Latest Developments in Ukraine: Jan. 9

For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine. The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EST. 2:30 a.m.: The ongoing war in Ukraine is cited as one of the factors that four out of ten German companies are expecting business to shrink in 2023, a survey by the German Economic Institute (IW) showed on Monday. Other factors include high energy costs and supply chain issues.  "The risk of a gas shortage in the 2022/23 winter season is no longer as present as it was in the summer of 2022, and energy prices have also retreated since then. However, they remain at a high level and production disruptions cannot be ruled out," the IW said in the survey seen by Reuters. "Moreover, it will only become clear in the course of 2023 how extensive gas and energy supply can be built up for the next winter and the extent of any possible disruptions that could occur in 2023."    The survey of around 2,500 companies showed that around a third of companies expect output to stagnate and the remaining quarter predict business will grow. Germany's economy, Europe's largest, is forecast to shrink by 0.3% next year, the most among G-7 nations, according to the International Monetary Fund, hit by a sudden halt of gas flows from Russia, its former main supplier.  The outlook is particularly bleak in the German construction sector, where more than half of companies surveyed by IW expect a decline in production and just 15% anticipate more business. The picture is barely brighter in industry, where 39% of surveyed companies forecast a decline, driven by a cautious assessment in the consumer and basic industries.  2 a.m.: 1:30 a.m.: 1 a.m.: Russia's government extended support to a legislative amendment that would classify maps that dispute the country's official "territorial integrity" as punishable extremist materials, Reuters cited the state-owned TASS news agency as reporting on Sunday. The amendment to Russia's anti-extremism legislation stipulates that "cartographic and other documents and images that dispute the territorial integrity of Russia" will be classified as extremist materials, the agency reported. Russia's sweepingly ambiguous anti-extremism legislation — it applies to religious organizations, journalists and their materials, as well as the activity of businesses, among others — has allowed the Kremlin to tighten its grip on opponents. The new amendment, TASS reports 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. Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea in 2014 — a move rejected by Ukraine and many countries as illegal. Ukrainians and their government have since often objected to world maps showing Crimea as part of Russia's territory. Russia and Japan have not formally ended World War Two hostilities because of their standoff over a group of islands just off Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido. The Soviet Union seized those islands — known in Russia as the Kurils and in Japan as the Northern Territories — at the end of the war. The amendment must be proposed to the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, and after a review go through three readings. It is then sent to the Federation Council, the upper house, and to President Vladimir Putin for signing. Separately, Russian politicians began debating punishment for Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine and who, as the former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, "wish their fatherland to perish." Medvedev, one of the most forthright allies of Putin, said that "in times of war," there are special rules that allow to deal with traitors. "In times of war, there have always been such special rules," Medvedev said on the Telegram messaging app. "And quiet groups of impeccably inconspicuous people who effectively execute the rules." Medvedev's rhetoric has become increasingly vitriolic since the war in Ukraine began, though his published views sometimes chime with thinking at the top levels of the Kremlin elite. 12:30 a.m.: 12:01 a.m.: Ukrainian forces are repelling constant attacks on the town of Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region and holding their positions in nearby Soledar in very difficult conditions, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday, according to Reuters. "Bakhmut is holding on despite everything. And even though most of the town has been destroyed by Russian strikes, our soldiers are repelling constant Russian attempts to advance," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. "Soledar is holding on, even though there is even greater destruction and things are very difficult." Zelenskyy issued a fresh denunciation of what he said was Russia's failure to observe a truce it had proclaimed for Orthodox Christmas by staging attacks on Ukrainian cities. "Russians were shelling Kherson with incendiary ammunition immediately after Christmas," he said, referring to a city in the south abandoned by Russian forces in November. "Strikes on Kramatorsk and other cities in Donbas - on civilian targets and at the very time when Moscow was reporting a supposed 'silence' for its army." Russia said on Sunday that a missile attack on Kramatorsk, northwest of Bakhmut, had killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers, but a Reuters reporter at the scene found no obvious signs of casualties. Some information in this report came from Reuters.

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