Ukraine news – live: Putin ally says Russia at war with UK and US, ‘not Kyiv’

The European Union’s ambassador to Ukraine said on Tuesday Kyiv was close to reaching a milestone in reform of its court system, an important step before starting accession talks with the 27-member bloc.

Ambassador Matti Maasikas welcomed the expected appointment this week of eight new members of Ukraine‘s High Council of Justice — an important body which appoints, dismisses and disciplines judges — as part of reforms of the judiciary.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive, made reforming the judiciary one of its main recommendations when it offered Ukraine the status of candidate member last June despite Russia‘s invasion.

“Within reach a milestone in reforming Ukraine‘s court system, as advocated and supported by partners, including the EU, for years,” Maasikas wrote on Twitter.

“Also part of the 7 recommendations linked with Ukraine‘s EU candidate country status. Am confident that Ukrainian judges will rise to the occasion.”

Ukraine‘s parliament has already passed all the legislation sought by the EU before accession talks start, the speaker of the assembly said last month, but the road to membership is widely expected to be long, possibly lasting a decade.

Some watchdogs have also warned that powerful interests are prepared to push back against reforms, especially in the judicial system.

“They’re not interested in having any disciplinary body,” said lawyer Mykhailo Zhernakov, of the DEJURE Foundation which monitors judicial reforms.

Zhernakov and others have also raised concerns over a recent law governing the appointment of Constitutional Court judges which they say leaves room for political manipulation.

Frans Timmermans, a European Commission executive vice-president, visited Kyiv on Monday, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy discussed plans for a Feb. 3 EU-Ukraine summit by phone with European Council President Charles Michel on Tuesday.

A famous Russian actor is being threatened with criminal charges by Russian authorities after publicly criticising the war in Ukraine.

The search for Artur Smolyaninov, a prominent film and theatre actor, was announced by Russia’s top investigative on Monday in tandem with a second probe against a philanthropist who supports the Russian opposition.

In a statement, Russia’s Investigative Committee said that its chief Alexander Bastrykin ordered the launch of a criminal case against Mr Smolyaninov, who fled the country after Moscow’s forces invaded Ukraine.

Emily Atkinson reports:

Britain should “absolutely” supply Ukraine‘s forces with heavy battle tanks and do “far more to put this fire out” in the country’s conflict with Russia, a senior Tory MP has said.

Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, said the West must take bold strategic decisions to support Kyiv in pushing back Russian forces, instead of “hesitantly creeping our way forward”.

It comes as the Government considers sending British Army Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine for the first time.

The Tory MP told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme: “This is our war, but we’ve left the Ukrainians to do the fighting.

“It’s not just the moralistic issue here, it’s the fact that Russia is now pushing this against the wider West, so I very much welcome the fact that we’re now thinking about sending main battle tanks.

“It does show how far we’ve come in our willingness to look (Russian President Vladimir) Putin in the eye and not be spooked by his rhetoric, and we’re finally sending this much-needed serious hardware to Ukraine.

“Nato essentially has been benched. We should be doing far more to put this fire out and we’re not doing that.”

Downing Street declined to comment on what further equipment might be sent, but did not rule out tanks.

“We haven’t made any final decisions on provision of tanks at this stage,” the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said.

“For several months, we’ve been working with partners around the provision of tanks and armoured vehicles, artillery and air defence. And the Prime Minister spoke to President (Volodymyr) Zelensky just last week about what can be most effective in helping Ukraine continue their progress.”

Ukrainian forces are facing waves of assaults by Russian forces on the small salt-mining town of Soledar, Kyiv officials said on Tuesday, as Moscow strives to make its first breakthrough in the east in months.

Britain’s Defence Ministry said Russian troops and mercenaries of the Wagner group were probably now in control of most of the town after advances in the last four days.

Seizing Soledar would give an advantage to Russian forces as they fight to capture the city of Bakhmut, a few kilometres (miles) to the southwest.

Troops from both sides have been taking heavy losses there in some of the most intense trench warfare since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago.

Bakhmut is located on a strategic supply line between the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which make up the Donbas, Ukraine‘s industrial heartland. Gaining control of Bakhmut could give Russia a platform to advance on two bigger cities – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

It would also give Russia a welcome battlefield victory after a series of setbacks in recent months.

“Russia‘s Soledar axis is highly likely an effort to envelop Bakhmut from the north, and to disrupt Ukrainian lines of communication,” the British intelligence briefing said.

Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for Ukraine‘s eastern forces, said the Russians were deploying their best Wagner fighters at Soledar, which had been struck 86 times by artillery over the past 24 hours.

Russia was using World War One-style tactics, throwing large numbers of men into battle and absorbing heavy losses, he told Ukrainian television.

“This is basically not a 21st-century war,” he said.

Journalist Yuriy Butusov, who is embedded with Ukrainian troops in Soledar, wrote for the online outlet New Voice that Russian forces had established fire control over the main Ukrainian supply route to the town.

“This is not a complete encirclement, but normal supply along the route is impossible, (and) this is critical for defence,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Monday that Bakhmut and Soledar were holding on despite widespread destruction.

He cited new and fiercer attacks in Soledar, where he said no walls have been left standing and the land was covered with Russian corpses.

Russia‘s defence ministry did not mention either Soledar or Bakhmut in a media briefing on Monday.

Britain is weighing up supplying Ukraine with tanks for the first time – to help the country fight Russian forces.

A final decision has not yet been made on delivering the British Army’s Challenger 2 main battle tank to Ukraine, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said – but should it happen, the UK would become the first nation to respond to Kyiv’s pleas for “heavy” tanks.

The spokesperson said that Britain would continue to co-ordinate its support with allies after Germany, France and the United States all indicated last week they would provide other armoured vehicles to Ukraine.

“We haven’t made any final decisions on provision of tanks at this stage… Until decisions are made on these sorts of things, we don’t comment on speculation around what further equipment may or may not be sent,” the spokesperson said.

Emily Atkinson reports:

The parents of one of the British volunteers missing in Ukraine have spoken of feeling “very raw” following their son’s disappearance in the war-torn country.

They were heading to the town of Soledar in the eastern Donetsk region of the country, where fighting has been fierce in recent days. The pair have not made contact with anyone since leaving Kramatorsk at 8am on January 6.

Joe Middleton has more here:

A Ukrainian serviceman carries his injured comrade evacuated from the battlefield into a hospital in Donetsk region, Ukraine.

It comes as Russian forces are escalating their onslaught against Ukrainian positions around the wrecked eastern city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian officials said, bringing new levels of death and devastation in the months-long conflict.

Pictures show debris of a building purported to be Russian soldiers’ temporary accommodation destroyed in a Ukrainian missile strike in Makiivka.

Russia is “not at war with Ukraine” but is fighting Britain and the US, one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies has said.

Nikolai Patrushev, the Russian security council secretary, told the Argumenti i Fakti newspaper: “The events in Ukraine are not a clash between Moscow and Kyiv – this is a military confrontation between Russia and Nato, and above all the United States and Britain.”

He added that Russia is “not at war with Ukraine” because Russians “cannot have hatred for ordinary Ukrainians”.

His comments come as Putin’s defence minister vowed on Tuesday to build a deeper arsenal of weapons, bolster aviation technology to better evade air defences and improve drone production after a series of battlefield humiliations in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Ukraine and the West had reacted “cynically” to a 36-hour ceasefire proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to mark Orthodox Christmas.

“We met with a cynical reaction from Kyiv and a number of Western leaders,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a daily briefing.

Russia says the truce was announced for humanitarian purposes so that Orthodox Christians could celebrate Christmas, but Ukraine says Russian troops shelled dozens of positions and settlements along the front line on Saturday, when the truce was meant to be in effect.