Ukraine updates: Russia launches Zaporizhia ‘offensive operation’

Moscow will retaliate against French media in Russia after the bank accounts of RT France, the French arm of its state broadcaster, were frozen, according to Russian news agencies quoting an anonymous foreign ministry source.

The blocking of RT France accounts will lead to retaliatory measures against the French media in Russia,” the TASS and RIA Novosti news agencies quoted the foreign ministry source as saying.

The head of the Russian private military contractor Wagner has published a short letter to the White House asking what crime his company was accused of, after Washington announced new sanctions on the group.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said that Wagner, which has been supporting Russian forces in their invasion of Ukraine and claiming credit for battlefield advances, would be designated a significant Transnational Criminal Organization.

A letter in English addressed to Kirby and posted on the Telegram channel of Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s press service read: “Dear Mr Kirby, Could you please clarify what crime was committed by PMC Wagner?”

RT France, the French arm of the Russian state broadcaster, will shut down after its French bank accounts were frozen over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the channel’s director.

“After five years of harassment, the authorities in power have achieved their goal: the closure of RT France,” Xenia Fedorova said in a Twitter statement.

She said 123 employees were at risk of not being paid for January and could lose their jobs because of the account freeze – part of the latest European Union sanctions against Russia.

The private Russian military group Wagner plans to send the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers killed in fighting in the captured town of Soledar to territory held by Ukraine, according to a website linked to the group’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Wagner said on January 11 it captured Soledar, and Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region said earlier this week they were in control of the salt-mining town, where intense fighting has taken place.

The RIA FAN website – part of Prigozhin’s media holdings – quoted a Wagner commander as saying the mercenary company would send the bodies from Soledar to Ukrainian-held territory in four or five convoys totalling about 20 trucks.

The Russian defence ministry has said it held a training exercise on repelling air attacks in the Moscow region.

“In the Moscow region, a training session was held with the personnel of the anti-aircraft missile brigade of the Western Military District on repelling air attacks on important military, industrial and administrative facilities,” the ministry said in a statement.

It said an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system was involved in the training as combat was simulated.

“As they marched, soldiers repelled an attack by a mock enemy sabotage group on a military convoy,” the statement said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has attended a memorial service to commemorate seven senior interior ministry officials killed in a helicopter crash this week, a new blow to a nation already grieving its many war dead.

Minister of Internal Affairs Denys Monastyrskyy, his deputy and five other high-ranking ministry officials were killed when their French-made Super Puma helicopter plummeted amid fog into a nursery on the eastern outskirts of Kyiv on Wednesday.

Another seven people were killed, including one child, in the crash. Officials are still investigating the cause of the crash.

The Russian army has said that its troops launched an offensive in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, where fighting this week intensified after several months of an almost frozen front.

In its daily report, Moscow’s forces said they led “offensive operations” in the region and claimed to have “taken more advantageous lines and positions”.

A senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Kyiv’s allies to “think faster” about stepping up their military support, a day after they failed to agree on sending battle tanks coveted by Kyiv.

“You’ll help Ukraine with the necessary weapons anyway and realize that there is no other option to end the war except the defeat of Russia,” Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter.

“But today’s indecision is killing more of our people. Every day of delay is the death of Ukrainians. Think faster.”

Ukrainian defence minister Oleskii Reznikov has said he had “a frank discussion” with German defence minister Boris Pistorius about the supply of Leopard tanks, adding that the talks would continue.

Reznikov made the remarks on Twitter after he attended a meeting of Western allies in Germany, where Ukraine’s partners did not agree to provide the tanks to Kyiv. Germany, which makes the Leopard tanks, would have to approve any transfer.