Ukraine news – live: ‘Hundreds of civilians trapped’ as fierce battle waged over Soledar

The support offered to Ukraine by Poland and Lithuania may mean that other countries will follow their example, president Volodymyr Zelensky has suggested.

Speaking to Polish state-run broadcaster TVP Info after Warsaw pledged to give Ukraine Leopard tanks, Mr Zelensky said: “Poland and Lithuania can strategically start steps concerning obtaining tanks for Ukraine.

“Somebody always has to set an example … this step may help us in that other countries will follow in the footsteps of Poland and Lithuania.”

In their meeting with Mr Zelensky on Wednesday, Polish president Andrzej Duda pledged Leopard Tanks, while Lithuanian president Gitanas Nauseda said his country would supply anti-aircraft weapons and ammunition.

Geolocated footage of Soledar taken in the last two days shows that while Russian forces likely control most parts of the region in Donetsk, they do not have full control over the territory.

Russian forces have also likely pushed Ukrainian soldiers out of the western outskirts of the settlement, according to the US-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War.

“The Ukrainian general staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks against Sil in Donetsk Oblast—a settlement over a kilometre northwest of Soledar and beyond previous Ukrainian positions,” it said in an intelligence update of the continuing war yesterday.

It added that some Russian sources claimed that Russian forces are still clearing Soledar of remaining Ukrainian forces as of yesterday.

Russian military bloggers have also posted footage yesterday showing Wagner Group fighters freely walking in Soledar and claimed that they visited the settlement alongside Russian forces.

However, Moscow has not officially announced the capture of long-contested territory which it believes will catapult Russian forces towards capturing Bakhmut in a bloodied siege.

“All available evidence indicates Ukrainian forces no longer maintain an organised defence in Soledar,” the ISW said.

The New York Times accidentally published the phone numbers of Russian soldiers critical of Vladimir Putin in the metadata of a September 2022 exposé, Motherboard reports.

The article at issue, “‘Putin Is a Fool’: Intercepted Calls Reveal Russian Army in Disarray,” details Russian soldiers speaking candidly about Russia’s failings in the war on Ukraine and offering the sort of sharp criticism of president Vladimir Putin that’s rarely heard in public for fear of reprisals.

“He wants to take Kyiv. But there’s no way we can do it,” one soldier said in the calls that form the basis of the piece, which were intercepted by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies.

Another soldier says Putin is “gravely mistaken” about how he describes the war.

Ukrainian forces are holding their positions in the besieged town of Soledar and are inflicting significant losses on Russia troops, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has claimed.

Moscow is seeking to capture the town near Bakhmut, in what would mark its first significant gain in months, and the Wagner mercenary group claimed to have seized it earlier today, while a Russian-installed official in Donetsk region said “pockets of resistance” remained.

Mr Zelensky thanked two Ukrainian units in Soledar which he said “are holding their positions and inflicting significant losses on the enemy.” He did not give more details.

Mr Zelenskyy also said he had met senior Ukrainian commanders on Thursday and analysed in detail what reinforcements were needed in Soledar and nearby towns, and what steps should be taken in the coming days.

“We also discussed the situation regarding the supply of weapons and ammunition to the troops and the relevant cooperation with our partners,”

Russia has released an American citizen who crossed into its Kaliningrad exclave in the first weeks of the Ukraine war, according to former US diplomat Bill Richardson, who met the man at the border in Poland.

US Navy veteran Taylor Dudley, 35, was backpacking in Europe when he crossed the Polish-Russian border in April, said Jonathan Franks, a lawyer who represents families of Americans detained overseas.

Mr Dudley’s circumstances while in Russia were unclear and his case had not been previously publicised.

The US State Department was aware of reports that an American citizen had been deported from Russia, a spokesperson said, but declined to comment further on the case, citing privacy considerations, according to Reuters.

Remarkable pictures show a hand grenade said to have been lodged in a Ukrainian soldier’s chest before surgeons removed it, reports my colleague Sukhmani Sethi.

The unexploded device, just beneath the heart of the soldier, was taken out in the presence of two sappers to ensure the safety of the medical staff Ukraine’s deputy defence minister said. It is not clear how the grenade got there.

The operation was carried out without using electrocoagulation, a technique used in surgery to control bleeding by passing electric currents through tissue, to prevent the grenade from detonating.

Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister, posted the X-ray on social media, writing: “Not every wound in the heart area is deadly!” Another post showed a surgeon with bloodied gloves, still wearing his apron and bouffant cap, with the grenade held in his hand.

Russia sees no dangers from Beijing’s relaxation of coronavirus restrictions and will not impose extra restrictions on people arriving from China, its consumer safety watchdog has said.

“We do not expect any special dangers here today,” news agency Tass cited Anna Popova, head of the Rospotrebnadzor watchdog, as telling state television. “We are not introducing any additional measures against people arriving from China.”

Beijing abandoned mandatory quarantine for those visiting the country on Sunday, and China’s ambassador to Moscow said four days later that Russian and China are ready to resume mutual travel as soon as possible and deepen their strategic cooperation.

Russia has increasingly sought close ties with Beijing since waging war in Ukraine.

Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy has told LBC that Britain’s prime minister Rishi Sunak had “better think twice” before sending tanks to Ukraine.

Mr Sunak “is becoming more and more involved with direct confrontation with a military power”, Mr Polyanskiy said Rishi, warning that “the stakes are very high”.

Ukrainian refugees currently living in a cruise ship are to be moved off the boat and into “longer term accommodation”, the Scottish Government has said.

It confirmed that the contract to use the MS Ambition, which is currently docked near Glasgow, would come to an end on 31 March this year.

Neil Gray, the minister with special responsibility for refugees from Ukraine, said use of the vessel – currently home to about 1,170 Ukrainians, including 420 children – was always intended to be a temporary measure.

He added that the Scottish Government would now look to make “full use” of both existing and new volunteer hosts to provide somewhere to stay for the refugees.

The announcement that its use is being ended comes after ministers last month extended the contract for another ship being used to house refugees, the MS Victoria which is docked outside Edinburgh, for a further five months.

As fighting rages for control of Soledar, as many as 559 civilians, including 15 children, remained in the city and could not be evacuated, Donetsk governor Pavlo Kyrylenko has warned.

Ukraine has acknowledged Russian advances on the besieged city, which Moscow seeks as its most significant gain since a series of retreats late last year.

Russian soldiers are “moving over their own corpses” in the push for the city, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar said on Thursday, adding fighting was still fierce.

My colleague Liam James has more in this report: