Russia-Ukraine updates: ‘Few’ left in Bakhmut, says Zelenskyy

The United Kingdom says Russia has likely reinforced its defences along the frontline in the Luhansk region, as Ukrainian forces battle to recapture the key eastern city of Kreminna.

“Russia has constructed extensive new defences in the area and will likely prioritise holding the line here,” the UK’s Ministry of Defence said in a daily intelligence update.

Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 28 December 2022

Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/KOvHhO8Y9i

🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/otCtc6tEr4

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) December 28, 2022

Zelenskyy is reportedly working on a peace plan, while Putin says he is open to discussions to end the war but accuses his opponents of refusing to negotiate.

Al Jazeera looks at whether negotiations can put an end to Europe’s worst military conflict since the second world war.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has named a retired Kuwaiti vice admiral as coordinator of shipments from Ukraine as part of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

Abdullah Abdul Samad Dashti will help coordinate the five-month-old operation by Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and the UN to ensure shipments of grains, oilseeds, fertilisers and other farm products can get safely to markets from Black Sea ports.

Exports from Ukraine – a leading supplier of grains, oilseeds and vegetable oils to global markets – were cut off by a Russian naval embargo after Moscow’s forces invaded the country in February.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov says Russia wants the situation in Ukraine resolved as quickly as possible, with a priority on defending civilians and saving soldiers’ lives.

“We are engaged in activities that will allow us to work far more efficiently in these territories in the near future,” the state-owned TASS news agency quoted him as saying.

Lavrov said Moscow would beef up its troops and technological capabilities in Ukraine. He added that mobilised troops had undergone “serious training” and that the majority were not yet at the front.

Billionaire Kostyantyn Zhevago, the controlling shareholder of London-listed iron pellet producer Ferrexpo, has been arrested in France at Ukraine’s request, an official at the local prosecutor’s office has said.

Zhevago was arrested on Tuesday evening at the Courchevel ski resort in the French Alps, Reuters reported, as Ukraine sought the businessman’s extradition.

The billionaire is wanted on suspicion of embezzlement and money laundering linked to the disappearance of $113m from the now-bankrupt lender Finance & Credit Bank.

Ukrainian officials are calling on residents to evacuate from Kherson amid renewed Russian attacks on the southern city.

“I’m telling these people that Kherson is one of the most dangerous cities right now. So I ask them to imagine that they are going on vacation for a couple of weeks. It may be easier for them to decide to move this way. But still, a lot of people are staying in the city,” Kherson city council member, Dmytro Poddubniy, told CNN.

Russia withdrew from the city in November in one of the most important military achievements by Kyiv’s forces since Moscow invaded 10 months ago.

Zelenskyy has declared his country a “global leader” that “helped the West find itself again” during his end-of-year speech to parliament.

“Ukraine became one of the global leaders,” he told lawmakers, his cabinet, other senior officials and the top military brass.

“Over 10 months of this year, we helped everyone. We helped the West find itself again, to return to the global arena and feel how much the West prevails. No one in the West fears nor will they fear Russia,” he added.

The 45-minute speech, which was held behind closed doors, was heavily focused on the war. He also used the occasion to outline ideas including decentralising the energy system and making it greener.

French Minister for the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu has reaffirmed France’s “reliable and durable” military support for Ukraine during an official visit to Kyiv.

“We have studied the needs of the Ukrainian army to continue this aid in 2023,” Lecornu said on Twitter, posting a picture alongside Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov.

France has already provided weaponry like the Caesar howitzer artillery system and created a fund of 200 million euros (about $210m) for Ukraine to buy equipment directly from French manufacturers.

Ma visite à Kiev vient marquer le soutien militaire que la France apporte à l’Ukraine depuis le début de la guerre – un soutien fiable et durable.

Avec @oleksiireznikov, nous avons étudié les besoins de l’armée ukrainienne pour poursuivre cette aide en 2023. pic.twitter.com/XssJYKMKqQ

— Sébastien Lecornu (@SebLecornu) December 28, 2022

Twitter translation: My visit to kyiv marks the military support that France has provided to Ukraine since the beginning of the war – reliable and lasting support. With @oleksiireznikov , we have studied the needs of the Ukrainian army to continue this aid in 2023.

Finland’s first floating liquefied natural gas terminal has been moored at the southern port of Inkoo, after the Nordic country was cut off from Russian gas imports earlier this year amid the war in Ukraine.

The 291-metre-long (955-foot) and 43-meter-wide (141-foot) offshore support vessel Exemplar, which sailed to the Baltic Sea from Gibraltar and Spain earlier this month, has a capacity of 68,000 tonnes of LNG.

“Finland will permanently phase out its dependency on Russian gas and will greatly improve society’s security of supply,” said Gasgrid Finland CEO Olli Sipilä.

“The aim is that the terminal’s customers will begin to distribute gas to meet the needs of Finnish industry, energy production and households from mid-January 2023 onwards.”

Ukraine has secured the release of 1,456 prisoners of war since Russia invaded, Zelenskyy told parliament in an annual address held behind closed doors.

Kyiv and Moscow have held a series of prisoner swaps throughout the war.

Russia is thought to hold thousands of Ukrainian prisoners of war but the exact figures are unknown.

Russian airlines’ passenger traffic was down 15.7 percent in November year-on-year to 6.94 million passengers, data from the Rosstat federal statistics service showed, as the industry feels the effects of sanctions.

Western countries banned Russian airlines from using their airspace in response to Moscow invading Ukraine in February, cutting the airlines off from lucrative routes to Europe and the US.

Traffic for the first 11 months of the year was down 14.4 percent to 88 million passengers, Rosstat said.

The head of Gazprom says the company had a challenging year, as it seeks new markets following international sanctions.

“I want to say right away that 2022, of course, has turned out to be very, very difficult,” Alexei Miller said during an end-of-year conference.

Miller noted a “total change in the energy markets” driven by Western sanctions on Moscow.

He insisted, however, that Gazprom continues to operate in a “very well-coordinated” manner.

The loss of the European market has led Russia to seek alternatives, particularly in Asia.

Miller also welcomed last week’s launch of the Kovykta gas field in Siberia, which would significantly raise exports to China.

“The Power of Siberia gas pipeline is now in operation throughout its entire length, more than 3,000 kilometres [1,864 miles]” Miller said.

Turkey’s defence minister, Hulusi Akar, and the head of its National Intelligence Organisation (MIT), Hakan Fidan, were in Moscow for talks, the Turkish defence ministry said.

The ministry gave no other details.

Zelenskyy says that “only a few civilians” were left in the eastern front-line town of Bakhmut, which has endured months of fierce fighting.

“Last year, 70,000 people lived there. Now only a few civilians are left there,” Zelenskyy said on Facebook.

Following months of defeat, Russian forces are now seeking to wrest control of the eastern region of Donetsk where Bakhmut has become the epicentre of fighting.

In Bakhmut, “there is no place that is not covered with blood. There is no hour when the terrible roar of artillery does not sound,” Zelenskyy said.

“Still, Bakhmut stands,” he added.

Earlier this month, the president made a surprise trip to Bakhmut, describing the town as Ukraine’s front-line “fortress”.

Germany views the arrest of an intelligence employee on suspicion of spying for Russia as a “very serious” issue, the foreign ministry said.

Authorities will be given comprehensive support in the investigation, ministry spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann said at a news briefing in Berlin.

“The Federal Chancellery and the Federal Chancellor [Olaf Scholz] were involved in this case at an early stage,” she said.

“It is very important that nothing becomes public that could give the Russian side the opportunity to gain insights”.

Before Christmas, an employee of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND, was arrested on suspicion of having passed classified information to Russia.

The suspect faces treason charges that carry a sentence of at least five years or life imprisonment in severe cases such as this one.

German authorities have carried out several probes in recent months against alleged Russian spies and informants and expelled dozens of Russian diplomats, accusing them of conducting covert activities to destabilise the country’s democratic system.

As the year comes to a close, Al Jazeera reviews how the 10-month war in Ukraine began and how the world responded to it.

From Putin’s televised speech on February 24 announcing what he called a “special military operation” to “denazify” and “demilitarise” Ukraine to four regions being ‘annexed’ by Russia, and a rapid counteroffensive that resulted in large swathes of occupied territory returned, the conflict has moved quickly.

But, the war has also resulted in one of the world’s largest cases of human displacement.

Read more on how the war in Ukraine unfolded over 2022.

Russia’s economy contracted by more than 2 percent during the past 11 months, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said during a televised government meeting.

The rouble also weakened sharply on Wednesday, sliding to the 72 mark against the dollar, as sanctions on Russian oil and their probable effect on export revenues put pressure on the Russian currency.

The rouble lost approximately 8 percent against the dollar last week.

The finance ministry has said the recent slump is related to recovering imports.

Russia expels a Lithuanian diplomat and orders them to leave the country within five days.

“On Dec. 28, Chargé d’Affaires of Lithuania in Russia, Jurgita Cibulskiene, was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry … One of the diplomats of the Lithuanian embassy was declared ‘persona non grata’, he must leave the territory of the Russian Federation within five days,” a Russian foreign ministry statement said.

The statement added that the Lithuanian side “strongly protested in connection with the unjustified expulsion of an employee of the Russian Embassy in Vilnius”.

On December 1, the Lithuanian foreign ministry said that a Russian Embassy employee was declared “persona non grata” due to “activities incompatible with his diplomatic status.

A group of ethnic Chechens fleeing Russia arrived in Bosnia this week, hoping to cross into the European Union to avoid getting drafted to fight in Ukraine.

A group of approximately 50 people, predominantly from Russia’s Chechnya region, congregated near Bosnia’s northwestern border with EU-member Croatia, the Bosnian security ministry said.

“They want to reach the European Union because, in their own words, they are fleeing military draft” in Russia, the ministry said in a statement.

Russians can enter Bosnia without a visa and stay in the country for a maximum of 90 days within a 180-day period.

But to enter Croatia, which is set to join Europe’s visa-free travel zone, the Schengen Area, on January 1, they must hold a valid visa.

A Swiss court grants a six-month “stay of bankruptcy” to the operating company for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was built to bring Russian gas to Germany but was never used.

The company’s stay was extended from January 10 through July 10 by a regional court in the Swiss state of Zug, according to a notice published in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce.

Nord Stream 2’s court-appointed administrator, Transliq AG, sought the extension.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government halted the certification process for the pipeline on February 22 after Russia recognised the independence of two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.

In September, undersea explosions damaged both Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines.