Jan 5 (Reuters) – Western allies moved toward supplying armoured battle vehicles to Ukraine for the first time but not the heavier tanks it has requested to fight Russia.
* French President Macron told Ukrainian President Zelenskiy in a phone call his government would send light AMX-10 RC armoured combat vehicles.
* U.S. President Biden said that sending Bradley Fighting Vehicles to Ukraine was being considered. The armoured vehicle with a powerful gun has been used as a staple by the U.S. Army to carry troops around battlefields since the mid-1980s.
* The United States is looking at ways to target Iranian drone production through sanctions and export controls, the White House said. Washington previously imposed sanctions on companies and people it accused of producing or transferring Iranian drones that Russia has used against Ukraine.
FIGHTING
[1/3] People take part in a ceremony in memory of Russian soldiers killed in the course of Russia-Ukraine military conflict, the day after Russia’s Defence Ministry stated that 63 Russian servicemen were killed in a Ukrainian missile strike on their temporary accommodation in Makiivka (Makeyevka) in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine, in Glory Square in Samara, Russia, January 3, 2023. REUTERS/Albert Dzen
* Heavy fighting around the largely ruined, Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut is likely to persist for the foreseeable future, with the outcome uncertain as Russians have made incremental progress, according to a senior U.S. administration official.
* The Ukrainian deputy defence minister said significant Russian losses meant Moscow would likely have to announce a second partial mobilisation in the first quarter of the year.
* Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia had launched seven missile strikes, 18 air strikes and more than 85 attacks from multiple-launch rocket systems in the past 24 hours on civilian infrastructure in Kramatorsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. It said there were civilian casualties without giving details.
Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.
* President Vladimir Putin sent a frigate to the Atlantic Ocean armed with new generation hypersonic cruise missiles.
* Germany is looking for further ways to help Ukraine to protect its people and infrastructure, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said, stressing that any dip in Europe’s resolve on the issue would serve as a boon to Moscow.
Compiled by Grant McCool
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