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Fierce fighting in Ukraine’s Soledar leaves battlefield strewn with corpses – Zelenskiy

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  • Zelenskiy says no walls left standing in Soledar
  • Wagner Group sending waves of fighters, Ukraine says
  • Fight for cavernous salt mining tunnels beneath town

KYIV/SIVERSK, Ukraine, Jan 10 (Reuters) – Russia has stepped up a powerful assault on Soledar in eastern Ukraine, officials in Kyiv said, forcing Ukrainian troops to repel waves of attacks led by the Wagner contract militia around the salt mining town and nearby fronts.

Soledar, in the industrial Donbas region, lies a few miles from Bakhmut, where troops from both sides have been taking heavy losses in some of the most intense trench warfare since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago.

Ukrainian forces repelled an earlier attempt to take the town but a large number of Wagner Group units quickly returned, deploying new tactics and more soldiers under heavy artillery cover, Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said on Monday on the Telegram messaging app.

“The enemy literally step over the corpses of their own soldiers, using massed artillery, MLRS systems and mortars,” Malyar said.

Russia’s defence ministry did not mention either Soledar or Bakhmut in a regular media briefing on Monday, a day after facing criticism for an apparently false claim of a missile strike on a temporary Ukrainian barracks.

Wagner was founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Drawing some recruits from Russia’s prisons and known for uncompromising violence, it is active in conflicts in Africa and has taken a prominent role in Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.

Prigozhin has been trying to capture Bakhmut and Soledar for months at the cost of many lives on both sides. He said on Saturday its significance lay in a network of cavernous mining tunnels below the ground, which can hold big groups of people as well as tanks and other war machines.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said fighting in Bahkmut and Soledar is “the most intense on the entire frontline”, with little advancement by either side in the freezing conditions.

“So many (pro-Russian fighters) remain on the battlefield … either dead or wounded,” he said on YouTube.

“They attack our positions in waves, but the wounded as a rule die where they lie, either from exposure as it is very cold or from blood loss. No one is coming to help them or to collect the dead from the battlefield.”

Reuters could not immediately verify battlefield reports.

NO BUILDINGS INTACT

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in nightly video remarks 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 is covered with Russian corpses.

“Thanks to the resilience of our soldiers in Soledar, we have won for Ukraine additional time and additional strength,” Zelenskiy said. He did not spell out what he meant by gaining time or strength.

[1/8] General view of railway lines, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Siversk, Ukraine, January 9, 2023. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

But Ukrainian officials, led by the commander in chief General Valery Zaluzhniy, have warned that Russia is preparing fresh troops for a new, major offensive on Ukraine, possibly on the capital Kyiv.

Zelenskiy also appears to be banking on securing more, sophisticated weapons from Ukraine’s Western partners to beat off attacks and eventually expel Russian troops.

On Monday, he pressed on with diplomatic efforts, speaking to Petr Fiala, Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, current chair of the 27-member European Union.

“I am certain that our soldiers at the front will get these weapons and equipment. Very soon,” he said.

France, Germany and the United States all pledged last week to send armoured fighting vehicles, fulfilling a long-standing Ukrainian request. Britain is considering supplying Ukraine with tanks for the first time, Sky News reported, citing a Western source. Britain’s Defence Ministry did not comment.

Iran could be contributing to war crimes in Ukraine by providing drones to Russia, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday.

The United States has imposed sanctions on companies and people it accused of producing or transferring Iranian drones used by Russia. The White House said last week it is considering ways to target Iran’s production of the unmanned weaponised aircraft through sanctions and export controls.

WAVES OF ATTACK

Military analysts say the strategic military benefit for Russia of capturing Bakhmut and Soledar would be limited.

Taras Berezovets, a Ukrainian journalist, political commentator and officer in the Ukrainian army, said capturing Soledar made little sense, except as a personal victory for Prigozhin, however it would be easier to take than Bakhmut.

“It’s his personal war,” Berezovets said on YouTube.

A U.S. official has said Prigozhin is eyeing the salt and gypsum from the mines, believed to extend over 100 miles underground and contain auditorium-scale caverns.

Berezovets said Ukrainian troops fighting in Bakhmut and Soledar say attacks come in waves of small groups, no more than 15, with the first wave usually wiped out. The pro-Russian forces retrench and leave white ribbons for the next wave to follow.

“The complexity of fighting in cities like Bakhmut and Soledar is that it is hard to determine who is with you and who is the enemy,” he said.

In an evacuee centre in nearby Kramatorsk, Olha, 60, said she had fled Soledar after moving from apartment to apartment as each was destroyed in tank battles.

“There isn’t one house left intact. Apartments were burning, breaking in half,” said Olha, who gave only her first name.

Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel, Doina Chiacu and Michael Perry; Editing by Grant McCool, Lincoln Feast and Himani Sarkar

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Ukraine says its forces repel constant Russian attacks in east

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  • Kyiv describes situation in Soledar as difficult
  • No visible sign of casualties at barracks Russia says it hit
  • Zelensky says Russia attacks despite declaring truce

KYIV/KRAMATORSK, Ukraine, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Ukraine is strengthening its forces in the eastern Donbas region and repelling constant attacks on Bakhmut and other towns there by Russian mercenary group Wagner, Ukrainian authorities said on Monday.

Reinforcements had been sent to Soledar, a small town near Bakhmut were the situation was particularly difficult, they said.

“The enemy again made a desperate attempt to storm the city of Soledar from different directions and threw the most professional units of the Wagnerites into battle,” Ukraine’s military said in a statement.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in nightly video remarks on Sunday that Bakhmut and Soledar were holding on despite widespread destruction.

“Our soldiers are repelling constant Russian attempts to advance,” he said. In Soledar “things are very difficult”.

Further north in the Kharkiv region, a Russian missile strike on the local market wounded seven civilians, including a 13-year-old girl, the regional centre of emergency medical assistance said.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary group which has been trying to capture Bakhmut and Soledar for months in grinding warfare that has cost many lives on both sides, said on Saturday its significance lay in the network of mines there.

“It not only (has the ability to hold) a big group of people at a depth of 80-100 metres, but tanks and infantry fighting vehicles can also move about.”

Military analysts say the strategic military benefit for Moscow would be limited. A U.S. official has said the Wagner group is eying the salt and gypsum from the mines there.

Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for Ukraine’s East command, said he thought it would be possible to stabilise the situation.

“There are brutal and bloody battles there – 106 shellings in one day,” he said on Ukrainian television.

“Our troops in Soledar have been allocated additional forces and means for this purpose and everything is being done to improve the operational situation there.”

Reuters was not able to independently verify the battlefield reports.

NO CHRISTMAS CEASEFIRE

Zelenskiy made a fresh denunciation of what he called Russia’s failure to observe a ceasefire it had declared for Russian Orthodox Christmas on Friday and Saturday.

Ukraine never agreed to the ceasefire, which it called a Russian excuse to reinforce troops. Both sides accused the other of continuing hostilities throughout the period.

“Russians were shelling Kherson with incendiary ammunition immediately after Christmas,” he said, referring to the southern city abandoned by Russian forces in November.

“Strikes on Kramatorsk and other cities in Donbas – on civilian targets and at the very time when Moscow was reporting a supposed ‘silence’ for its army.”

On Sunday, Russia said a missile attack on Kramatorsk, northwest of Bakhmut, had killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers, but a Reuters reporter at the scene found no visible signs of casualties.

A Reuters team visited two college dormitories that Moscow said had been temporarily housing Ukrainian personnel and which it had targeted as revenge for a New Year’s attack that killed scores of Russian soldiers and caused outcry in Russia.

But neither dormitory in the eastern city of Kramatorsk appeared to have been directly hit or seriously damaged. There were no obvious signs that soldiers had been living there and no sign of bodies or traces of blood.

Serhiy Cherevatyi, a Ukrainian military spokesperson for the eastern region, described the claim of mass casualties as an attempt by the Russian defence ministry to show it had responded forcefully to Ukraine’s recent strikes on Russian soldiers.

“This is an information operation of the Russian defence ministry,” Cherevatyi told Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne News.

As Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine grinds towards the one-year mark, Russia’s military is under domestic pressure to deliver battlefield successes.

Hawkish voices have sought an escalation of the war effort after setbacks such as loss of captured territory and high rates of death and injury.

Some prominent Russian military bloggers have criticised the Russian defence ministry claims.

“Let’s talk about ‘fraud’,” wrote one prominent pro-war military blogger on the Telegram messaging app, who posts under the name of Military Informant and who has more than half a million subscribers.

“It is not clear to us who, and for what reason, decided that 600 Ukrainian soldiers died inside, all at once, if the building was not actually hit (even the light remained on).

“Instead of the real destruction of the enemy personnel, which would have been a worthy response, an exclusively media operation of retaliation was invented.”

The militaries of both Russia and Ukraine have often overstated enemy losses, while minimising their own.

Ukraine’s top military officials said last week some 760 Russian troops had been killed or wounded in two attacks on Moscow-controlled parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. These reports could not be independently verified.

Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Lincoln Feast and Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, and Clarence Fernandez and Peter Graff

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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No sign of casualties after Russia claims revenge attack on Ukrainian soldiers

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  • No sign of casualties at site of the strike – witness
  • Russia says it carried out revenge attack on Ukraine
  • Claims it killed over 600 Ukrainian troops
  • Ukraine army official dismisses claim as untrue

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine, Jan 8 (Reuters) – A Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk missed its targets and there were no obvious signs of casualties, a Reuters reporter said on Sunday, after Moscow claimed the strike killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers.

A Reuters team visited two college dormitories that Moscow said had been temporarily housing Ukrainian personnel and which it had targeted as revenge for a New Year’s attack that killed scores of Russian soldiers and caused outcry in Russia.

But neither dormitory in the eastern city of Kramatorsk appeared to have been directly hit or seriously damaged. There were no obvious signs that soldiers had been living there and no sign of bodies or traces of blood.

Serhiy Cherevatyi, a Ukrainian military spokesperson for the eastern region, described the claim of mass casualties as an attempt by the Russian defence ministry to show it had responded forcefully to Ukraine’s recent strikes on Russian soldiers.

“This is an information operation of the Russian defense ministry,” Cherevatyi told Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne News.

Authorities in Kyiv did not immediately comment. Kramatorsk’s mayor earlier said there had been no casualties.

As Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine grinds towards the one-year mark, Russia’s military is under domestic pressure for battlefield successes. Hawkish voices have sought an escalation of the war effort after setbacks including loss of captured territory and high rates of death and injury.

Bad winter weather has hindered fighting on the front lines, although a cold snap that freezes and hardens up the ground could pave the way for both sides to launch offensives with heavy equipment, Serhiy Haidai, governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region said.

There have also been growing concerns that Belarus – a close ally of the Kremlin – could be used as a staging post to attack Ukraine from the north after military activity including planned joint aviation drills in the country and a fresh transfer of Russian troops there.

REVENGE ATTACK

Russia’s defence ministry, in a statement, said the strike on the buildings in Kramatorsk was a revenge operation for the deadly Ukrainian attack last week on a Russian barracks in Makiivka, in part of the Donetsk region controlled by Moscow’s forces, in which at least 89 servicemen were killed.

It said Moscow had used what it called reliable intelligence to target the Ukrainian troops. More than 700 Ukrainian troops had been housed in one hostel and more than 600 in another, it said.

“As a result of a massive missile strike on these temporary deployment points of Ukrainian army units, more than 600 Ukrainian servicemen were destroyed,” the defence ministry said.

If true, it would be the single largest loss of Ukrainian troops since Russia invaded on Feb. 24 last year. Neither side in the war, now in its eleventh month, usually disclose losses.

Ukraine was believed to have stopped housing troops close together in single facilities after a deadly Russian missile strike on a base in western Ukraine in March which killed dozens.

The practice of housing soldiers all together came into focus too after Ukraine’s New Year’s Day strike, with Russian military commanders subject to fierce criticism inside Russia for not dispersing their forces.

‘A NORMAL DAY’

In Kramatorsk, residents in the populated area around the dormitories described the force of the explosion that rocked their homes overnight but said it was not out of the ordinary for the region, close to the eastern front.

The residents said they heard explosions shortly after 11 p.m. local time – midnight Moscow time – when a ceasefire declared by Russia for Eastern Orthodox Christmas had been due to end.

The Russian statement named two buildings, the dormitory of a site called College No.47 and a dormitory affiliated with College No.28, both in Kramatorsk.

Reuters visuals showed some of the windows broken at the College No.47 dormitory. There was a large crater in the courtyard. The windows of the nearby college had been smashed.

The College No.28 dormitory was entirely intact. A crater lay about 50 metres away from it closer to some garages. Some of the college’s windows were smashed.

“It was very loud, it threw people out of their beds. Some people hurt their fingers because of the blast wave,” said Polina, 74, a resident who lives across from one of the dormitories.

“There was an explosion, and then another explosion. The windows shook… Really, there’s nothing else to tell you. Just a normal day,” said Mykhailo, a 41-year-old resident.

Oleksandr Honcharenko, Kramatorsk’s mayor, said the attack had damaged two educational facilities and eight apartment buildings and garages but that there had been no casualties.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, had said earlier that Russia had launched seven missile strikes on Kramatorsk.

Russia has repeatedly shelled Kramatorsk, which is also in the Donetsk region, one of four regions Moscow claims to have formally incorporated into Russia, something Ukraine and most countries in the world do not recognise.

Kramatorsk lies a few miles northwest of Bakhmut, a small city which Russia has been trying to take for more than five months in a brutal battle which has become the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in recent weeks.

Ukrainian officials earlier said at least two people had been killed elsewhere in Russian overnight bombing after the unilateral Russian Orthodox Christmas ceasefire had expired.

A 50-year-old man had been killed in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, Oleh Synehubov, the governor of the region, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Another person had been killed in overnight attack on Soledar, close to Bakhmut, local officials said.

Reuters could not immediately verify those claims.

Reporting by Reuters
Writing by Andrew Osborn and Tom Balmforth;
Editing by Frank Jack Daniel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Sweden says Turkey is asking too much over NATO application

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STOCKHOLM, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Sweden is confident that Turkey will approve its application to join the NATO military alliance, but cannot fulfil all the conditions Ankara has set for its support, Sweden’s prime minister said on Sunday.

“Turkey both confirms that we have done what we said we would do, but they also say that they want things that we cannot or do not want to give them,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a defence think-tank conference in Sweden.

Finland and Sweden signed a three-way agreement with Turkey in 2022 aimed at overcoming Ankara’s objections to their membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

They applied in May to join NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but Turkey objected and accused the countries of harbouring militants, including from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party

One sticking point has been extraditions of people Turkey regards as terrorists. Ankara expressed disappointment with a decision late last year from Sweden’s top court to stop a request to extradite a journalist with alleged links to Islamic scholar Fetullah Gulen, blamed by Turkey for an attempted coup.

Reporting by Johan Ahlander and Simon Johnson; editing by Barbara Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

NATO declines Serbia’s request to deploy its troops in Kosovo

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  • Serbia last month sought permission to deploy troops
  • Shooting and wounding of young Serbs added to tensions
  • Peaceful protest takes place in Shterpce

SHTERPCE, Kosovo Jan 8 (Reuters) – NATO’s mission in Kosovo, KFOR, has declined a Serbian government request to send up to 1,000 police and army personnel to Kosovo after clashes between Serbs and the Kosovo authorities, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday.

Serbia’s former province of Kosovo declared independence in 2008 following the 1998-1999 war during which NATO bombed rump-Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro, to protect Albanian-majority Kosovo.

“They (KFOR) replied they consider that there is no need for the return of the Serbian army to Kosovo … citing the United Nations resolution approving their mandate in Kosovo,” Serbia’s Vucic said in an interview with the private Pink television.

Last month, for the first time since the end of the war, Serbia requested to deploy troops in Kosovo in response to clashes between Kosovo authorities and Serbs in the northern region where they constitute a majority.

The U. N. Security Council resolution says Serbia may be allowed, if approved by KFOR, to station its personnel at border crossings, Orthodox Christian religious sites and areas with Serb majorities.

Vucic criticised KFOR for informing Serbia of its decision on the eve of the Christian Orthodox Christmas, after Kosovo police arrested an off-duty soldier suspected of shooting and wounding two young Serbs near the southern town of Shterpce.

Police said both victims, aged 11 and 21, were taken to hospital and their injuries were not life threatening.

Kosovo authorities condemned the incident, which has inflamed tensions.

On Sunday, a few thousands Serbs protested peacefully in Shterpce against what they called “violence against Serbs”.

Goran Rakic, the head of the Serb List, which is the main Serb party in Kosovo, accused Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti of trying to drive out Serbs.

“His goal is to create such conditions so that Serbs leave their homes,” Rakic told the crowd. “My message is that we must not surrender.”

Serbian media reported that another young man was allegedly attacked and beaten up by a group of Albanians early on Saturday, while media in Pristina reported that a Kosovo bus going to Germany through Serbia was attacked and its windscreen broken with rocks late that same day.

International organisations condemned the attacks, expected to deepen mistrust between majority ethnic Albanians and around 100,000 ethnic Serbs that live in Kosovo. Half of them live in the north and most refuse to recognise Kosovo’s independence.

Additional reporting and writing by Daria Sito-Sucic in Sarajevo; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Barbara Lewis

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World

Fighting unabated in Ukraine as Russia’s Orthodox Christmas truce comes into force

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  • Russia shells Ukraine’s Kramatorsk, mayor says
  • Ukraine calls Putin order for Orthodox Christmas truce a trick
  • Russian envoy to U.N. says Ukraine has no respect

KYIV/BAKHMUT, Ukraine, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Russia and Ukraine attacked each others positions in eastern Ukraine on Friday with no sign they would observe a 36-hour ceasefire unilaterally ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin at short notice to mark Orthodox Christmas in the region.

On Friday morning – Christmas Eve for Russians and many Ukrainians – Russian shells hit Kramatorsk, a Ukrainian city near the frontline in the industrial Donetsk region that Russia claims as its territory, the city mayor said.

“Kramatorsk is under fire. Stay in shelters,” mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko posted on social media. He did not give details of damage.

The Kremlin had ordered the truce to begin at 1200, without specifying what time zone they were referring to. In Moscow, that would be 0900 GMT.

Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, starting a war that has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and reduced cities to rubble. Ukraine has driven Russia back from some of its territory but battles are raging over eastern and southern cities, and Russia has unleashed barrages of airstrikes on civilian infrastructure.

In a surprise, last minute announcement on Thursday, Putin unilaterally ordered his troops to observe a ceasefire from Friday to run through the Russian Orthodox Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, a move that was rejected as a trick by Ukraine and its allies.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy rejected the idea out of hand, saying the goal was to halt the progress of Ukraine’s forces in Donetsk and the wider eastern Donbas region and bring in more of Moscow’s forces.

“They now want to use Christmas as a cover, albeit briefly, to stop the advances of our boys in Donbas and bring equipment, ammunitions and mobilised troops closer to our positions,” Zelenskiy said in his Thursday night video address.

“What will that give them? Only yet another increase in their total losses.”

Ukraine’s military General Staff said its soldiers repelled multiple Russian attacks over the past day, with Moscow focused on trying to take towns in Donetsk, including Bakhmut, which has seen the heaviest battles in recent weeks.

“The enemy is concentrating its main efforts on attempts to establish control over the Donetsk region” without success, the General Staff said in a statement, adding that both Ukraine and Russia had launched multiple airstrikes over the past day.

Reuters could not independently verify the latest battlefield accounts.

U.S. President Joe Biden suggested Putin’s ceasefire offer was a sign of desperation. “I think he’s trying to find some oxygen,” he told reporters at the White House.

Russia’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, responded on Facebook saying: “Washington is set on fighting with us ‘to the last Ukrainian’.”

Russia’s Orthodox Church observes Christmas on Jan. 7. Ukraine’s main Orthodox Church has been recognised as independent by the church hierarchy since 2019 and rejects any notion of allegiance to the Moscow patriarch. Many Ukrainian believers have shifted their calendar to celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 as in the West.

Zelenskiy, pointedly speaking in Russian and not Ukrainian, said that ending the war meant “ending your country’s aggression … And the war will end either when your soldiers leave or we throw them out.”

Dmitry Polyansky, head of Russia’s permanent mission to the United Nations, wrote on Twitter that Ukraine’s reaction was “one more reminder with whom we are fighting in #Ukraine – ruthless nationalist criminals who … have no respect for sacred things”.

Reporting by Reuters bureuax; writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Angus MacSwan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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‘Feels like summer’: Warm winter breaks temperature records in Europe

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  • Ski slopes deserted due to lack of snow
  • Activists call for faster action on climate change
  • Pollen warning issued as plants bloom early
  • Governments get short-term gas-price respite

LONDON/BRUSSELS, Jan 4 (Reuters) – Record-high winter temperatures swept across parts of Europe over the new year, bringing calls from activists for faster action against climate change while offering short-term respite to governments struggling with high gas prices.

Hundreds of sites have seen temperature records smashed in the past days, from Switzerland to Poland to Hungary, which registered its warmest Christmas Eve in Budapest and saw temperatures climb to 18.9 degrees Celsius (66.02°F) on Jan. 1.

In France, where the night of Dec. 30-31 was the warmest since records began, temperatures climbed to nearly 25C in the southwest on New Year’s Day while normally bustling European ski resorts were deserted due to a lack of snow.

The Weather Service in Germany, where temperatures of over 20C were recorded, said such a mild turn of the year had not been observed in the country since records began in 1881.

Czech Television reported some trees were starting to flower in private gardens while Switzerland’s office of Meteorology and Climatology issued a pollen warning to allergy sufferers from early blooming hazel plants.

The temperature hit 25.1C at Bilbao airport in Spain’s Basque country. People basked in the sun as they sat outside Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum or walked along the River Nervion.

“It always rains a lot here, it’s very cold, and it’s January, (but now) it feels like summer,” said Bilbao resident Eusebio Folgeira, 81.

French tourist Joana Host said: “It’s like nice weather for biking but we know it’s like the planet is burning. So we’re enjoying it but at the same time we’re scared.”

Scientists have not yet analysed the specific ways in which climate change affected the recent high temperatures, but January’s warm weather spell fits into the longer-term trend of rising temperatures due to human-caused climate change.

“Winters are becoming warmer in Europe as a result of global temperatures increasing,” said Freja Vamborg, climate scientist at the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

It follows another year of extreme weather events that scientists concluded were directly linked to global warming, including deadly heatwaves in Europe and India, and flooding in Pakistan.

“The record-breaking heat across Europe over the new year was made more likely to happen by human-caused climate change, just as climate change is now making every heatwave more likely and hotter,” said Dr Friederike Otto, climate scientist at Imperial College London.

Temperature spikes can also cause plants to start growing earlier in the year or coax animals out of hibernation early, making them vulnerable to being killed off by later cold snaps.

Robert Vautard, director of France’s Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute, said that while temperatures peaked from Dec. 30 to Jan. 2, the mild spell has lasted for two weeks and is still not over. “This is actually a relatively long-lived event,” he said.

EMPTY SLOPES

French national weather agency Meteo France attributed the anomalous temperatures to a mass of warm air moving to Europe from subtropical zones.

It struck during the busy skiing season, leading to cancelled trips and empty slopes. Resorts in the northern Spanish regions of Asturias, Leon and Cantabria have been closed since the Christmas holidays for lack of snow.

On Jahorina mountain above the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, which hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, it should have been one of the busiest weeks of the season. Instead, the chair-lifts hung lifeless above the grassy slopes. In one guesthouse a couple ate dinner alone in the restaurant, the only guests.

A ski jumping event in Zakopane, southern Poland, planned for the weekend of Jan. 7-8 was cancelled.

Karsten Smid, a climate expert at Greenpeace Germany, said while some climate change impacts were already unavoidable, urgent action should be taken to prevent even more drastic global warming.

“What’s happening right now is exactly what climate scientists warned us about 10, 20 years ago, and that can no longer be prevented now,” Smid said.

WEATHER EASES GAS STRAIN

The unusually mild temperatures have offered some short-term relief to European governments who have struggled to secure scarce gas supplies and keep a lid on soaring prices after Russia slashed deliveries of the fuel to Europe.

European governments have said this energy crisis should hasten their shift from fossil fuels to clean energy – but in the short term, plummeting Russian fuel supplies have left them racing to secure extra gas from elsewhere.

Gas demand has fallen for heating in many countries due to the mild spell, helping to reduce prices.

The benchmark front-month gas price was trading at 70.25 euros per megawatt hour on Wednesday morning, its lowest level since February 2022 – just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The head of Italy’s energy authority predicted that regulated energy bills in the country would fall this month, if the milder temperatures help keep gas prices lower.

However, a note by Eurointelligence cautioned that this should not lull governments into complacency about Europe’s energy crisis.

“While it will give governments more fiscal breathing room in the first part of this year, resolving Europe’s energy problems will taken concerted action over the course of several years,” it said. “Nobody should believe this is over yet.”

Reporting by Kate Abnett, Richard Lough, Alan Charlish, Krisztina Than, Luiza Ilie, Susanna Twidale, Riham Alkousaa, Jason Hovet, Emma Pinedo, Kirsten Donovan, Federico Maccioni; writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Mark Heinrich

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Putin deploys new Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles to Atlantic

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  • Putin sends hypersonic missiles to Atlantic
  • Sends of frigate with Zircon missiles
  • Putin says no other power has such weapons
  • Russia has used hypersonic missiles in Ukraine
  • This content was produced in Russia where the law restricts coverage of Russian military operations in Ukraine

MOSCOW, Jan 4 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin sent a frigate to the Atlantic Ocean armed with new generation hypersonic cruise missiles on Wednesday, a signal to the West that Russia will not back down over the war in Ukraine.

Russia, China and the United States are in a race to develop hypersonic weapons which are seen as a way to gain an edge over any adversary because of their speeds – above five times the speed of sound – and manoeuvrability.

In a video conference with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Igor Krokhmal, commander of the frigate named “Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov”, Putin said the ship was armed with Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic weapons.

“This time the ship is equipped with the latest hypersonic missile system – ‘Zircon’,” said Putin. “I am sure that such powerful weapons will reliably protect Russia from potential external threats.”

The weapons, Putin said, had “no analogues in any country in the world”.

More than 10 months since Putin sent troops into Ukraine, there is no end in sight to the war which has descended into a grinding winter artillery battle that has killed and wounded tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides.

Russia has also used hypersonic Kinzhal (Dagger) missiles in Ukraine.

Along with the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle which entered combat duty in 2019, the Zircon forms the centrepiece of Russia’s hypersonic arsenal.

Russia sees the weapons as a way to pierce increasingly sophisticated U.S. missile defences which Putin has warned could one day shoot down Russian nuclear missiles.

ATLANTIC VOYAGE

Shoigu said the Gorshkov would sail to the Atlantic and Indian oceans and to the Mediterranean Sea.

“This ship, armed with ‘Zircons’, is capable of delivering pinpoint and powerful strikes against the enemy at sea and on land,” Shoigu said.

Shoigu said the hypersonic missiles could overcome any missile defence system. The missiles fly at nine times the speed of sound and have a range of over 1,000 km, Shoigu said.

The main tasks of the voyage were to counter threats to Russia and to maintain “regional peace and stability jointly with friendly countries”, Shoigu said.

A U.S. Congressional Research Service report on hypersonic weapons says that Russian and Chinese hypersonic missiles are designed to be used with nuclear warheads.

The target of a hypersonic weapon is much more difficult to calculate than for intercontinental ballistic missiles because of their manoeuvrability.

Beyond Russia, the United States and China, a range of other countries are developing hypersonic weapons including Australia, France, Germany, South Korea, North Korea and Japan, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, +79856400243; editing by Philippa Fletcher

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Russia’s war on Ukraine latest: Russia blames cellphones for strike

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Jan 4 (Reuters) – Russia’s defence ministry blamed the illegal use of mobile phones for a deadly Ukrainian missile strike that killed 89 servicemen, raising the reported death toll significantly.

DIPLOMACY

* Some protesters in Germany are calling on Berlin to reconsider its support for Ukraine, tapping into deep connections from the legacy of Soviet ties to Communist east Germany and decades of German dependency on Russian gas.

* French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed that Ukraine “needs our support more than ever”. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also said Ukraine can count on long-term support.

* Young acrobats from circus schools across Ukraine dazzled audiences in Budapest at a circus festival to showcase the talents of children forced by the war to train underground or without electricity.

[1/3] People take part in a ceremony in memory of Russian soldiers killed in the course of Russia-Ukraine military conflict, the day after Russia’s Defence Ministry stated that 63 Russian servicemen were killed in a Ukrainian missile strike on their temporary accommodation in Makiivka (Makeyevka) in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine, in Glory Square in Samara, Russia, January 3, 2023. REUTERS/Albert Dzen

* Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to talk to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday.

FIGHTING

* Russia’s defence ministry said that 89 servicemen were killed in the Ukrainian attack on Makiivka in the Moscow-controlled parts of the Donetsk region, adding the main reason for the attack was unauthorised use of mobile phones by the troops.

* A little known patriotic group which supports the widows of Russian soldiers has called on President Vladimir Putin to order a large-scale mobilisation of millions of men and to close the borders to ensure victory in Ukraine.

* A Russian missile attack destroyed an ice arena in the town of Druzhkivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Ukraine’s ice hockey federation said, following earlier reports of a missile hitting the town and injuring two people.

* Combing the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, volunteers have made it their mission to search for bodies of fallen soldiers and return them to families.

Compiled by Cynthia Osterman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

The New Year rings in as Asia then Europe usher out 2022

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Dec 31 (Reuters) – With fireworks planned in Paris, hopes for an end to war in Kyiv, and a return to post-COVID normality in Australia and China, Europe and Asia bid farewell to 2022.

It was a year marked for many by the conflict in Ukraine, economic stresses and the effects of global warming. But it was also a year that saw a dramatic soccer World Cup, rapid technological change, and efforts to meet climate challenges.

For Ukraine, there seemed to be no end in sight to the fighting that began when Russia invaded in February. On Saturday alone, Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles, Ukrainian officials said, with explosions reported throughout the country.

Evening curfews remained in place nationwide, making the celebration of the beginning of 2023 impossible in many public spaces. Several regional governors posted messages on social media warning residents not to break restrictions on New Year’s Eve.

In Kyiv, though, people gathered near the city’s central Christmas tree as midnight approached.

“We are not giving up. They couldn’t ruin our celebrations,” said 36-year-old Yaryna, celebrating with her husband, tinsel and fairy lights wrapped around her.

Oksana Mozorenko, 35, said her family had tried to celebrate Christmas to make it “a real holiday” but added: “I would really like this year to be over.”

In a video message to mark the New Year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Time Magazine’s 2022 Person of the Year, said: “I want to wish all of us one thing – victory.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin devoted his New Year’s address to rallying the Russian people behind his troops fighting in Ukraine.

Festivities in Moscow were muted, without the usual fireworks on Red Square.

“One should not pretend that nothing is happening – our people are dying (in Ukraine),” said 68-year-old Yelena Popova. “A holiday is being celebrated, but there must be limits.” Many Muscovites said they hoped for peace in 2023.

Paris was set to stage its first New Year fireworks since 2019, with 500,000 people expected to gather on the Champs-Elysees avenue to watch.

Like many places, the Czech capital Prague was feeling the pinch economically and so did not hold a fireworks display.

“Holding celebrations did not seem appropriate,” said city hall spokesman Vit Hofman, citing “the unfavourable economic situation of many Prague households” and the need for the city to save money.

Heavy rain and high winds meant firework shows in the Netherlands’ main cities were cancelled.

But several European cities were experiencing record warmth for the time of year. The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute said it was seeing the warmest New Year’s Eve on record, with the temperature in Prague’s centre, where records go back 247 years, reaching 17.7 Celsius (63.9 Fahrenheit).

It was also the warmest New Year’s Eve ever recorded in France, official weather forecaster Meteo France said.

[1/7] People gather on the Champs Elysees avenue during the New Year’s Eve celebrations near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, December 31, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier

In Croatia, dozens of cities, including the capital Zagreb, cancelled fireworks displays after pet lovers warned about their damaging effects, calling for more environmentally aware celebrations.

The Adriatic town of Rovinj planned to replace fireworks with laser shows and Zagreb was putting on confetti, visual effects and music.

‘SYDNEY IS BACK’

Earlier, Australia kicked off the celebrations with its first restriction-free New Year’s Eve after two years of COVID disruptions.

Sydney welcomed the New Year with a typically dazzling fireworks display, which for the first time featured a rainbow waterfall off the Harbour Bridge.

“This New Year’s Eve we are saying Sydney is back as we kick off festivities around the world and bring in the New Year with a bang,” said Clover Moore, lord mayor of the city.

Pandemic-era curbs on celebrations were lifted this year after Australia, like many countries around the world, re-opened its borders and removed social distancing restrictions.

In China, rigorous COVID restrictions were lifted only in December as the government reversed its “zero-COVID” policy, a switch that has led to soaring infections and meant some people were in no mood to celebrate.

“This virus should just go and die, cannot believe this year I cannot even find a healthy friend that can go out with me and celebrate the passage into the New Year,” wrote one social media user based in eastern Shandong province.

But in the city of Wuhan, where the pandemic began three years ago, tens of thousands of people gathered to enjoy themselves despite a heavy security presence.

Barricades were erected and hundreds of police officers stood guard. Officers shuttled people away from at least one popular New Year’s Eve gathering point and used loudspeakers to blast out a message on a loop advising people not to gather. But the large crowds of revellers took no notice.

In Shanghai, many thronged the historic riverside walkway, the Bund.

“We’ve all travelled in from Chengdu to celebrate in Shanghai,” said Da Dai, a 28-year-old digital media executive who was visiting with two friends. “We’ve already had COVID, so now feel it’s safe to enjoy ourselves.”

In Hong Kong, days after limits were lifted on group gatherings, tens of thousands of people met near the city’s Victoria Harbour for a countdown to midnight. Lights beamed from some of the biggest harbour-front buildings.

It was the city’s biggest New Year’s Eve celebration in several years. The event was cancelled in 2019 due to often violent social unrest, then scaled down in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

Malaysia’s government cancelled its New Year countdown and fireworks event at Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur after flooding across the nation displaced tens of thousands of people and a landslide killed 31 people this month.

Celebrations at the capital’s Petronas Twin Towers were pared back with no performances or fireworks.

Reuters 2022 Year in Review

Reporting by Reuters bureaux around the world; Writing by Neil Fullick, Frances Kerry and Rosalba O’Brien; Editing by Hugh Lawson, David Holmes and Daniel Wallis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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