Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine expects possible major Russian offensive this month, says defence minister

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Today’s key developments so far:

Helping to arm Ukraine so it can defend itself against Russia is the swiftest path to achieving peace, the British foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said, writing in in the Times of Malta before a visit on Tuesday to the Mediterranean island.

Ukraine will not use longer-range weapons pledged by the United States to hit Russian territory and will only target Russian units in occupied Ukrainian territory, defence minister Oleksii Reznikov said.

Ukraine expects a possible major Russian offensive this month, but Kyiv has the reserves to hold back Moscow’s forces even though not all the west’s latest military supplies will have arrived in time, said Reznikov.

The German prosecutor general, Peter Frank, told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper his office had collected “hundreds” of pieces of evidence showing war crimes by Russian forces in Ukraine.

The former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett said that Vladimir Putin made him a promise he would not try to kill Volodymyr Zelenskiy, during a trip to Moscow shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

The head of Russia’s private Wagner militia said fierce fighting was continuing in the northern parts of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which has been the focus of Russian forces’ attention for weeks. Yevgeniy Prigozhin, rejected reports in Russian media that Ukrainian troops were abandoning Bakhmut, saying: “Fierce battles are going on in the northern quarters for every street, every house, every stairwell.”

The situation on the frontlines in the east of the country was getting tougher and Russia was throwing more and more troops into battle, President Zelenskiy, said on Saturday.

The embattled eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut has become “increasingly isolated”, according to the latest assessment by the UK Ministry of Defence. “Over the last week, Russia has continued to make small advances in its attempt to encircle the Donbas town of Bakhmut,” the MoD tweeted on Sunday.

Ukrainian forces remain in control of the village of Bilohorivka, the Luhansk region governor, Serhiy Haidai, has said, adding that the situation there is tense, but under control.

Zelenskiy has revoked the citizenship of several former influential politicians. He would not list the names but said they had dual Russian citizenship.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said Vladimir Putin “has not made any threats against me or Germany” in his telephone conversations with the Russian president, Bild am Sonntag reported. The former British prime minister Boris Johnson, speaking to the BBC for a documentary last week, said the Russian leader had threatened him with a missile strike that would “only take a minute”. The Kremlin said Johnson was lying.

Price caps on Russian oil probably hit Moscow’s revenues from oil and gas exports by nearly 30% in January, or about $8bn, compared with a year before, the International Energy Agency (IEA) chief, Fatih Birol, said on Sunday.

The European Union is taking another big step toward cutting its energy ties with Russia. The 27-nation bloc is banning Russian refined oil products such as diesel fuel and joining the US and other allies in imposing a price cap on sales to non-western countries. The ban takes effect from Sunday.

More on Russia’s defence ministry accusing Ukraine of preparing to blow up buildings in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk and then accuse Moscow of carrying out war crimes and targeting civilians in a false flag operation.

On Sunday, Russia’s defence ministry said Kyiv planned to detonate three medical buildings – dispensaries and a hospital – and “accuse Russia of an allegedly ‘deliberate attack’ on civilian objects”, Reuters reports. .

“The bombing of the medical institutions will be presented as another ‘atrocity’ of Russian troops, requiring a response from the world community and accelerating the supply of long-range missiles to Kyiv [to be used] for strikes on Russian territory,” the defence ministry said.

Reuters reports that the defence ministry provided no evidence for the claims it outlined in a post shared on social media.

There was no immediate response from Kyiv to the claims.

My Guardian colleague Dan Sabbagh has tweeted:

and this

Here are the main details from the news conference held by Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, as reported by Reuters:

Ukraine expects a possible major Russian offensive this month, but Kyiv has the reserves to hold back Moscow’s forces even though the latest western military supplies will not all arrive in time.

Russia could launch the new attack for “symbolic” reasons around the first anniversary of its invasion, but its resources were not ready from a military point of view, Reznikov said.

“Despite everything, we expect a possible Russian offensive in February. This is only from the point of view of symbolism; it’s not logical from a military view. Because not all of their resources are ready. But they’re doing it anyway,” he said.

Russian forces have been making incremental advances in the east as Moscow tries to capture the embattled city of Bakhmut and revive its faltering invasion after a string of battlefield setbacks in the second half of last year.

Reznikov said the offensive would probably be launched in the east – where Russia is trying to capture all of the heavily industrialised Donbas region – or the south where it wants to widen its land corridor to the occupied peninsula of Crimea.

He estimated that Russia had 12,000 troops in Belarusian military bases, a number that would not be enough to launch a significant attack from Belarus into Ukraine’s north, reopening a new front.

The United States and other western governments have pledged billions of dollars in new military assistance including tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to help Ukraine withstand a new attack as well as to help Kyiv launch a counteroffensive.

“Not all of the western weaponry will arrive in time. But we are ready. We have created our resources and reserves, which we are able to deploy and with which we are able to hold back the attack,” Reznikov said

Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukraine of preparing to blow up buildings in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk and then accuse Moscow of carrying out war crimes and targeting civilians in a false flag operation. The defence ministry provided no evidence for the claims, which it outlined in a post shared on social media on Sunday, Reuters reports.

Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov has addressed speculation over his future, saying he he was ready to step down if President Zelenskiy ordered his dismissal.

“No official is in the chair forever. Not one,” Reznikov said at a news conference, the Kyiv Independent reports. “I will do what the head of state suggests to me.”

The statement comes after Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda cited government and military sources saying that Reznikov was likely to be dismissed from his ministerial post next week, and could be appointed justice minister.

According to the publication, the likely replacement for him is Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence.

Ukraine expects a possible major Russian offensive this month, but Kyiv has the reserves to hold back Moscow’s forces even though not all the west’s latest military supplies will have arrived in time, Ukraine’s defence minister said on Sunday.

At a news conference, Oleksii Reznikov, the official, said Russia could launch the new attack in February for symbolic reasons around the first anniversary of its invasion, but that Moscow’s resources were not ready from a military point of view, Reuters reports.

Ukraine will not use longer-range weapons pledged by the US to hit Russian territory and will only target Russian units in occupied Ukrainian territory, the defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said on Sunday.

The US confirmed on Friday that a new rocket that would double Ukraine’s strike range was included in a ?1.8bn US military aid package to help Kyiv fight back Russian forces, Reuters reports.

“We always tell our partners officially that we will not use weapons supplied by foreign partners to fire on Russian territory. We only fire on Russian units on temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory,” Reznikov told reporters at a news conference.

Germany’s prosecutor general said on Sunday that his office had collected “hundreds” of pieces of evidence showing war crimes by Russian forces in Ukraine, calling for an international effort to bring leaders to justice.

“At the moment we are focusing on mass killings in Bucha and attacks on Ukraine’s civil infrastructure,” prosecutor Peter Frank told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

AFP reports:

He said most of the evidence came from interviews with Ukrainian refugees, and the goal was now to “prepare for a possible later court case – whether in Germany or with our foreign partners or an international court”.

Frank’s office has previously used the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows the prosecution of certain grave crimes regardless of where they took place, to try Syrians over atrocities committed during the country’s civil war. Under the same principle, a group of people from Myanmar last month filed a criminal complaint in Germany, accusing their country’s military of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Frank said his office had begun its Ukraine inquiry in March 2022

“We are not targeting certain specific people in the investigation but rather are collecting information and evidence,” he said. He acknowledged, however, that prosecution of suspected war criminals in Germany was possible only if they were in the country. German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock last month called for a tribunal to get around the fact that the international criminal court (ICC), despite launching it own investigation last year, cannot prosecute Russia for any possible war crimes since neither Russia nor Ukraine are members of the Hague-based court.

More on our earlier post on former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett‘s claim Putin promised he would not try to kill President Zelenskiy.

Bethan McKernan in Jerusalem reports:

The former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett has said in an interview that Vladimir Putin made him a promise he would not try to kill Volodymyr Zelenskiy, during a trip to Moscow shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

Speaking on a podcast with the Israeli journalist Hanoch Daum, published on Sunday, Bennett said he received assurance from Putin that the Ukrainian president’s life would be safe during a secretive visit to the Russian capital last March aimed at mediation during the war’s early days.

“I asked: ‘Are you planning to kill Zelenskiy?’ He said: ‘I won’t kill Zelenskiy.’ I then said to him: ‘I have to understand that you’re giving me your word that you won’t kill Zelenskiy.’ He said: ‘I’m not going to kill Zelenskiy.'”

Bennett said he then called Zelenskiy on his way to Moscow’s airport, who asked: “‘Are you sure?’ and I told him: ‘Yes, 100%, he won’t kill you.'”

The biggest test of the west’s ability to do harm to the Russian economy comes into force on Monday when the EU imposes a ban on Russian seaborne oil products such as diesel and tries to impose a G7-approved price cap on the same products across the rest of the world.

A ban on Russian seaborne crude came into force on 5 December and this extension to oil products will mean that 70% of Russian energy exports will now be subject to sanction. Oil products represent a third of Russian oil exports, with western Europe importing 600,000 barrels of diesel a month. The G7 set a price cap of $100 per barrel for high-value exports such as diesel and gasoline used for transport and electricity and a lower cap of $45 a barrel for fuel oils

Oil and gas exports formed about 70% of the foreign currency income for the Russian state.

The two bans were agreed by the EU back on 3 June, but only on the basis that the bans came into force months later, giving western economies time to wean off Russian energy.

The Druzhba pipeline providing supplies to the Czech Republic and the majority of Slovakia and Hungary has been exempted.

Oil experts are increasingly at odds about whether the oil sanctions have the potential to achieve their main purpose, which is to reduce income going into the Russian Treasury, so creating deficits that the Russian central bank will find harder to finance as the year goes on.

Critics say the $60 a barrel price caps set for crude oil and oil products are too high since they are both set above the current market rate.

Its defenders say the cap levels maintain stability in the markets and allow alternative purchasers of crude – mainly India and China – to buy at discounted rates, so reducing income to the Russian government.

The UK Treasury said in a weekend statement that Putin’s flagship crude oil Urals has since November been selling around $40 lower than Brent, the global benchmarks.

The price cap is enforced by shippers and traders being denied insurance unless they can attest the oil is being bought below the $60 cap. The UK as the chief supplier of shipping insurance plays a critical role in this. Sixty per cent of the global cover provided by the main shipping insurance club is written in the UK.

The Kyiv School of Economics in a weekend report predicted a decisive turning point was being reached on sanctions as the pressure was applied to Russian oil exports. It predicts Russian real GDP will contract by 6.1% this year. Importantly, the immediate crisis will be followed by an extended period of stagnation. Altogether, we believe that Russia’s economy will be more than 15% smaller in 2024 compared with a no-war/no-sanctions scenario.

Janis Kluge, a member of the working party on sanctions advising the Ukrainian government, claimed Russian oil and gas revenues had dwindled to just 425.5 bn roubles in January 2023. This is about half of the revenue in January 2022. Meanwhile, global oil prices were roughly the same a year ago.