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Russia’s Lavrov compares West’s approach to Russia with Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’

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MOSCOW, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov drew a sharp rebuke from the White House on Wednesday for saying the United States had assembled a coalition of European countries to solve “the Russian question” in the same way that Adolf Hitler had sought a “final solution” to eradicate Europe’s Jews.

“How dare he compare anything to the Holocaust, anything. Let alone a war that they started,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.

Lavrov, who caused an international furore last year with remarks about Hitler, said Washington was using the same tactic as Napoleon and the Nazis in trying to subjugate Europe in order to destroy Russia.

Using Ukraine as a proxy, he said, “they are waging war against our country with the same task: the ‘final solution’ of the Russian question.”

“Just as Hitler wanted a ‘final solution’ to the Jewish question, now, if you read Western politicians … they clearly say Russia must suffer a strategic defeat.”

The ‘Final Solution’ was Hitler’s blueprint for the Holocaust, which led to the systematic murder of 6 million Jews, as well as members of other minorities.

Lavrov has caused outrage before with remarks about Hitler. Last May he said the Nazi leader had “Jewish blood”, drawing angry protests from Israel.

“It’s almost so absurd that it’s not worth responding to, other than the truly offensive manner in which he tried to cast us in terms of Hitler and the Holocaust,” Kirby told reporters at a briefing.

Reporting by Reuters, Katharine Jackson in Washington; Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Nick Zieminski

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Ukraine’s interior minister among 15 dead in helicopter crash

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  • No immediate explanation for helicopter crash
  • Ukraine closer to receiving Western tanks
  • Zelenskiy to address World Economic Forum in Davos
  • Moscow sees no sign of talks

BROVARY, Ukraine, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s interior minister was among at least 15 people killed on Wednesday morning when a helicopter crashed near a nursery outside Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said.

Officials said nine people on board the aircraft and six on the ground, including three children, were killed when the French-made Super Puma helicopter crashed in a residential area in the suburb of Brovary on the capital’s eastern outskirts. Earlier, officials had given an initial death toll of 18.

The regional governor said 29 other people were injured, including 15 children.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the crash a terrible tragedy, saying the full casualty toll was still being determined and he had ordered an investigation.

“As of this minute, three children died. The pain is unspeakable,” he said in a statement.

At the scene, debris was scattered over a muddy playground and emergency workers milled about a fleet of ambulances.

In a courtyard lay several dead bodies wearing blue interior ministry uniforms and black boots, visible from under foil blankets draped over them. A large chunk of the aircraft had landed on a car, destroying it.

National police chief Ihor Klymenko confirmed that Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi was killed alongside his first deputy, Yevheniy Yenin, and other ministry officials flying in the helicopter operated by the state emergency service.

Ukrainian officials said it was not immediately clear what had caused the helicopter to crash. There was no immediate comment from Russia, which invaded Ukraine last February, and Ukrainian officials made no reference to any Russian attack in the area at the time.

“Unfortunately, the sky does not forgive mistakes, as pilots say, but it’s really too early to talk about the causes,” air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said, adding it could take at least several weeks to investigate the disaster.

Monastyrskyi, 42, a lawyer and lawmaker appointed in 2021 to run the ministry with responsibilty for the police, was the most senior Ukrainian official to die since the war began.

FIGHTING

Separately, Ukraine reported intense fighting overnight in the east of the country, where both sides have taken huge losses for little gain in intense trench warfare over the last two months.

[1/18] A view shows the site where a helicopter falls on civil infrastructure buildings, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in the town of Brovary, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, January 18, 2023. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

Ukrainian forces repelled attacks in the eastern city of Bakhmut and the village of Klishchiivka just south of it, the Ukrainian military said. Russia has focused on Bakhmut in recent weeks, claiming last week to have taken the mining town of Soledar on its northern outskirts.

After significant Ukrainian gains in the second half of 2022, the frontlines have hardened over the last two months. Kyiv says it hopes new Western weapons would let it resume an offensive to recapture land, especially heavy tanks which would give its troops mobility and protection to push through Russian lines.

Western allies will be gathering on Friday at a U.S. air base in Germany to pledge more weapons for Ukraine. Attention is focused in particular on Germany, which has veto power over any decision to send its Leopard tanks, fielded by armies across Europe and widely seen as the most suitable for Ukraine.

Berlin says a decision on the tanks will be the first item on the agenda of Boris Pistorius, named its new defence minister this week.

Britain, which broke the Western taboo on sending main battle tanks over the weekend by promising a squadron of its Challengers, has called on Germany to approve the Leopards. Poland and Finland have already said they would be ready to send Leopards if Berlin allows it.

Lithuania’s president, attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said he was confident there would be a decision to send tanks.

“I’m confident because this is what I’m hearing here, talking with other leaders. There is momentum,” Gabrielius Landsbergis told Reuters in an interview.

Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz was due to address the forum later on Wednesday, though his government is thought likely to be waiting until later in the week to unveil any decision on tanks. Ukraine’s Zelenskiy was also due to address Davos by video link.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday Moscow saw no prospects of peace talks and there could be no negotiations with Zelenskiy. Russia has said talks are possible only if Ukraine recognises Moscow’s claims to Ukrainian territory; Kyiv says it will fight until Russia withdraws from all of Ukraine.

In his remarks, Lavrov compared the West’s approach to Russia to Hitler’s “final solution”, the Holocaust plot to murder all European Jews. Lavrov was criticised by Israel last year for saying Hitler was part Jewish and the worst anti-Semites were Jews, after being asked why Moscow portrays Zelenskiy, who has a Jewish background, as a Nazi.

In the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the civilian death toll from a missile that struck an apartment block on Saturday rose to 45, including six children, among them an 11-month-old boy, Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Ukrainian authorities called off the search for survivors on Tuesday. Around 20 other people are still missing in the rubble after the attack, the deadliest for civilians of a three-month Russian missile bombardment campaign against cities far from the front.

Moscow denies intentionally targetting civilians. It launched what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine last year saying Kyiv’s ties with the West posed a security threat.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions forced to flee homes in what Kyiv and the West call an unprovoked invasion to subdue Ukraine and seize its land.

Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Angus MacSwan

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Ukraine pushes for tanks as holdout Germany says new minister to decide

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  • New German defence minister announced as Boris Pistorius
  • Wary Berlin holding up tanks from other European allies
  • Death toll from missile strike in Dnipro rises to 44

DNIPRO, Ukraine/KYIV, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Ukraine came a step closer on Tuesday in its bid to win a fleet of modern battle tanks it hopes could turn the course of the war with Russia, after the West’s big holdout Germany said this would be the first item on its new defence minister’s agenda.

In the central city of Dnipro, authorities called an end to the search for survivors in the ruins of an apartment building destroyed during Russian missile attacks on Saturday.

Forty-four people were confirmed killed and 20 remain unaccounted for in the attack, the deadliest for civilians of a three-month Russian missile bombardment campaign, according to Ukrainian officials. Seventy-nine people were wounded and 39 rescued from the rubble.

Nearly 11 months after Russia invaded, Kyiv says a fleet of Western battle tanks would give its troops the mobile firepower to drive Russian troops out in decisive battles in 2023.

German-made Leopard battle tanks, workhorse of armies across Europe, cannot be delivered without authorisation from Berlin, which has so far demurred.

With Western allies meeting at a U.S. air base in Germany on Friday to pledge military support for Ukraine, Berlin is under intense pressure to lift its objections this week.

The decision sits on the desk of Germany’s new Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, named on Tuesday to replace Christine Lambrecht, who quit after comments critics called insensitive.

“When the person, when the minister of defence, is declared, this is the first question to be decided concretely,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck told Deutschlandfunk radio broadcaster on Tuesday, before the appointment was announced.

FEARS OF ESCALATING CONFLICT

In his first comments on the job, Pistorius, a regional politician viewed as close to Chancellor Olaf Scholz, made no mention of weapons for Ukraine: “I know the importance of the task,” he said in a statement. “It is important to me to involve the soldiers closely and to take them with me.”

Pistorius will host U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday ahead of Friday’s meeting of allies at Ramstein air base.

Germany has been cautious about approving weapons that could be seen as escalating conflict.

Scholz, speaking on Tuesday in an interview for Bloomberg TV, confirmed that discussions with Germany’s allies on tanks were ongoing but should not be conducted in public.

The Kremlin said last week that new deliveries of weapons, including French-made armoured vehicles, to Kyiv would “deepen the suffering of the Ukrainian people” and would not change the course of the conflict.

Vladimir Solovyev, a pro-Kremlin presenter on Rossiya 1 state television, said any Western countries which supplied more advanced weapons to Ukraine should be considered legitimate targets for Russia.

[1/5] A view shows a kitchen inside an apartment block heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Dnipro, Ukraine January 15, 2023. REUTERS/Yan Dobronosov

Since President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, the United States and its allies have given tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry including rocket systems, drones, armoured vehicles and communications systems.

Ukraine’s top general, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, said he had outlined his forces’ “urgent needs” in a first personal meeting on Tuesday in Poland with the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley.

Poland and Finland have already said they would send Leopards if Berlin gives re-export approval.

Separately, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday the Netherlands would join the United States and Germany in sending Patriot missiles to Ukraine.

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said NATO allies were conveying a clear message to Putin by boosting their arms supplies to Ukraine.

“The message we’re sending to Putin… is that we made a commitment to support Ukrainians until they are victorious,” Cleverly told a forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

A senior Ukrainian official blamed Russia for carrying out the bulk of more than 2,000 cyberattacks on Ukraine in 2022, speaking at a news conference he said was itself delayed because of a cyberattack. There was no immediate comment on his allegations from Moscow.

CUDDLY TOYS AT MEMORIAL

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions driven from their homes since Russia launched last February what it calls a “special military operation” to eliminate security threats in Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western backers call Russia’s actions a land grab.

Ukrainian forces drove Russian troops back during the second half of 2022, but over the past two months the front lines have largely been frozen in place despite both sides enduring heavy losses in relentless fighting.

Moscow has turned since October to a tactic of raining missiles down on Ukrainian cities far from the front lines in the east and south, mainly targeting electricity infrastructure.

Russia says it aims to reduce Ukraine’s ability to fight; Kyiv says the attacks serve no military purpose and are intended to harm civilians, a war crime.

In Dnipro, residents left flowers and cuddly toys at a makeshift memorial near the apartment block devastated during a wave of missile attacks on Saturday.

Hundreds of mourners bade farewell to boxing coach Mykhailo Korenovskyi, killed in a strike, while footage showed the kitchen of his apartment, decorated in bright yellow colours, now exposed to the air after the external wall was torn off.

A recent family video, filmed in the same kitchen, showed Korenovskyi’s daughter smiling and blowing out four candles on her birthday cake while he stood behind her, holding another child in his arms.

Moscow denies intentionally targeting civilians, and blamed Ukraine’s air defences for the missile that hit the apartment block. Kyiv says it was hit by a notoriously inaccurate Russian anti-ship missile for which Ukraine has no defences.

Writing by Peter Graff and Gareth Jones; Editing by Nick Macfie, Alex Richardson and Mark Heinrich;

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Sweden, Finland must send up to 130 “terrorists” to Turkey for NATO bid, Erdogan says

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ANKARA, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Sweden and Finland must deport or extradite up to 130 “terrorists” to Turkey before the Turkish parliament will approve their bids to join NATO, President Tayyip Erdogan said.

The two Nordic states applied last year to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but their bids must be approved by all 30 NATO member states. Turkey and Hungary have yet to endorse the applications.

Turkey has said Sweden in particular must first take a clearer stance against what it sees as terrorists, mainly Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.

“We said look, so if you don’t hand over your terrorists to us, we can’t pass it (approval of the NATO application) through the parliament anyway,” Erdogan said in comments late on Sunday, referring to a joint press conference he held with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson last November.

“For this to pass the parliament, first of all you have to hand more than 100, around 130 of these terrorists to us,” Erdogan said.

Finnish politicians interpreted Erdogan’s demand as an angry response to an incident in Stockholm last week in which an effigy of the Turkish leader was strung up during what appeared to be a small protest.

“This must have been a reaction, I believe, to the events of the past days,” Finland’s foreign minister Pekka Haavisto told public broadcaster YLE.

Haavisto said he was not aware of any new official demands from Turkey.

In response to the incident in Stockholm, Turkey cancelled a planned visit to Ankara of the Swedish speaker of parliament, Andreas Norlen, who instead came to Helsinki on Monday.

“We stress that in Finland and in Sweden we have freedom of expression. We cannot control it,” the speaker of the Finnish parliament, Matti Vanhanen, told reporters at a joint news conference with Norlen.

Separately on Monday Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson said that his country was in a “good position” to secure Turkey’s ratification of its NATO bid.

Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Saturday that time was running out for Turkey’s parliament to ratify the bids before presidential and parliamentary elections expected in May.

Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Gareth Jones

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Three dead, 16 hurt in ammo blast in Russian region near Ukraine

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Jan 15 (Reuters) – An ammunition explosion caused by “careless” handling of a grenade in Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine killed three soldiers and injured 16, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday.

The blast occurred in a cultural centre repurposed for Russia’s armed forces to store ammunition, state news agencies reported, citing local emergency services for the toll.

Another eight service personnel were still reported missing as of Sunday evening, the Interfax news agency reported.

“As a result of the unintentional detonation of a hand grenade by a sergeant in a dormitory … a fire broke out. Sixteen servicemen, including the culprit, have been taken to hospital. Three more died,” local emergency services said in a statement cited by news agencies.

The TASS news agency said local officials said “careless handling” of the grenade caused it to explode.

The 112 and Baza Telegram channels, linked to Russia’s law enforcement agencies, said the dead and injured were conscripts called up to fight in Ukraine under a mobilization drive.

Reports did not say when the incident took place.

The Belgorod region borders the northeast of Ukraine, where the city of Kharkiv has been targeted by multiple Russian missile attacks since the invasion of Ukraine last February.

In October a gunman opened fire at one of the several military bases in the Belgorod region, killing 11 soldiers.

Fuel and ammunition stores there have also been rocked by explosions in what Moscow said were Ukrainian attacks. Kyiv, without claiming responsibility, has described them as “karma” for Russia’s invasion.

Reporting by Jake Cordell
Editing by Mark Heinrich, Andrew Cawthorne and Philippa Fletcher

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Britain to send 14 of its main battle tanks, more weaponry to Ukraine

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LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office said late on Saturday that Britain would send 14 of its main battle tanks along with additional artillery support to Ukraine, disregarding criticism from the Russian Embassy in London.

A squadron of 14 Challenger 2 tanks will go into the country in the coming weeks and around 30 self-propelled AS90 guns, operated by five gunners, are expected to follow, the British prime minister’s office said in a statement.

The UK will also begin training Ukrainian forces to use the tanks and guns in the coming days.

“As the people of Ukraine approach their second year living under relentless Russian bombardment, the Prime Minister is dedicated to ensuring Ukraine wins this war,” a spokesperson for the prime minister said in a statement.

“Alongside his closest military advisors, he has analysed the military picture, looked at the strategic impact of the UK’s support and identified a window where he thinks the UK and its allies can have maximum impact.”

The announcement follows a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy earlier on Saturday during which, Sunak “outlined the UK’s ambition to intensify our support to Ukraine, including through the provision of Challenger 2 tanks and additional artillery systems.”

Sunak’s office said earlier this week that Britain would coordinate its support with allies after Germany, France and the United States all indicated last week they would provide armoured vehicles to Ukraine.

The office also said that the defence minister would update the British parliament with details of the security support on Monday.

The Russian Embassy in London said the decision to send the tanks would drag out the confrontation, lead to more victims including civilians, and was evidence of “the increasingly obvious involvement of London in the conflict”.

“As for the Challenger 2 tanks, they are unlikely to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine turn the tide on the battlefield, but they will become a legitimate large target for the Russian artillery,” the embassy said, according to comments cited by the TASS news agency.

BATTLE TANK

The Challenger 2 is a battle tank designed to attack other tanks, and has been in service with the British Army since 1994. It has been deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Iraq, according to the army.

“The prime minister and President Zelenskiy welcomed other international commitments in this vein, including Poland’s offer to provide a company of Leopard tanks,” Sunak’s spokesperson said.

Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address published before the detailed British announcement, called the expected help “important” for Ukraine’s defence.

“It’s really what is needed,” Zelenskiy said. “And I believe that similar decisions will still be made by other partners – those who understand why such evil cannot be given a single chance.”

Reporting by Michael Holden and Lidia Kelly;
Editing by Mark Heinrich, Angus MacSwan, Tomasz Janowski, and Deepa Babington

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Medvedev says Japanese PM should disembowel himself

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Jan 14 (Reuters) – Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Saturday of shameful subservience to the United States and suggested he should ritually disembowel himself.

It was the latest in a long line of shocking and provocative statements from Medvedev, who was once seen as a Western-leaning reformer but has reinvented himself as an arch-hawk since Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

Speaking at a news conference in Washington on Saturday, a day after a summit with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday, Kishida made no mention of Medvedev’s comment and was not asked about it.

Japanese officials travelling with Kishida did not immediately respond to requests for comment and in Japan, no one was immediately available for comment on the remarks at either the prime minister’s official residence or the foreign ministry outside normal working hours.

Medvedev is a prominent ally of President Vladimir Putin who serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council and of a body overseeing the defence industry.

He was responding to a meeting on Friday between Kishida and Biden, after which the two leaders issued a joint statement saying: “We state unequivocally that any use of a nuclear weapon by Russia in Ukraine would be an act of hostility against humanity and unjustifiable in any way.”

On Saturday, Kishida said the G7 summit of major industrialized nations in Hiroshima in May should demonstrate a strong will to uphold international order and rule of law after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Medvedev said the nuclear statement showed “paranoia” towards Russia and “betrayed the memory of hundreds of thousands of Japanese who were burned in the nuclear fire of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” – a reference to the atomic bombs that the United States dropped on Japan to force its surrender at the end of World War Two.

Rather than demanding U.S. repentance for this, Kishida had shown he was “just a service attendant for the Americans”.

He said such shame could only be washed away by committing seppuku – a form of suicide by disembowelment, also known as hara-kiri – at a meeting of the Japanese cabinet after Kishida’s return.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Medvedev has warned repeatedly that Western meddling in the crisis could lead to nuclear war, and has referred to Ukrainians as “cockroaches” in language Kyiv says is openly genocidal.

Putin has said that the risk of a nuclear war is rising but insisted Russia has not “gone mad” and that it sees its own nuclear arsenal as a purely defensive deterrent.

Reporting by Reuters
Editing by Frances Kerry and Diane Craft

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Russian missiles strike vital infrastructure in Kyiv and Kharkiv

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KYIV, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Russian missile attacks hit critical infrastructure in Kyiv and the eastern city of Kharkiv on Saturday morning, and the governor of another region warned that a massive missile strike could follow in the coming hours.

Reuters journalists heard a series of blasts in Kyiv before the air raid siren even sounded, which is highly unusual. No one was reported hurt, but missile debris caused a fire in one place and houses were damaged outside the capital, officials said.

“Explosions in the (eastern) Dniprovskiy district. All agencies heading to the site. Stay in your shelters!” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia, which invaded last February, has been pounding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with missiles and drones since October, causing sweeping blackouts and disruptions to central heating and running water as winter bites.

“An infrastructure facility was hit. No critical damage or fire. All emergency services are working at the site. No one is wounded,” Kyiv’s military administration said in a statement.

Ukrenergo, which runs the power grid, said its workers were racing to fix the damage and that the network was grappling with a power deficit caused by earlier attacks even though it was -2 Celsius (28 Fahrenheit) in Kyiv, only mildly cold.

Kyiv’s mayor said the debris of a missile came down on a non-residential area in the Holosiivskiy district in the west of Kyiv, causing a fire but hurting no one.

Residential infrastructure was also hit in the village of Kopyliv in the region just outside the capital. The windows and roofs of 18 privately owned houses were shattered or damaged by the blast, Oleksiy Kuleba, the regional governor, said.

Air Force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said Russia’s missiles had likely been fired along a high, looping ballistic trajectory from the north, which would explain why the air raid siren did not sound.

Ukraine is not able to identify and shoot down ballistic missiles, he told the Ukrainska Pravda online outlet.

MISSILES STRIKE KHARKIV

In Ukraine’s northeast, Oleg Synehubov, Kharkiv’s regional governor, said two S-300 missiles struck the city near the Russian border early on Saturday.

The attacks hit critical energy infrastructure and industrial facilities in the Kharkiv and Chuhuev district of the region, he said.

“Our emergency services units and energy workers are working to liquidate the consequences and stabilise the situation with energy supplies,” he said.

The governor of the central Cherkasy region warned that a massive Russian missile strike could follow later on Saturday, while the governor of Mykolaiv to the south said that 17 Russian Tupolev warplanes had taken off from their air bases.

But after their statements the air raid alarm in Kyiv and the surrounding region was lifted.

The strikes on Saturday came as Ukrainian and Russian forces battled for control of Soledar, a small salt-mining town in eastern Ukraine that for days has been the focus of a relentless Russian assault.

Russia said on Friday that its forces had taken control of Soledar, in what would be a rare success for Moscow after months of battlefield reverses, but Kyiv said its troops were still fighting in the town.

Reuters could not immediately verify the situation in Soledar.

Writing by Tom Balmforth
Editing by Angus MacSwan, Mark Heinrich and Frances Kerry

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Russia’s war on Ukraine latest: Moscow, Kyiv dispute control of Soledar

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Jan 14 (Reuters) – Russia said on Friday its forces had taken control of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, in what would be a rare success for Moscow after months of battlefield reverses, but Kyiv said its troops were still fighting in the town.

FIGHTING

* President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces continued to fight in Soledar, a small salt-mining town, and other cities in the Donetsk region.

* Reuters could not verify the accounts.

* CNN said reporters outside Soledar could hear mortar and rocket fire on Friday afternoon and saw Ukrainian forces ferrying troops in what appeared to be an organised pullback.

* Ultra-nationalist mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose Wagner Group includes prisoners promised pardons for service, complained after Russia’s military took credit for Soledar without mentioning his fighters.

ARMS

* Finland joined Poland in saying it could send German-made Leopard tanks to Ukraine as part of a Western coalition apparently being put together to supply them.

* France hopes to deliver “AMX 10-RC” light combat tanks to Ukraine in two months, said armed forces minister Sebastien Lecornu.

* Belarus may enter the conflict, a Russian foreign ministry official said. Russia used Belarus as a springboard to invade Ukraine in February, but the border area is now heavily waterlogged, making an imminent attack from there unlikely. 4pm

DIPLOMACY, ECONOMY

* Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, after meeting U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington, stressed the importance of standing up to Russia’s invasion, saying that if a unilateral change to the status quo went unchallenged, the same would happen elsewhere, including in Asia – an apparent reference to China’s vow to reunite with self-ruled Taiwan, by force if necessary.

* Russia is becoming too dependent on oil revenues to support its budget as it ramps up military spending, economists said, warning that the government may have to raise taxes if crude prices fail to meet expectations this year.

* A close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested confiscating property and assets of Russians who discredit the armed forces and oppose the war in Ukraine.

* At least four Chinese-owned supertankers are shipping Russian Urals crude to China, according to trading sources and tracking data, as Moscow seeks vessels for exports after a G7 oil price cap restricted the use of Western cargo services and insurance.

Compiled by Grant McCool and William Mallard

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Russia is now fighting NATO in Ukraine, top Putin ally says

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  • West is seeking to destroy Russia, Patrushev says
  • Russia will seek economic independence, bolster army
  • Patrushev is key hardliner ally of Putin

MOSCOW, Jan 10 (Reuters) – One of President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies said on Tuesday that Moscow was now fighting the U.S.-led NATO military alliance in Ukraine and that the West was trying to wipe Russia from the political map of the world.

Putin casts the war in Ukraine as an existential battle with an aggressive and arrogant West, and has said that Russia will use all available means to protect itself and its people against any aggressor.

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev is seen by diplomats as one of the major hardline influences on Putin, who has promised victory in Ukraine despite a series of battlefield setbacks.

“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,” Patrushev told the Argumenti i Fakti newspaper in an interview.

“The Westerners’ plans are to continue to pull Russia apart, and eventually just erase it from the political map of the world,” Patrushev said.

The United States has denied Russian claims that it wants to destroy Russia, the world’s biggest producer of natural resources, while President Joe Biden has cautioned that a conflict between Russia and NATO could trigger World War Three.

Asked about Patrushev’s remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said NATO and the United States were part of the Ukraine conflict.

“De facto they have already become an indirect party to this conflict, pumping Ukraine with weapons, technologies, intelligence information and so on,” Peskov told a regular news briefing.

Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered one of the deadliest European conflicts since World War Two and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union and United States came closest to intentional nuclear war.

The United States and its allies have condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an imperial land grab, while Ukraine has vowed to fight until the last Russian soldier is ejected from its territory.

RUSSIA ALONE

As a former Soviet spy who has known Putin since the 1970s, Patrushev’s views give an insight into thinking at the very highest levels of the Kremlin. He rebuffed CIA Director William Burns’ warnings in 2021 against an invasion of Ukraine.

In a Soviet-style analysis of the West, Patrushev cast Western political elites as corrupt and controlled by trans-national corporations and business clans which planned and executed “colour revolutions” across the world.

“The American state is just a shell for a conglomerate of huge corporations that rule the country and try to dominate the world,” Patrushev said.

The United States, Patrushev said, had sown chaos in Afghanistan, Vietnam and the Middle East, and had been trying for years to undermine Russia’s “unique” culture and language.

Russia, he said, was a victim of Western designs to push it back to the borders of 15th century Muscovy, and accused the West of bleeding Ukraine to undermine Russia.

“There is no place for our country in the West,” he said.

In response, he said, Russia would achieve economic sovereignty and financial independence while also building up its armed forces and special services to deter any potential aggressor.

Russian business and private capital, he said, needed to be more “nationally oriented”.

“The younger generation should be inspired by the ideas of creative work for the benefit of our Motherland, and not sit in the offices of Western corporations,” he said.

Editing by Gareth Jones

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