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Drone footage posted on the State Border Service of Ukraine’s Telegram shows the Ukrainian military winning a firefight against the infamous Wagner Group.
The Wagner Group is a private army with close links to the Kremlin that has been at the forefront of the bitter battle for Soledar in eastern Ukraine. It has conscripted many of its fighters from Russia’s prison system.
The Ukrainian military and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy say claims by Russia’s Vagner group that Russian forces have taken the eastern town of Soledar are false and fighting continues.
“The terrorist state and its propagandists are trying to pretend that part of our town of Soledar…is some sort of a Russian possession,” Zelenskiy said in a video address on January 11.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered his armed forces to observe a unilateral 36-hour cease-fire in Ukraine this weekend for the Orthodox Christmas holiday, the first such sweeping truce move in the nearly 11-month-old war. Kyiv indicated it won’t follow suit.
Putin did not appear to make his cease-fire order conditional on Ukraine’s acceptance, and it wasn’t clear whether hostilities would actually halt on the 1,100-kilometer (684-mile) front line or elsewhere.
Cameroon’s military announces it deployed scores of troops to three districts on Monday January 2 in the central African state’s English-speaking Northwest region to deal with an increased violence by armed gangs.
The military says armed gangs in Oku, Kumbo and Kakiri districts over the weekend sealed markets, chased people and vehicles from the streets and abducted scores of civilians who did not comply with their orders. There were reports of armed men belonging to the separatists, who call themselves Ambazonians or Amba, seizing motorcycles from taxi drivers and pointing guns at them.
Ukraine has claimed that 400 Russian soldiers were killed and 300 others injured after Ukrainian armed forces struck a Russian military base in the Makiivka region of Donetsk, The Kyiv Independent reported citing the Strategic Communications Department of Ukraine’s military post on Telegram.
According to the Ukraine-based news publication The Kyiv Independent, Russian soldiers were stationed in a local school building. Ukrainian General Staff has not reported on the strike in Makiivka. However, in its daily update, Ukraine’s General Staff said that 760 Russian troops were killed on December 30.