Germany’s approval for the re-export of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine is of secondary importance as Poland could send those tanks as part of a coalition of countries even without its permission, the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said on Monday. “We will ask for such permission, but this is an issue of secondary importance. Even if we did not get this approval … we would still transfer our tanks together with others to Ukraine”, Morawiecki told reporters.
German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock’s comment on Sunday, that her country would not “stand in the way” of Poland sending Leopard tanks to Ukraine, is causing some confusion in Berlin. It remains unclear whether her remarks are indicative of a shift in the government’s position. Baerbock did not repeat her comment when pressed on the matter on Monday morning. “It’s important that we as an international community do everything to defend Ukraine, so that Ukraine wins”, she told press at a meeting of the EU’s foreign affairs council in Brussels. “Because if it loses Ukraine will cease to exist”.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday promised that Germany will “continue to support Ukraine – for as long and as comprehensively as necessary”, adding: “Together, as Europeans – in defence of our European peace project.” Germany’s new defence minister, Boris Pistorius, plans to visit Ukraine soon, he told a German newspaper.
German government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said “To this hour we have not received a request.”
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said during his visit to South Africa on Monday that Ukraine was rejecting peace talks and the longer this continued, the harder it would be to resolve the conflict. Lavrov met South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, in a trip some opposition parties and the small Ukrainian community in South Africa have condemned as insensitive. The South African military is set to host a joint military exercise with Russia and China on its east coast on 17-27 February.
18 people injured as a result of last weekend’s rocket attack on a high-rise building in Dnipro remain in hospital, including one child. Ukraine state broadcaster reports “There are no serious patients among these patients, all of them were transferred from intensive care units to general departments.”
Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, governor of Sumy in Ukraine’s north-east, has said that an apartment building and railway infrastructure has been hit by Russian fire in Vorozhba. There were no details of casualties.
The top Moscow-installed official in the Russian-occupied parts of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine said late on Sunday that he had visited the town of Soledar, which Russia claimed to have captured earlier this month. Denis Pushilin published a short video on the Telegram messaging app that showed him driving and walking amid desolate areas and destroyed buildings. The Guardian was not able to independently verify when and where the video was taken. On 11 January, the private Russian military group Wagner said it had captured Soledar. Ukraine has never publicly said that the town was taken by Russian forces.
Russia claimed to have made advances in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region. After months of stalemate in the south-eastern region, Moscow-installed officials say the front is now “mobile” while the Ukrainian army reported that 15 settlements had come under artillery fire. “During offensive operations in the direction of Zaporizhzhia, units of the eastern military district took up more advantageous ground and positions,” the defence ministry said on Sunday.
Russian state-owned news agency Tass is reporting that Russian forces claim to have destroyed a large Ukrainian ammunition depot in the Kherson region.
Russian secret service the SVR has claimed – without presenting evidence –that Ukraine is storing weapons and ammunition supplied by the west on the territory of nuclear power plants.
European Council president Charles Michel has urged the bloc’s national leaders to push forward with talks on using $300bn-worth of confiscated Russian central bank assets for the reconstruction of Ukraine, the Financial Times reports. Michael said he wanted to explore the idea of managing the Russian central bank’s frozen assets to generate profits, which could then be earmarked for reconstruction efforts.
Russia has said it is downgrading diplomatic relations with the Nato member Estonia, accusing Tallinn of “total Russophobia”. The Russian foreign ministry said it had told the Estonian envoy he must leave next month, and both countries would be represented in each other’s capitals by an interim charge d’affaires instead of an ambassador.
Latvia will downgrade its diplomatic ties with Russia and inform its Russian ambassador to leave the country by 24 February.
Russia said on Monday that no new date had been set for talks with the US on the New Start nuclear arms treaty, accusing the US of ramping up tensions between the two sides.
A former commander with the Russian mercenary Wagner Group who sought asylum in Norway has been told he will be deported, according to a Russian rights group. Andrey Medvedev, 26, crossed the border into Norway near the Pasvikdalen valley earlier this month, where he was arrested and detained by border guards. Medvedev’s lawyer has dismissed the claim, saying “the risk of him being deported? It is zero.”
Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson made a surprise visit to Ukraine, where he said that it was “the moment to double down and to give the Ukrainians all the tools they need to finish the job”. Downing Street said Rishi Sunak is “supportive” of Boris Johnson’s visit, despite warnings that it would undermine the current prime minister’s authority. Johnson’s visits to Ukraine have often coincided with moments of domestic crisis, and he is currently under pressure over his financial relationship with BBC chairman Richard Sharp.
French president Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday he does not rule out the possibility of sending Leclerc tanks to Ukraine. “As for the Leclercs, I have asked the defence ministry to work on it. Nothing is excluded,” he said while speaking at a summit with German chancellor Scholz.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has vowed Ukraine will not tolerate corruption and promised forthcoming key decisions on uprooting it this week. “I want this to be clear: there will be no return to what used to be in the past, to the way various people close to state institutions or those who spent their entire lives chasing a chair used to live,” he said in his nightly video address. The EU has made anti-corruption reforms one of its key requirements for Ukraine’s membership to the bloc, after granting Kyiv candidate status last year.
Norway’s army chief has estimated 180,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded in over the course of the conflict, while the figure for the Ukrainians is 100,000 military casualties and 30,000 dead civilians. Norwegian chief of defence Eirik Kristoffersen gave the figures in an interview with TV2, without specifying how the numbers were calculated. The figures cannot be independently verified.
