An aide of Zelenskiy has announced that Ukraine has chosen to continue fighting in Bakhmut. The chief of Wagner expressed concern about ammunition shortages, while it was reported that dive teams were responsible for the Nord Stream blasts.
It has been decided that Ukraine will persist in their fight in Bakhmut.
An interview with Italy’s La Stampa newspaper revealed that Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, believes that Ukraine must maintain their battle in Bakhmut because it is weakening Russia’s best units and reducing their capabilities in preparation for an upcoming Ukrainian counter-offensive in the spring. These comments indicate a change in Kyiv’s stance this week as they have decided to keep defending the eastern city, which has seen some of the deadliest clashes of the war.
The majority of the power supply in Kyiv has been reinstated.
According to officials, this was possible due to Ukraine’s prompt response to the recent Russian missile and drone attack on essential infrastructure on Thursday.
The governor of the Kharkiv region stated that the energy situation there is challenging.
Oleh Synyehubov, communicating via Telegram, announced that the energy system had experienced considerable harm in the Kharkiv region. Despite this, crucial infrastructure in the city has already been reinstated, and the water supply has almost entirely been restored. However, public transportation remains closed.
A group of divers were responsible for carrying out the underwater bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September of last year.
As per a news report in Der Spiegel, the team of divers who conducted the underwater bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September last year operated from a 15-meter yacht called the Andromeda. The report also details the yacht’s journey around the Baltic, starting from its base marina in Rostock to the German island of Rügen and then to the Danish island of Christiansø, near the location of the blasts on 26 September. There are suspicions of the involvement of another vessel as well.
Despite increasing pressure to export Swiss-made arms to Ukraine, the Swiss government has announced that it will not alter its long-held policy that prohibits the transfer of such weapons to a third country.
Argentina’s Rafael Grossi has been reappointed as the UN nuclear watchdog’s director general for a second four-year term, as supported by the board of governors consisting of 35 countries, according to diplomats. Meanwhile, Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, visited Kyiv and attended a church service at St Michael’s Golden Dome cathedral with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in memory of Ukrainian military commander Dmytro Kotsiubailo. Kotsiubailo was mourned by thousands of people in Kyiv after he was killed near Bakhmut on Tuesday at the age of 27. In contrast to his predecessor Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared his support for ending the war in Ukraine at the negotiation table and pledged to provide additional support to Ukraine to ensure it has a battlefield advantage.
The Ukrainian government has ordered a Ukrainian Orthodox church wing, historically aligned with Russia, to vacate a monastery complex in Kyiv where it is situated, as part of the government’s latest move against the denomination. Meanwhile, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, expressed gratitude to Moscow for the increased production of ammunition but stated that he remains concerned about shortages for his fighters and the Russian army as a whole. Additionally, Prigozhin announced that Wagner had established recruitment centers in 42 cities across Russia. The Kremlin has expressed concern over possible “provocations” in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two Russian-backed breakaway regions of Georgia, following protests in Georgia over a proposed “foreign agents” bill. However, the Kremlin is known to sometimes make false warnings about “provocations” for propaganda purposes.
Pope Francis has given an interview in which he stated that the war in Ukraine is not solely driven by the interests of the “Russian empire”, but rather by several “empires”. The pope had offered to travel to Moscow to negotiate peace but was turned down. Meanwhile, Cyprus’s new president, Nikos Christodoulides, has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just 10 days after taking office. In his first interview with a foreign TV channel, Christodoulides said that opposing Moscow’s self-declared “special military operation” placed Cyprus on the “right side of history”.
The decision of the International Fencing Federation to permit athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in Olympic qualifying events has caused uproar in Ukraine. Fencing has become the first Olympic sport to allow competitors from the aggressor country and its ally, one year after they were barred from participation due to the conflict in Ukraine.
