European powers vowed to intensify support for Ukraine as world leaders, military officers and diplomats gathered in Germany for the Munich security conference to discuss Europe’s security situation since the Russian invasion. About 40 heads of state and government – as well as politicians and security experts from nearly 100 countries, including the US, Europe and China – are expected to attend during the three days of the conference.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, urged the west to speed up its support, telling the Munich conference that Vladimir Putin would gain a military advantage unless arms deliveries arrived soon. “We need to hurry up,” Zelenskiy said in a video address. “We need speed – speed of our agreements, speed of our delivery … speed of decisions to limit Russian potential.”
Zelenskiy warned a possible consequence of delaying western weapons to Ukraine could be a Russian invasion of Moldova. He said neighbouring Belarus would make a mistake of historic proportions if it joined in the Russian offensive and claimed polls showed 80% of its people did not wish to join.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, gave Zelenskiy an indirect rebuff, saying caution was better than hasty decisions and unity was better than going it alone. Scholz said Germany was the biggest supplier of weapons in continental Europe, and that the region was in uncharted territory and there was no blueprint for confronting a nuclear-armed aggressor, making it vital to avoid an unintended escalation.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, urged allies to intensify their military support for Ukraine to help it carry out a needed counter-offensive against Russia. There could be no peace in Ukraine until Russia was defeated, Macron said, adding that Russia was doomed to “a defeat in the future”.
The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, will call on world leaders to ensure a “lasting peace” for Ukraine with the establishment of a new Nato charter to help it defend itself “again and again” in the face of any future declarations of war by Russia. Sunak is expected at the Munich conference to call for countries to “double down on our military support”, and to warn that “the security and sovereignty of every nation” is at stake.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, has said the US is inciting Ukraine to strike directly at Russian territory, after comments by the US undersecretary of state, Victoria Nuland, about Crimea. Nuland had said the US supported Ukraine striking at targets in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 in a move that is only recognised by a handful of mostly rogue states.
As many as 60,000 Russian forces may have been killed in just under a year of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said. The casualty rate “has significantly increased since September 2022 when ‘partial mobilisation’ was imposed”. Convict recruits used by Wagner may have had a casualty rate of one in every two men.
Russia’s defence ministry website has confirmed Lt Gen Andrey Mordvichev is the new head of the central military district, replacing Col Gen Alexandr Lapin, who in January was appointed chief of staff of Russia’s ground forces. Mordvichev’s appointment follows other sweeping changes to Russia’s military leadership.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it had summoned the Dutch ambassador over what it called “obsessive attempts” by authorities in the Netherlands to hold it responsible for the downing of flight MH17 in Ukraine in 2014. In a statement Russia accused the joint investigation team set up to establish who was responsible of being “politicised”.
The World Health Organization has appealed for more funds to support Ukraine’s health sector, which has been severely damaged by the war. Ukraine needed more funds to ensure mental health, rehabilitation and community access to health services, said the WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, in a briefing in the Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr.
A British embassy security guard has been jailed for more than 13 years after a judge told him his “treachery” spying for Russia had put his former colleagues at “maximum risk”. David Ballantyne Smith, 58, originally from Paisley, Scotland, copied secret documents he found in unlocked filing cabinets and on desks at the embassy, including a letter to the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson, on the war against Ukraine.
