The situation on the front line in eastern Ukraine hasn't changed significantly in the first week of the year, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with "heavy fighting" continuing in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, particularly around Bakhmut and Soledar.
"Bakhmut is holding out against all odds. And although most of the city is destroyed by Russian strikes, our warriors repel constant attempts at Russian offensive there. Soledar is holding out. Although there is even more destruction there and it is extremely hard," Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Sunday.
In other news, Russia's government has extended support to a legislative amendment that would classify maps that dispute the country's official "territorial integrity" as punishable extremist materials, the state-owned Tass news agency reported Sunday.
The new amendment, which Reuters said was reported by Tass without citing sources, emerged after its authors pointed out that some maps distributed in Russia dispute the "territorial affiliation" of the Crimean Peninsula and the Kuril Islands.