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Ukraine’s armed forces claims to have repelled Russian attacks on south-eastern city; Russia building a water pipeline into Donbas region, officials say
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.
Ukraine’s armed forces claims to have repelled Russian attacks on the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia while Russia claims its troops have advanced 2km (1.24 miles) to the west in four days along the frontline in Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Russia’s Wagner group, said the mercenary force had taken the village of Krasna Hora, on the northern edge of the embattled city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. He published a short video, apparently showing Wagner fighters next to the entrance sign to the village. The Guardian could not independently verify that the village had been taken.
US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said geolocated footage showed Russian forces had captured at least part of the village of Krasna Hora and the Ukrainians had likely withdrawn from.
Ukraine’s defences were holding along the frontline in Donetsk, with the fiercest battles raging for the cities of Vuhledar and Maryinka, Kyiv’s top military commander said on Saturday. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said Russia was carrying out 50 attacks a day in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
Russian forces are likely to have had their highest rate of casualties over the past two weeks since the first week of the invasion of Ukraine, according to a defence intelligence update from the UK ministry of defence. “Lack of trained personnel, coordination, and resources across the front” are among the factors that led to the sudden spike in Russia’s casualties, according to the report. “The mean average for the last seven days was 824 casualties a day, over four times the rate reported over June-July 2022.”
Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, has cast doubt on whether Poland will be able to supply Ukraine with fighters jets. Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Duda said sending F-16 planes would be a “very serious decision” that was “not easy to take”.
Iran smuggled drones into Russia using boats and the state airline, the Guardian has learned. At least 18 of the new types of advanced long-range armed drones were delivered to Russia’s navy after its officers and technicians visited Tehran in November, where they were shown a range of Iran’s technologies.
A former Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has again blamed Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the war with Russia again. “I would never have gone talking to Zelenskiy because we are witnessing the devastation of his country and the slaughter of its soldiers and civilians,” Berlusconi said. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, responded by underlining her government’s “firm support” for Ukraine.
The head of the International Olympic Committee has rejected Zelenskiy’s call to ban Russian athletes from the 2024 Paris games. Speaking at the World Ski Championships in France, Thomas Bach said that while he shared the “grief and human suffering” of Ukrainian athletes, national governments should not decide who takes part in international sporting events.
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