We’re livestreaming our politics today, but here are the main developments from the war in Ukraine:
Last night, Vladimir Putin insisted that Russia had no intention of invading Poland, Latvia or “anywhere else. “
He said it had no territorial claims to these areas.
But Michael McFaul, a former U. S. ambassador to Russia, noted that Putin did the same with Crimea in 2008.
Russia then illegally annexed Crimea, a Ukrainian territory, in 2014.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Chief of Staff of Ukraine, Serhiy Shaptala.
Maj. Gen. Anatoliy Barhylevych will be Mr. Shaptala.
This comes a day after Zelensky fired army commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny.
The head of Avdiivka’s military administration has confirmed Russian forces are encroaching on the city’s outskirts.
“The enemy is still trying to cut the city’s coke plant through the rural massif and exerts very strong pressure there,” Vitaliy Barabash said on a television program.
He called the scenario very difficult and said Russian troops would encircle the city from the south and north.
However, he said Ukrainian troops were successfully repelling the Russian forces.
“The enemy forces are much larger. Sometimes I read on Telegram channels that ‘Avdiivka has already fallen’. That doesn’t exist,” he said.
Almost 1,000 residents remain in Avdiivka despite evacuation efforts.
We announce that the head of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zaluzhny, has been sacked via Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after tensions between the two leaders eased for weeks.
Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv and a leading figure in the war in Ukraine, called on the government to provide the public with “explanations about such changes. “
“I am grateful to General Valery Zaluzhny for his service in Ukraine and his determination to protect our nation. Thanks to him, Ukrainians have achieved real recognition in our armed forces, which have lately enjoyed the highest level of public recognition. ,” he said.
He said he was “confident” that the popular army commander “will accept this challenge with grace. “
“I hope that the government will give the public explanations about these changes,” he said.
“Especially the fierce fighting on the front lines and the desire to maintain effective cooperation with foreign partners, the unity of our society depends on a government we can trust. “
A 23-year-old woman has been detained on suspicion of “rehabilitating Nazism” after she filmed a video mocking a monument to the Battle of Stalingrad.
The unnamed woman could be imprisoned for five years if convicted.
During the video, the defendant stood underneath The Motherland Calls, a statue of a person wielding a sword, and mimicked touching the figure’s breasts while laughing.
The local branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee said the woman had “carried out immoral and cynical actions, insulting the symbol of the steadfastness of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. “
After authorities opened a criminal case, she fled Russia and was placed on a wanted list.
The woman was arrested this week at a Moscow airport on her way back to Russia.
He remains in pre-trial detention until March 9.
The monument, located on a hill overlooking Volgograd (known in Soviet times as Stalingrad), commemorates one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
The Soviet Union suffered more than a million casualties in the war that lasted from August 1942 to February 1943.
A former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine has shared about a burning construction site in Kharkiv following overnight Russian drone strikes.
We reported earlier that 16 kamikaze drones were launched by Russia into Ukraine, causing damage to civilian infrastructure.
Four other people were killed and 12 others wounded, Mamedov said.
Last night we covered Vladimir Putin’s two-hour interview with right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson, in which he discussed the war in Ukraine.
Dmitry Oreshkin, an independent political analyst and professor at the Free University of Riga in Latvia, said the Kremlin had several goals to achieve in the interview, which Putin held with a Western media personality since the start of the invasion.
“As the election approaches, Putin probably needs to show the extent of his approach, that he is in a position to interact in peace talks,” Oreshkin said.
Mr Oreshkin said he believed the Russian president is also trying to show the West that he is ready “to emerge from the sanctions and other blockades on his own terms”.
“The third facet is, of course, for [Donald] Trump, because Putin would really like Trump to win. That’s why he chose one of Mr. Trump,” he said.
Berlin declined to say negotiations were underway to turn a Russian hitman serving a life sentence into a German criminal for detained U. S. journalist Evan Gershkovich.
Vladimir Putin gave the impression of the idea, referring to an individual who “due to patriotic emotions eliminated a bandit in one of the European capitals”, believed to be the hitman Vadim Krasikov.
A German government spokesman twice declined to answer questions about the proposals, which appeared in the media since Wall Street Journal reporter M. Gershkovich last March.
Deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann responded that she “could say anything about it. “
Mr Gershkovich is imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges, which the US says are bogus.
Oslo has announced plans to donate another 10 release kits and four firing centers of the NASAMS air defense formula to Ukraine.
The formula is manufactured by the Norwegian company Kongsberg Gruppen.
Its delivery is estimated at 3. 45 billion Norwegian kroner (£258. 7 million), he added.
Norway has been a strong supporter of Ukraine and shares a border with Russia.
Earlier this week, his defense minister warned Norwegians to be prepared for an imaginable clash with Russia, even after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine ends.