Wagner claims it has captured strategic village near Bakhmut

Russia’s Wagner mercenary group claimed on Sunday it had captured a strategically important town near Bakhmut, where Russian forces have launched a renewed assault.

Both sides regard Bakhmut and its neighbouring villages as critical to victory on the Eastern front, and seven months of near-continuous fighting has turned the town and its surrounding rolling countryside into a war-scarred hellscape.

New video from the village of Soledar near Bakhmut, which is famed for its cavernous salt mines, shows the near-total destruction of every building and road.

Wagner Group claimed it had conquered Soledar on January 12, the first battlefield victory for the Kremlin in Ukraine since July, and on Sunday it claimed to have captured the village of Blagodatnoe, which means ‘favoured’ in English.

“Blagodatnoe is under our control,” said Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner boss.

This was denied by the Ukrainian military which said that fighting in Blagodatnoe was ongoing.

These claimed battlefield victories by Wagner have come at a huge cost. US intelligence has said that an army of around 50,000 Wagner fighters, mainly recruited from Russia’s prisons, was sent into battle in Donbas. Of these, around 4,000 have been killed and 10,000 injured.

And now the US-based Institute for the Study of War has said that regular Russian soldiers are rotating into Bakhmut to take over from exhausted Wagner mercenaries.

“The Wagner Group’s assault on Bakhmut has likely culminated with its surge on Soledar,” it said. “Conventional Russian units are now participating in fighting in Bakhmut to reinvigorate the Russian offensive there.”

Along Ukraine’s Southern Front, where Russian and Ukrainian soldiers face each other across the Dnipro River, reports said that more Russian shells had struck Kherson.

Russian soldiers withdrew from Kherson in November, allowing Ukrainian soldiers to liberate the city.

But Russian forces used their withdrawal to build defensive lines along the southern edge of the Dnipro River and to start shelling Kherson.

Casualties are reported regularly and on Sunday, Yury Sobolevsky, the deputy head of the Kherson region council, said that a Russian shell had hit a hospital in the city and killed a nurse.

05:18 PM

And that's all for today...

Thanks for following today's Ukraine liveblog.

• Three people were killed by Russian strikes on the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson

• The Dalai Lama’s envoy in Russia resigned after the Kremlin labelled him a “foreign agent” for criticising its war in Ukraine.

• US military officials have reportedly begun urging the Pentagon to approve sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine to help defend against Russian missile and drone attacks.

Please follow along tomorrow morning for all the latest updates on Ukraine.

04:50 PM

Three killed by Russian shelling of Kherson

Three people were killed by Russian strikes on the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Sunday that damaged a hospital and a school, the regional administration said.

"Today's Russian shelling injured nine people: three people died (two men and one woman), six were injured," the administration wrote on the Telegram app.

"As a result of enemy shelling, a number of civil infrastructure objects were damaged: the Kherson Regional Clinical Hospital, a school, a bus station, a post office, a bank, and residential buildings," it wrote in an earlier post.

04:30 PM

Dalai Lama’s Russia representative resigns after ‘foreign agent’ accusation

The Dalai Lama’s envoy in Russia has resigned after the Kremlin labelled him a “foreign agent” for criticising its war in Ukraine.

Telo Tulku Rinpoche, 50-years-old and considered the reincarnation of a saint, called for Buddhists in Russia to maintain “courage and steadfastness” as he quit as Supreme Lama in Kalmykia.

“In my thoughts, deeds and prayers, I remain entirely with the Kalmyk people and the Buddhists of all Russia, to whose service I have dedicated my life,” he said.

Read more from James Kilner here

03:45 PM

Zelensky invites new Czech president to visit Ukraine

03:08 PM

‘We never expected the UK to be our closest ally’

Read Oliver Gill's interview with Yuriy Ryzhenkov, the boss of Mariupol steelworks, here

02:40 PM

Pictured: Ukrainian paratroopers wait for transport

02:09 PM

Gazprom says it will ship 24.3 mcm of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Sunday

Russia's Gazprom said it will ship 24.3 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Sunday, in line with the previous several days but less than the more than 40 mcm it delivered in early January and the second half of 2022.

01:48 PM

Annihilate Putin at the touch of a button at Pussy Riot exhibition

A new art exhibition by Pussy Riot, the anti-Kremlin Russian art collective, offers visitors the option to “neutralise” Vladimir Putin with the push of a button. Well, almost, reports James Kilner.

Called “Putin’s Ashes”, one section of the Los Angeles exhibition contains a row of chunky red buttons, the sort that you might press to launch a nuclear missile or detonate a bomb. One of these is labelled: “This button neutralises Vladimir Putin”.

“It’s a part of magic-activist-thinking to me,” Nadya Tolokonnikova, one of Pussy Riot's founders, told the Los Angeles Times. “I think sometimes you need to be a little bit silly and use irony and laughter to overcome dangerous dictators.”

Read more on the story here

01:21 PM

MoD: Ukrainian tank crews arrive in the UK

01:04 PM

Tearful mourners remember British volunteer killed in eastern Ukraine

Tearful mourners in Kyiv on Sunday commemorated a British volunteer killed while attempting a rescue mission from the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar.

British voluntary aid worker Andrew Bagshaw, for whom the service was held, and fellow volunteer Chris Parry, were killed during an attempted humanitarian evacuation in eastern Ukraine, Parry's family has said.

Several dozen mourners, including fellow volunteers who knew Bagshaw and others who came to express their condolences, packed into a small church on the territory of Kyiv's ancient St. Sophia cathedral for a service led by an Orthodox priest.

"I remember one of the first times when we went (on an evacuation run) together. He was a very quiet person, he just wanted to help people," volunteer Ignat Ivlev-Yorke, who organised Bagshaw's memorial service, told Reuters.

"He felt that this was his mission. That he had a duty to do it."

12:37 PM

Pictured: The broken windows of an abandoned supermarket in Bakhmut

12:31 PM

Russia rules out talks with Japan on fishing near disputed islands

Russia said on Sunday it will not hold annual talks with Japan on renewing a pact that allows Japanese fishermen to operate near disputed islands, saying Japan has taken anti-Russian measures.

The islands, off the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, are known in Russia as the Kurils and in Japan as the Northern Territories and have been at the core of decades of tension between the neighbours.

"In the context of the anti-Russian measures taken by the Japanese government ... the Russian side informed Tokyo that it could not agree on the holding of intergovernmental consultations on the implementation of this agreement," the RIA state news agency reported, citing Russia's foreign ministry.

Japan, a major US ally, imposed sanctions on dozens of Russian individuals and organisations soon after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year.

11:41 AM

Ukraine says repelled attack near Blahodatne

Ukraine's military said on Sunday its forces repelled an attack in the area of Blahodatne in the eastern part of the Donetsk region, while Russia's Wagner private military group said it took control of the village.

"Units of Ukraine's Defence Forces repelled the attacks of the occupiers in the areas of ... Blahodatne ... in the Donetsk region," the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said in its daily morning report, referring to fighting on Saturday.

It added that its forces repelled Russian attacks in the areas of 13 other settlements in the Donetsk region.

The Wagner Group, designated by the United States as transnational criminal organisation, said on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday that its units had taken control of Blahodatne.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports.

11:11 AM

New Czech president expected to foster EU, Ukraine ties

Newly-elected Czech president Petr Pavel, a former Nato general, will promote close ties with the European Union and offer firm support for Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion, analysts said.

The 61-year-old war hero beat billionaire populist Andrej Babis to win Saturday's presidential election.

Analysts told AFP that Pavel's experience in military diplomacy would be a clear asset as he held a very different presidency than his predecessor.

"We know that his contacts at NATO, as well as with peers from NATO member states... are very strong, and foreign policy will be his domain," said Pavel Havlicek, a scientist at the Association for International Affairs in Prague.

"I think he will be a proficient president if we realise the war in Ukraine is one of the key problems Europe is facing," Havlicek told AFP.

10:51 AM

Bakhmut under 'renewed attack'

Bakhmut has come under renewed attack as Russia sought to cut off Ukraine’s supply routes to the city yesterday.

Gunshots were reported from the east side of the city’s river as Russian troops pushed in, Ukrainian soldiers said.

Ukrainians said they were outnumbered and outgunned, and the Russian forces were making gains, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“If we hold a building and then they level it, of course we have to step back to another building,” a private from the 93rd brigade was quoted as saying. The brigade was resupplying troops around the city. He said the Ukrainians were outnumbered 10-to-1 in some parts of the city.

Russia has been throwing troops against Ukrainian defensive positions across the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of the east.

10:50 AM

Pictured: A view of a building destroyed by shelling in Bakhmut

10:21 AM

Ukraine accused of killing 14 in targeted Himars attack on Luhansk hospital

Russia’s ministry of defence has accused Ukraine of killing 14 people and injuring 24 in a targeted attack with Himars missiles on a hospital in rebel-controlled Luhansk, east Ukraine.

“The Ukrainian armed forces deliberately attacked the building of a district hospital with rockets of a US-made Himars multiple launch rocket system,” the Russian ministry of defence said in a statement on Saturday.

The ministry added that 14 were killed and 24 wounded among the “hospital patients and medical staff”.

Read more from James Kilner here

10:00 AM

North Korea denies arms dealing with Russia

North Korea on Sunday denied providing arms to Moscow after the United States said the nuclear-armed state supplied rockets and missiles to Russia's private military group Wagner.

Washington earlier this month designated the Wagner group as a "transnational criminal organisation", citing its weapons dealings with Pyongyang in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

The White House showed US intelligence photographs of Russian rail cars entering North Korea, picking up a load of infantry rockets and missiles, and returning to Russia, according to national security spokesman John Kirby.

In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, a senior North Korean official rejected the accusations, warning that the US would face a "really undesirable result" if it persisted in spreading the "self-made rumour".

"Trying to tarnish the image of (North Korea) by fabricating a non-existent thing is a grave provocation that can never be allowed and that cannot but trigger its reaction," said Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the Department of US Affairs.

09:43 AM

Latest MoD update

09:17 AM

Olaf Scholz hails Ukraine tanks fiasco as victory while critics count reputational cost

Read more from Jorg Luyken in Berlin here

09:05 AM

Ukraine imposes sanctions on 182 Russian and Belarusian firms

Ukraine imposed sanctions against 182 Russian and Belarusian companies, and three individuals, in the latest of a series of steps by President Volodymyr Zelensky to block Moscow's and Minsk's connections to his country.

"Their assets in Ukraine are blocked, their properties will be used for our defence," Zelenskiy said in a video address.

The sanctioned companies chiefly engage in the transportation of goods, vehicle leasing and chemical production, according to the list published by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

The list includes Russian potash fertiliser producer and exporter Uralkali, Belarus state-owned potash producer Belaruskali, Belarusian Railways, as well as Russia's VTB-Leasing and Gazprombank Leasing both dealing with transport leasing.

09:03 AM

Ukraine in pictures:

08:59 AM

Russia's new Ukraine commander cracks down on battle bloggers

Russia’s top commander in Ukraine has launched a war against Russian military bloggers who have criticised his tactics and strategies by imposing cumbersome new reporting rules on them.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War said that General Valery Gerasimov, appointed commander of Russian forces in Ukraine only three weeks ago, is insisting that bloggers wear blue '‘press’' body armour and stick to strict embedding regulations.

“The Russian military command may also be attempting to resurrect its previously unsuccessful censorship efforts targeting the critical milblogger community,” it said.

Read the full story from James Kilner here

08:56 AM

Good Morning

Good morning and welcome to today's Ukraine liveblog.

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