January 10, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

NATO has pledged to "strengthen" support for Ukraine after signing a joint declaration with the European Union on Tuesday. 

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called the "strategic partnership" between the EU and NATO "more important than ever," as Russia's grinding invasion of Ukraine approaches 11 months.

"We must continue to strengthen the partnership between NATO and the European Union, and we must further strengthen our support to Ukraine," Stoltenberg said in Brussels, after signing the third joint EU-NATO declaration with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel. 

The EU-NATO partnership will become "even more important once Finland and Sweden become full NATO members with their accession," von der Leyen added.  

The European Commission chief referenced the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines as an example of the need "to take more responsibility for the security of our network infrastructure." 

She also highlighted the importance of keeping "the pressure on the Kremlin," saying that the EU will soon impose sanctions on countries including Belarus and Iran who militarily support Russia's war in Ukraine.

NATO has remained steadfast in its support of Ukraine since Russian launched its invasion in February, with Western allies sending billions of dollars worth of weapons and other aid to Kyiv.

Challenging weather conditions are exacerbating the stress on Ukrainian power systems, the country's state energy agency has said.

It comes after relentless Russian strikes ravaged the country's power grid late last year.

"Electricity consumption in Ukraine has increased due to low temperatures exacerbated by strong winds in most regions," Ukrenergo said Tuesday.

Supply limits in many regions have already been "exceeded," so emergency outages are now in place, the company said.

High wind gusts had caused "damages to distribution system operators" and repairs were underway, the company added.

Some context: Moscow has repeatedly targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure and left many residents without access to heat and power.

Amnesty International previously said Russia strikes on critical systems were "unlawful" and amounted to "a war crime."

"Russia’s targeting of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure is unlawful. The morale of the civilian population is not a lawful target, and carrying out these attacks with the sole purpose of terrorizing civilians is a war crime," Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said in a statement in October.

"All those responsible for ordering and committing these criminal attacks must be held to account. With Russia ramping up its efforts to terrorize civilians in Ukraine, the international community must urgently respond and condemn these heinous attacks."

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its 11th month, US and Ukrainian officials tell CNN that Russia’s artillery fire is down dramatically from its wartime high, in some places by as much as 75%.

US and Ukrainian officials don’t yet have a clear or singular explanation. Russia may be rationing artillery rounds due to low supplies, or it could be part of a broader reassessment of tactics in the face of successful Ukrainian offenses.

It also comes as Ukraine is enjoying increased military support from its Western allies, with the US and Germany announcing last week that they will be providing Ukrainian forces for the first time with armored fighting vehicles, as well as another Patriot Defense missile battery that will help protect its skies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, is apparently clambering to shore up domestic political support, US intelligence officials believe, for a war he initially would only describe as a limited "special military operation."

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Italy must sort out "technical issues" before dispatching air defense systems to Kyiv, according to the country's foreign minister.

Antonio Tajani told Italian radio station Rai Radio 1 that the Italian government was not slowing down its aid to Ukraine, but he did not specify what the issues with the air defense systems were.

On December 27, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told him during a phone call that Italy was considering sending air defenses to Ukraine.

"The defense project is Italian-French, we are working intensively with the French, there are technical problems to resolve with regards to non-bureaucratic military aspects," Tajani told Rai on Tuesday.  

"There are no brakes on the air defense project in Ukraine," the foreign minister said, adding that the country’s defense minister Guido Crosetto was also working on the problem. 

One of Russia's most modern warships armed with advanced hypersonic missiles held exercises in the Norwegian Sea, Russia's defense ministry said on Tuesday. 

The frigate Admiral Gorshkov conducted air defense exercises, practicing the repelling of enemy air strikes in difficult weather conditions at sea, the ministry said in a statement. 

The crew practiced maneuvering the ship, transmitting and receiving target assignment data and the deployment of onboard weapons, the ministry added.

Last Wednesday, the warship set off from a northern Russian port after Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with the ship’s commander and defense minister Sergei Shoigu via video link, TASS news agency reported.

Putin boasted that the ship was carrying Zircon hypersonic missiles, long-range weapons that travel more than five times the speed of sound and are harder to detect and intercept.

At the time, the conflict in Ukraine was not mentioned specifically in the TASS report. Whether the Zircon missile could be deployed in that war is uncertain.

CNN's Brad Lendon contributed reporting.

The Kremlin has said the US and NATO are indirectly taking part in the "conflict" in Ukraine, as Russia's grinding invasion approaches 11 months.

Peskov was echoing an earlier statement made by Russian Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev, who said Monday that Russia is fighting with NATO in Ukraine.

Russia "is liberating its regions from occupation and must put an end to the bloody experiment of the West to destroy the fraternal Ukrainian people," Patrushev added.

"We are not at war with Ukraine, because by definition we cannot have hatred towards ordinary Ukrainians," he said.

"The sooner the citizens of Ukraine realize that the West is fighting against Russia with their hands, the more lives will be saved," Patrushev added. "The whole story with Ukraine was started in Washington in order to work out the technologies for delimiting and playing off united people against each other."

Some context: NATO has remained steadfast in supporting Ukraine's resistance against Russia, with Western nations sending billions of dollars worth of weapons and other aid to Kyiv.

On Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned of the danger of underestimating Russia during President Vladimir Putin’s "war of aggression against Ukraine."

"The Ukrainian forces have inflicted heavy losses on Russia in Ukraine. But Russians have once again shown a willingness to take great risks and endure great human losses," Stoltenberg said at a business conference in Oslo, Norway.

The head of Russian private military company Wagner has said Kyiv is defending Soledar with "honor," as the fierce battle for control of the mining town in eastern Ukraine intensifies.

Yevgeny Prigozhin posted on Telegram that "the hardest, bloodiest battles are being fought" for control of Soledar, which has seen some of the heaviest fighting along the front line in Ukraine in recent days.

Wagner forces are "exclusively" working to capture Soledar, Prigozhin said over the weekend, describing the mines underneath Soledar and Bakhmut as a "network of underground cities."

Soledar is located 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) north of Bakhmut in the greater Donetsk region, which has been held by Russian-backed separatists since 2014 and is one of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims as Russian territory in violation of international law.

The move for Soledar by Wagner would be strategically important to the ultimate capture of Bakhmut, as a way of enveloping the city from the north and disrupting Ukrainian communication lines.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previously said Russian forces were focusing their manpower on capturing Soledar.

"Thousands of their people have been lost: The whole ground near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the blows. This is how madness looks like," Zelensky added.

Russia's human rights commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova said she plans to meet with her Ukrainian counterpart in Turkey later this week, Russian state media reported Tuesday.

She added that the conference would take place January 12-14.

Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets wrote on Telegram Sunday that a meeting with Moskalkova would "take place in a few days in Turkey."

"The main issue to be discussed is the return of our heroes home," he said, adding that plans were "ambitious."

"Separately, we will raise the issue of the return of civilian hostages who were massively detained by the Russian Federation in the temporarily occupied territories and are not allowed to return home."

The planned meeting comes after Kyiv and Moscow carried out a prisoner exchange Sunday with a total of 100 soldiers returning to their home countries, according to officials in both nations.

Russia is focused on capturing the mining town of Soledar in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address on Monday. 

The Russians, “have concentrated their greatest efforts on Soledar,” he said. “It is extremely difficult — there are almost no undamaged walls left.” 

Ukrainian troops have repelled a previous Russian attempt to capture the town, Zelensky’s deputy defense minister said earlier Monday. Zelensky said his men’s “resilience” had “won additional time” for Ukraine. 

Zelensky said his administration was working to get the military equipment promised by Ukraine’s allies to the front line as soon as possible: “We are doing everything to ensure that there is as little time as possible between the agreement on additional support and the application of this support on the battlefield.”