracing for a possible Russian offensive this month before the first anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine. “There are already many reports that the occupiers want to do something symbolic in February to try to avenge their last year’s defeats,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his Sunday night address. “We see this increased pressure in various areas of the frontline, as well as pressure in the information field.”
Kyiv has the reserves to hold back Moscow’s forces even though the latest western military supplies will not all arrive in time, Reznikov, has claimed. “Not all of the western weaponry will arrive in time. But we are ready. We have created our resources and reserves, which we are able to deploy and with which we are able to hold back the attack.” Reznikov added that the attack would be for “symbolic” reasons but its resources were not ready from a military point of view. “Despite everything, we expect a possible Russian offensive in February. This is only from the point of view of symbolism; it’s not logical from a military view. Because not all of their resources are ready. But they’re doing it anyway,” he said.
Russia is gradually stepping up its attacks and closing in on the eastern city of Bakhmut amid heavy fighting. Reznikov claimed that Moscow was losing “500 killed and wounded every day in Bakhmut” – a figure that it is not possible to verify. Britain’s Ministry of Defence said Bakhmut was becoming “increasingly isolated”, in its latest intelligence assessment which noted that Russia now had the two main roads into the city under threat from direct artillery fire, making it harder to supply the defending forces into the town.
Iran and Russia are looking to build a factory in Russia that could supply more than 6,000 Iranian-designed drones for the war in Ukraine, according to reports. The Wall Street Journal claimed that the two governments are moving ahead with plans, and that an Iranian delegation went to Russia in January to visit the planned site.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Iraq on Sunday for talks on energy and food security in view of the Ukraine conflict, an Iraqi foreign ministry spokesperson said. Lavrov will also visit Mali this week, in a trip that the west African country’s government says will strengthen defence and security ties. It will be the first time a Russian foreign minister has visited Mali, and is part of a push by Moscow to extend its influence over countries in Africa.
The EU-imposed ban on Russian seaborne oil products will come into force on Monday. The 27-nation bloc is banning Russian refined oil products such as diesel fuel and joining the US and other allies in imposing a price cap on sales to non-western countries. A ban on Russian seaborne crude came into force on 5 December and the extension to oil products will mean that 70% of Russian energy exports will now be subject to sanction. Oil products represent a third of Russian oil exports.
Updated
