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TOP HEADLINES
· Air raid sirens rang out in Kyiv and across Ukraine before the start of a summit bringing together senior Ukrainian officials and EU representatives.
· EU chief Charles Michel arrived in Kyiv to join a summit with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and vowed support for Ukraine’s bid to join the bloc. “Back in Kyiv for the EU-Ukraine summit with Zelenskyy, (European Commission chief) Ursula von der Leyen and (EU senior diplomat) Josep Borrell. There will be no let-up in our resolve. We will also support you every step of the way on your journey to the EU,” Michel said on Twitter.
· Zelenskyy said he wants to hold talks “this year” on his war-battered country joining the bloc. EU leaders granted candidate status to Ukraine in June last year but the path to full membership remains long, and could take years. “I believe that Ukraine deserves to start negotiations on EU membership this year,” Zelenskyy said after talks with bloc’s chief Ursula von der Leyen. “Only together a strong Ukraine and a strong European Union can protect the life we value.”
· NATO called on Russia to fulfil its obligations under the nuclear reductions treaty START, it said in a statement. “We note with concern that Russia has failed to comply with legally-binding obligations, including on inspection and call on Russia to fulfill its obligations under the Treaty,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a tweet.
· President Vladimir Putin leveraged a World War II commemoration to whip up support for his army’s intervention in Ukraine, comparing the fighting to Nazi Germany’s invasion and hinting Moscow could use nuclear weapons.
· Russia, determined to make progress before Ukraine gets newly-promised Western battle tanks and armored vehicles, has picked up momentum on the eastern front and it announced advances north and south of Bakhmut. Russian forces are pushing from both the north and south to encircle Bakhmut, using superior troop numbers to try to cut it off from re-supply and force the Ukrainians out, Ukrainian military analyst Yevhen Dikiy said.
· Kyiv’s human rights commissioner accused Russians of kidnapping his country’s children and selling them for sex. “Telegram channels revealed that Russians are kidnapping Ukrainian children and making sexual videos with them,” Ukrainian parliament’s rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said in a post on messaging app Telegram.
· UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said sending fighter jets to Ukraine would require “months if not years” of training and that he was looking for the most effective way of helping Kyiv secure victory.
· Russia has the military means to counter Western arm supplies to Ukraine and will respond to any new modern weapons used by Kyiv, the Kremlin said. “As new weapons supplied by the collective West appear, Russia will use its potential to the fullest to respond,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
· Zelenskyy urged the EU to quickly slap more sanctions on Russia as his country struggles to repel Moscow’s offensive. “We see today that the pace of sanctions in Europe has slowed down a little,” Zelenskyy told a joint news conference alongside European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. “The terrorist state increases the pace of adaptation to sanctions instead. It should be resolved. We believe that we can do it together.”
IN DETAIL
Putin: Russians are ready to go ‘until the end’
President Vladimir Putin leveraged a World War II commemoration to whip up support for his army’s intervention in Ukraine, comparing the fighting to Nazi Germany’s invasion and hinting Moscow could use nuclear weapons.
Putin has used World War II to promote his political agenda in recent years while the Kremlin has sought to give cult status to Moscow’s victory in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War.
Arriving in the southern city of Volgograd for commemorations to mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory at the Battle of Stalingrad, achieved at enormous cost, Putin sought to boost support for his assault on Ukraine.
He compared Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine to the war against Nazi Germany in 1941-1945 and claimed Russians were ready to go “until the end.”
“Again and again we are forced to repel the aggression of the collective West,” Putin said in the city on the Volga River formerly known as Stalingrad.
“We aren’t sending tanks to their borders but we have something to respond with, and it won’t be just about using armored vehicles. Everyone should understand this,” he added.
“A modern war with Russia will be completely different,” he said.
