Dhe Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported to the home audience in his video address on Friday evening what he had said at the opening of the Munich Security Conference. “The core message is clear: we must do everything we can to prevent Russian aggression this year.” That is possible, but it can only be achieved “if Ukraine receives the weapons it needs.”
There is the coalition for the supply of main battle tanks, and the taboo on long-range artillery shells has also been lifted. “The world has already heard the need for global security to create a coalition aircraft for Ukraine.”
Just as with the tanks, one can responsibly say in advance “that the problem of the planes will be solved,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, according to Ukrainian media in Munich. “It will take a little more time.” The discussion about the planes will be structured differently than with the tanks. “But that work has already begun,” Kuleba said.
The Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olexander Kubrakow asked in Munich to help Ukraine with cluster munitions and phosphorus incendiary bombs.
Russians want to advance on Bakhmut from the north
In the city of Bakhmut in the east, which had been fought over for months, the Ukrainian defenders came under increasing pressure. According to their boss Yevgeny Prigoschin, the Russian mercenary force Wagner conquered the strategically important military location Paraskovijivka north of Bakhmut. This increases the danger that the Ukrainians will be cut off from supply and retreat routes. “The place Paraskovijivka is completely under the control of departments of the mercenary company Wagner,” Prigozhin said, according to the Russian agency Interfax. There was no independent confirmation. The place was not mentioned in the evening report of the Ukrainian General Staff.
According to Moscow, the United States is inciting Ukraine to strike the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, thereby fueling the conflict. “Now the American warmongers are going even further: they incite the Kiev regime to further escalate by bringing the war to our territory,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in Moscow.
The trigger was statements by top US diplomat Victoria Nuland, according to which Washington considers Russian military facilities in Crimea to be legitimate targets. “Ukraine will not be safe unless Crimea is at least demilitarized,” Nuland said in Washington. Kiev can count on support from the USA.
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