VLADIMIR Putin's Russian forces claim to have taken control of Ukrainian city Soledar in their first breakthrough in six months, the Ministry of Defence claims.
The city has witnessed heavy fighting for days as Ukrainian forces desperately battled to keep control.
"The capture of Soledar was made possible by the constant bombardment of the enemy by assault and army aviation, missile forces and artillery of a grouping of Russian forces," the ministry said.
Yesterday a Russian-installed local politician has said: “At the moment, there are still some small pockets of resistance in Soledar."
It comes days after Putin sacked a top military commander, a clear sign of "acknowledgement that the campaign is falling short of Russia’s strategic goals", the UK's ministry claimed.
Read our Ukraine war blog below for the latest news…
Russian foreign ministry official Aleksey Polishchuk warned Belarus might enter the war in Ukraine if Kyiv invades either Belarus or Russia.
Moscow used Belarus as a staging ground to launch its invasion of Ukraine in February, and has deployed troops there for joint military drills.
Speaking with state-owned Russian news agency TASS, Polishchuk said: "From a legal point of view, the use of military force by the Kyiv regime or the invasion of the territory of Belarus or Russia by the armed forces of Ukraine are sufficient grounds for a collective response."
Putin appeared in pain as he repeatedly rubbed his hand while blasting his deputy prime minister over Russia’s humiliation in Ukraine.
Rumours have persisted that Putin, 70, is “critically ill” and has been receiving treatment for cancer.
Bombshell spy documents leaked to The Sun appeared to confirm he has pancreatic cancer and early-stage Parkinson’s disease.
Fresh footage issued by the Kremlin shows the tyrant constantly rubbing the back of his right hand during a virtual meeting with Russian government officials.
A Russian official installed in Donetsk admitted there was still resistance in Soledar, following claims Russia had control of the town.
Deputy of the Donetsk People’s Republic’s parliament, Andrey Baevsky, told Russian state media: "At the moment, indeed, there are still separate small pockets of resistance in Soledar, [but] our guys continue to crush the enemy in these places.
"In general, the operation developed successfully and the western outskirts of Soledar are already completely under our control."
Russian forces took control of the Ukrainian salt-mining town of Soledar on Thursday, according to Russia’s defence ministry.
Soledar is in Donetsk, one of four Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Russia in September.
Russian Defence Ministry's spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said: "The liberation of the town of Soledar was completed in the evening of January 12."
The claim has not yet been independently verified.
In a statement today, French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu said France hopes to deliver AMX 10-RC light combat tanks to Ukraine in the next two months.
AMX 10-RC tanks are armoured reconnaissance vehicles with high mobility, which carry up to four people.
The US and Germany also said they would send armoured vehicles, with the US providing Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and Germany supplying Marder infantry fighting vehicles.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has released its latest intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine.
MoD tweeted: "The Russian defence manufacturing sector is highly likely resorting to using convict labour in an effort to meet war-time production demands.
"In November 2022, Uralvagonzavod (UVZ), Russia’s largest tank manufacturer, told local media that it would employ 250 prisoners after meeting with the Federal Penal Service (FSIN).
"There is a long tradition of prison labour in Russia, but since 2017 forced labour as a specific criminal punishment was reintroduced.
"With one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world, FSIN oversees a sprawling empire of over 400,000 inmates and has frequently been accused of extreme brutality and corruption.
"The prison population provides a unique human resource to Russian leaders to utilise in support of the ‘special military operation’ while willing volunteers remain in short supply.
"Convict labour will likely be particularly in demand from manufacturers of relatively low-tech weaponry such as UVZ, which are almost certainly under intense pressure from Moscow to increase their production."
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 13 January 2023
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/Jr7a7koW8O
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/s9NzHapWmK
Finnish President Sauli Niinisto was quoted yesterday saying Finland could donate a small number of German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, as long as other European nations did the same.
Finland would only be able to provide a small number of tanks as they are required to protect its border with Russia, the president told Finnish news agency STT.
Niinisto said: "If tanks would be sent, that is why Finland's offering could not be very numerous."
A Kremlin spokesperson has denied claims that Russia has information on two British nationals missing in Ukraine.
“We know from media reports that we are talking about British citizens who were militants, took part in the hostilities with weapons in their hands. It appears that documents were found on the battlefield,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
The two men, Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Parry, reportedly travelled to Ukraine to help the humanitarian effort.
The Kremlin said it “does not have information” on the two men.
Putin has suffered more humiliation as his forces lost over 700 troops within the past 24 hours.
The increase of deaths compared to recent days will have come from the heavy fighting in Soledar.
These are the indicative estimates of Russia’s combat losses as of Jan. 13, according to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/7aYftsNsRm
In an update posted on the Telegram messaging app, Hanna Malyar said: "The night in Soledar was hot, battles continued.
"The enemy threw almost all the main forces in the direction of Donetsk and maintains a high intensity of offensive."
She added: "Our fighters are bravely trying to maintain the defence."
"This is a difficult phase of the war, but we will win. There is no doubt."
Ukrainian civilians remain trapped in the small town of Soledar, as Putin's forces continue their bombardment.
The town, which is around 10 miles outside of Bakhmut, has been subject to huge clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces in recent days.
According to Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of Donetsk, 559 civilians, including 15 children, remain trapped in the devastated town as Putin's forces advance.
Ukrainian officials claimed the country's troops are "holding on", despite reports of over 91 missile strikes in the last day.
“Fighting is fierce in the Soledar direction. [The Russians] are moving over their own corpses,” Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said on Thursday.
Monitoring organisation Action on Armed Violence (AOVA) revealed that civilian casualties from explosive weapons spiked by 83% as a cause of the Ukraine war.
A number of 20,776 civilians were killed and injured, recording the highest number in four years since 2018.
Ukraine recorded 10,381 casualties alone, however, The Guardian claims that this number is underestimated as media reports only cover serious incidents.
The UN figures showed 6,919 killed in Ukraine and another 11,075 injured, adding the number of casualties up to 17,994.
Former intelligence officer, Philip Ingram has claimed that Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin is a "potential successor" of Vladimir Putin.
Speaking to Sky News he said: "He's been – not replaced, but somebody has been put in above him, and that's Gerasimov. Now, Gerasimov… is the equivalent of the chief of the defence staff in UK terms.
"He's a big Putin ally, he's been in a planning role – a major role since the planning of the Chechen Wars of 1999 and again instrumental in the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and this special military operation.
"Surovikin, who was the commander of all the operations in Ukraine, has been demoted to one of three of his deputies.
"But then there's a wild card in all of this, and the wild card is Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is the head of the Wagner operation. It's his troops that are involved in all the fighting that we're hearing about around Bakhmut and Soledar.
"But he has got a direct link to Vladimir Putin. He should, strictly speaking, be working under the military chain of command but he seems to do his own thing.
"He's taking over in so many different areas. He's also reportedly a potential successor to Putin should that come in – and he's been openly critical of both [defence minister] Sergei Shoigu and Gerasimov."
Fighting continues to rage on in Soledar as Russian and Ukrainian forces continue to battle for the city.
Andrei Bayevsky, a Russian-installed local politician has said: "At the moment, there are still some small pockets of resistance in Soledar.
"Our guys continue to push the enemy in these places. In general, the operation has been going well, and already the western outskirts of Soledar are completely under our control."
Putin appeared in pain as he repeatedly rubbed his hand while blasting his deputy prime minister over Russia's humiliation in Ukraine.
Rumours have persisted that Putin, 70, is "critically ill" and has been receiving treatment for cancer.
Bombshell spy documents leaked to The Sun appeared to confirm he has pancreatic cancer and early-stage Parkinson's disease.
Fresh footage issued by the Kremlin shows the tyrant constantly rubbing the back of his right hand during a virtual meeting with Russian government officials.
Ukrainian police said the two left the city of Kramatorsk for the town of Soledar on Friday morning and were reported missing on Saturday evening after contact with them was lost.
A British Foreign Office spokesman said: "We are supporting the families of two British men who have gone missing in Ukraine.
"We are aware of recent reports and are in touch with the Ukrainian authorities."
Ukraine claims that over 100 Russian soldiers have been killed in a single missile strike.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russian private military firm Wagner and a close ally of Vladimir Putin, said his forces had captured all of Soledar.
The Ukrainian military, however, insisted the battle was not over.
On Thursday, Ukraine said it had used a Soviet-era Tochka-U missile to blast and kill a group of more than 100 Russian soliders after they were spotted with a drone.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said: "Over a hundred Russian occupiers were eliminated in the Soledar area."
Russia have imposed sanctions against 36 British citizens, the BBC Russian service have reported.
The sanctions have been imposed on members of the UK government, members of security and law enforcement agencies and journalists.
The Foreign Ministry said the move was down to “the anti-Russian course of the British government, which continues to actively apply the mechanism of personal sanctions and conducts an intensive propaganda campaign to discredit our country and isolate it in the international arena”.
In his nightly address, Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Poland and Lithuania for their continued support.
He said: "Important news for Ukraine was announced during the Summit of the Lublin Triangle, our special format with Poland and Lithuania. Poland has decided to provide tanks for Ukraine – I am grateful for this. I thank President Duda, the Government of Poland, all our Polish friends.
"Lithuania provides anti-aircraft systems to our country – the weapons we need to protect ourselves from Iranian drones – to protect our energy sector.
"I thank Gitanas for another demonstration of unwavering and principled support for Ukraine, which began even before February 24 and will continue until our victory."
The Ministry have claimed that Russia have "allocated elements of the 76th Guards Air Landing Division" to reinforce the Kremina front line.
The Ministry Tweeted: "Over the last two days, heavy fighting has continued both around the town of Soledar, Donetsk Oblast, and on the approaches to Kremina, Luhansk Oblast.
"Since the start of January 2023, Russia has almost certainly allocated elements of the 76th Guards Air Landing Division of the VDV (airborne forces) to reinforce the Kremina front line after assessing the sector was significantly vulnerable.
"Until November 2022, Russia committed almost the whole of the deployable VDV as long-term, ground-holding troops along the front line in the Kherson area.
"Now redeployed to the Donbas and southern Ukraine, commanders are likely attempting to employ VDV more in line with their supposed doctrinal role as a relatively elite rapid reaction force."
The Telegram channel for Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed on Wednesday: ”On January 8, the Ask Wagner hotline received a request to find two British citizens who disappeared on January 6 in Soledar – Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Parry.
"Today the body of one of them was found. Documents on both Britons were found with him.”
The Russian mercenary group, Wagner, have claimed they had found a body of one of two British aid workers that went missing.
The foreign office said it was supporting the families of Andrew Bagshaw, 48, and Chris Parry, 28, however they have not confirmed the claim.
A Kremlin spokesperson has denied claims that Russia has information on two British nationals missing in Ukraine.
“We know from media reports that we are talking about British citizens who were militants, took part in the hostilities with weapons in their hands. It appears that documents were found on the battlefield,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
The two men, Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Parry, reportedly travelled to Ukraine to help the humanitarian effort.
The Kremlin said it “does not have information” on the two men.
Throughout Thursday, President Zelensky held talks with a series of world leaders.
Taking to Twitter the steadfast Ukrainian said he had a "fruitfull" conversation with Kenya's William Samoei Ruto.
Mr Zelensky also spoke with Luxembourg's Xavier Bettel as he looks to secure further international support for Ukraine.
Ukraine has made its first advance in the town of Soledar for a number of days.
The Ukrainian military revealed today that it has conducted a counter attack in the small town, regaining a series of key points.
“After several days of pulling back, we've even made a small advance,” Ukraine's 46th Airmobile Brigade revealed on Telegram.
“The railway station is ours. The mine is ours. We are waiting for support. Soledar is Ukraine.”
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