“US delivers missiles with a range of 150km”
05:30 | According to Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, the United States will deliver missiles with a range of 150 kilometers to Ukraine. The missiles that the country now has at its disposal have a range of up to 80 kilometers. With these new weapons, Ukraine can strike deeper behind Russian lines, for example by cutting off the supply and supply of troops.
The delivery is expected to be announced this week, it is unknown when Ukraine will have the new weapons in its possession. According to the Wall Street Journal, manufacturer Boeing has the missiles in stock.
It would be the GLSDB missile which can be launched with the Himars launch system like the missiles which are already in use. The GLSDB (Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb) is an American-Swedish designed GPS-guided missile.
The escaped commander Wagner has no regrets
05:25 | Andrei Medvedev, the former commander of the Russian mercenary company Wagner Group, expressed regret about his participation in the fighting in Ukraine in an interview with Reuters news agency. He has also called for those who have committed atrocities in the conflict to be brought to justice.
Medvedev, who crossed the Russian-Norwegian border on Jan. 13, said he witnessed the killing and beating of Russian prisoners brought to Ukraine to fight for Wagner. He applied for asylum in Norway. The 26-year-old Russian was said to have fought in Ukraine for four months before defecting in November.
It is unclear whether the Wagner group recruited Medvedev from prison like other inmates. Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin confirmed Medvedev fought for him, saying he was a Norwegian and led a battalion of the Scandinavian country’s soldiers. Prigozhin also accused him of ill-treating prisoners, which Medvedev’s lawyer denies.
“Many consider me a villain, a criminal, a murderer,” Medvedev said in an interview. “First of all, I would like to apologize again. While I don’t know how it will be received, I mean (fighting in Ukraine) that I’m sorry.’
“Dead and wounded by a rocket on a house in Kramatorsk”
05:00 | In the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, police said at least three people were killed and 20 injured when a rocket landed on an apartment building. “Rescuers, police officers and utilities are at the scene to search the wreckage of the destroyed building,” regional governor Pavlo Kirilenko wrote in Telegram. “There are probably still people underneath.”
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky is convinced it was a Russian missile. “The only way to stop Russian terrorism is to defeat it,” he wrote on Twitter. “With tanks. Fighter jets. Long range missiles.’
Moscow has not confirmed that the stricken building was hit by a Russian missile. Kiev has repeatedly accused Moscow of indiscriminate targeting of civilian infrastructure since the start of the invasion, a charge Moscow consistently denies.
At least 44 people were killed last month when a Russian missile hit an apartment building in the eastern city of Dnipro. Russian troops are trying to take control of the city of Kramatorsk and the entire Donetsk region.
Concerns about crisis shelter and place for Ukrainians
03:30 | The mayors of the Netherlands are concerned about a new looming shortage of emergency shelters for asylum seekers. They are also concerned about housing for Ukrainians, who appear to be staying in the Netherlands much longer than previously anticipated. And it is still unclear how to manage housing for foreigners who stayed in Ukraine when the war broke out, but who are not citizens of Ukraine. The 25 mayors of the Security Council will discuss these concerns Thursday in Utrecht with Asylum Secretary of State Eric van der Burg.
Prime Minister Hubert Bruls, mayor of Nijmegen, has already said he fears that there will soon be another serious shortage of reception places for asylum seekers. The crisis emergency shelters that municipalities set up last year are gradually closing again, because municipalities always set up such places for a limited time. Other crisis sites will be opened, but will not provide enough places for the expected influx of asylum seekers. A group of mayors is in favor of setting up a series of large headquarters with a thousand or more seats.
There are also around 4,700 third-country nationals residing in the Netherlands, refugees who are not citizens of Ukraine. The arrangement whereby they received the same welcome as Ukrainian war refugees will end on March 4. But according to the municipalities, there is still no concrete plan where to host this group. They want the government to come up with a plan of action very quickly. The number of host families who have hosted Ukrainians is also decreasing now that their stay will be long. In some municipalities, large reception centers for Ukrainians will remain open for at least another year.