Ukraine says situation is 'difficult' but fighting to hold Soledar

A Russian court sentenced a 24-year-old professional soldier to five years in prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, officials said on Thursday.

The soldier, "not wanting to take part in a special military operation", did not report for duty in May 2022, said the press service for courts in the region of Bashkortostan in the southern Urals.

Law enforcement located the man, Marsel Kandarov, in September, the statement added. 

Russia could raise the upper age limit for citizens to be conscripted into the armed forces as soon as this spring, a senior lawmaker has said, as part of Moscow's plans to boost the number of Russian troops by 30%.

President Vladimir Putin gave his backing in December to defence ministry proposals to raise the age range for mandatory military service to cover Russian citizens aged 21-30, rather than the current range of 18-27.

The chairman of the Russian parliament's defence committee, Andrei Kartapolov, said in an interview with the official parliamentary newspaper that Russia could raise the upper age limit for conscription to 30 for this year's spring draft. But only after a one-to-three-year "transition period" would the lower limit be raised from 18 to 21 years, Kartapolov said.

Ukraine said on Thursday its troops were holding out despite heavy fighting on a battlefield littered with bodies in a salt mining town in eastern Ukraine, where Russian mercenaries have claimed Moscow's first significant gain in half a year.

The ultra-nationalist contract militia Wagner, run by an ally of President Vladimir Putin outside the main chain of military command, claims to have taken Soledar after intense fighting that it said had left the town strewn with Ukrainian dead. But Moscow has held off officially proclaiming victory.

"At the moment, there are still some small pockets of resistance in Soledar," Andrei Bayevsky, a Russian-installed local politician, said in an online broadcast.

Ukraine has acknowledged Russian advances but Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar told a briefing on Thursday that fighting was still fierce.

-Reuters

More information emerged on the alleged Kherson explosion as according to Kherson regional governor, the explosion was caused by Russia in the Kherson maternity centre on Wednesday (January 11). 
 
News agency Reuters noted that it obtained videos that showed smoke rising from the building, blown-out windows and damaged walls. 

Regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said on Telegram that the explosion was caused by a "shell launched by the enemy", damaging doctors' offices, but that staff and patients were left unscathed. 

Reuters mentioned that it was able to confirm the location from the picture at the entrance of the hospital and the design of the building seen in the video, the report also stated that it was not able to independently confirm the date the video was filmed. 

A report by the news agency Reuters also mentioned that Ukrainian authorities claimed that there was a Russian attack on Kherson maternity hospital, which damaged windows and doctor's offices in the building. The video shows the aftermath of the attack. 

Ukraine said Thursday (January 12) its forces were fighting to retain control of Soledar, a town in the eastern Donetsk region, but the situation remained "difficult." 

"The fiercest and heaviest fighting is continuing today in the area of Soledar," Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar told reporters, adding: "Despite the difficult situation, Ukrainian soldiers are fighting stubbornly."