IOn Tuesday night, Russia attacked Ukraine again with drones and missiles. Air alarms were triggered in many places. According to the air force, Shahed drones targeted the Dnipropetrovsk region in the east of the country and the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions in the south. The information could not be independently verified.
Zelensky holds meeting with new military leadership
After the restructuring of the military leadership, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj held a meeting of the high command with the new members for the first time. Among those present at the meeting was Colonel General Olexandr Syrskyj, who was appointed commander-in-chief last week, as Zelenskyj said in his evening video address on Monday. It was about the situation on the front in the east and south of the country, he added. It was also discussed how the critical infrastructure – such as electricity and water supplies – could be protected in the best possible way.
After almost two years of Russian war of aggression, Zelenskyj dismissed Valeriy Saluschnyj, who was very popular with the people, as the previous commander of the armed forces on Thursday. The two were recently said to have a broken relationship of trust. Syrskyj's previous position as commander of the land forces was taken over by former Deputy Defense Minister Olexandr Pavlyuk. Zelensky also exchanged several other high-ranking military officials, including people in the territorial defense and airborne troops.
According to Ukrainian reports, Russia has used a hypersonic “Zircon” missile for the first time. This is the preliminary result of an analysis of the fragments of a rocket attack on February 7, wrote the head of the responsible research institute, Oleksandr Ruwin, on Telegram on Monday. A Russian statement was initially not available. The “Zirkon” has a range of a thousand kilometers and nine times the speed of sound. This would make it more difficult for Ukrainian air defense to intercept them.
Kremlin denies Starlink use
Meanwhile, Russia rejected allegations about the alleged use of the American Internet service Starlink in the frontline area. The necessary equipment that billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX company operates is not officially certified in Russia, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, according to the Interfax agency. Accordingly, the system “cannot be used in any way”.
Musk also emphasized that no Starlink equipment is officially being sold to Russia. That's not necessary, says Ukraine: Starlink terminals end up in Russian hands unofficially as contraband via third countries, explained the spokesman for the Ukrainian military intelligence service, Andriy Yussov.
“Nobody is saying that Starlink is officially being sold to the Russians. But today the Russian Federation is not only the number one terrorist country, but also the number one smuggler country,” Yusov said on Ukrainian television. The day before, his agency had announced that, thanks to intercepted Russian conversations, there was evidence that enemy soldiers in occupied areas were using Starlink.
Baerbock: With Paris and Warsaw on the way to an EU defense union
Germany, France and Poland also want to move forward together towards a common defense and security architecture in Europe in response to a possible election victory by Republican Donald Trump in the United States. Not only do 27 different national systems in the EU need to be better interlinked, said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) at a meeting with her colleagues from France and Poland in the Château de la Celle near Paris.
In the future, joint procurement and joint projects in the defense sector must be initiated and operational capabilities must be pooled more closely than before, she added against the background of the ongoing Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. “If Putin believes that our strength is dwindling and our support is waning, he is completely mistaken,” emphasized Baerbock.
EU states lay the foundation for the use of Russian funds for Ukraine
The EU has created the basis for the use of proceeds from the custody of frozen Russian central bank funds for Ukraine. As the Council of Member States announced, two legal texts were adopted for this purpose. Among other things, they regulate that extraordinary income from the custody of the central bank must be kept separately in the future. In a second step, it is planned to provide income for the reconstruction of Ukraine, which was attacked by Russia.
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