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‘This will be the year of our victory,’ says Zelenskiy
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has just posted on Telegram saying, “On 24 February, millions of us made a choice. Not a white flag, but a blue and yellow flag. Not fleeing, but facing. Facing the enemy. Resistance and struggle.
“It was a year of pain, sorrow, faith and unity. And this is a year of our invincibility. We know that this will be the year of our victory!”
Key events
China ‘doesn’t have much credibility’ on peace talks, says Nato
Jennifer Rankin
China’s call for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia “doesn’t have much credibility” the secretary-general of Nato has said, as he warned President Xi Jinping against supplying arms to the Kremlin war machine.
During a visit to Estonia, Jens Stoltenberg was asked about China’s 12-point position paper on Ukraine, which calls for the international community to “create conditions and platforms” for negotiations to resume.
Stoltenberg told reporters “China doesn’t have much credibility because they have not been able to condemn the illegal invasion of Ukraine and they also signed just days before the invasion an agreement between President Xi and President Putin on a limitless partnership with Russia.”
He added that “military support today is the way to achieve a peaceful agreement tomorrow” in a rebuke to China’s implied criticism of western weapons for Ukraine.
And he warned China against supplying Russia with weapons, saying it would be tantamount to supporting Russia’s illegal war of aggression, thereby violating the UN Charter. “We are monitoring closely what China is doing and we have seen signs that they may be considering sending lethal aid to Russia … this would be a very big mistake.”
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, also gave a cool response to the Chinese paper. “You have to see [the Chinese statement of principles] against a specific backdrop and that is the backdrop that China has taken a side, by signing, for example, an unlimited friendship right before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started,” she said. The EU would look at the paper against that backdrop, she added.
Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne reports that about 2,000 people held a demonstration near the Russian consulate in the Romanian city of Constanta. It posted to its official Telegram channel to say:
About 2,000 Ukrainians are present at the event, including many from Kherson. The event began with the national anthem of Ukraine. Then the participants honoured the memory of the dead with a moment of silence. They also called out “Kherson is Ukraine”, “Donbas is Ukraine”, hung up posters, and laid out toys with photos of children killed in the conflict.
Services will be held across the world today to remember those who have lost their lives in the war. Here are some images from Copenhagen and London.
The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, went to Kyiv on Friday in a show of support to Ukraine, government spokesperson Piotr Muller wrote on Twitter.
Morawiecki and the Ukrainian prime minister laid flowers at the wall of remembrance of those who died for Ukraine, Reuters reports the chancellery of the prime minister said in a statement.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been taking part in a ceremony in Kyiv to commemorate the one year anniversary of Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine.
Denmark is “open” to the idea of sending fighter jets to Ukraine to help its war effort against the Russian invasion, the Danish defence minister said on Friday, according to state broadcaster DR.
“I won’t rule out that at some point it may be necessary to look at the contribution of fighter jets,” Reuters reports acting defence minister Troels Lund Poulsen said.
Russia has to lose its war in Ukraine so it stops seeking to conquer territories it once controlled, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in an address in Lithuania given via video link.
“Russian revanchism must forever forget about Kyiv and Vilnius, about Chișinău and Warsaw, about our brothers in Latvia and Estonia, in Georgia and every other country that is now threatened,” Reuters reports the Ukrainian president said.
Britain is prepared to supply fighter jets to eastern European allies to enable them to release their Soviet fighters to Ukraine, defence secretary Ben Wallace has said.
Nato allies have been reluctant to release modern western warplanes to Kyiv, arguing that it will take too long to train aircrew.
PA Media reports Wallace told Times Radio: “The other quick way that Ukraine can benefit from fighter jets is for those countries in Europe that have Russian Soviet fighter jets – MiG 29s or Su-24s – if they wish to donate we can use our fighter jets to backfill and provide security for them as a result.
“They are already configured to fight in a Nato way, where of course Ukraine isn’t.”
Wallace also said Britain is taking steps to rebuild its stockpiles of munitions which have been depleted by the war in Ukraine.
“This Ukraine war and the way Russia is fighting has shown across the west that our stockpiles over the last three decades have often borne the brunt of defence cuts and we have to restock those,” he told Sky News.
“We have now started to place orders to replenish them and where we haven’t placed orders we have started the work to make sure we have the supply chain or find alternative sources.”
The defence secretary added that Russia has been forced to adopt a “meat-grinder approach” after its forces failed to make a breakthrough in Ukraine.
He told listeners the Russian army was suffering “huge losses” on the battlefield for very little gain in territory.
“It will move effectively to a meat-grinder approach where it just keeps sacrificing its own soldiers for the vanity of the Kremlin
“That’s why we see huge losses amongst the Russian army and only gains, where we see gains, in metres not miles.”
Some images have been released this morning that show Ukrainian troops and their UK military instructors commemorating lives lost during the invasion at Lydd army camp in Kent, England.
Britain imposes new export ban on Russian battlefield equipment
Britain has imposed an export ban on every piece of equipment Russia has been found using on the battlefield in Ukraine, the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has announced.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said the internationally coordinated package of sanctions includes aircraft parts, radio equipment and electronic components that can be used by the Russian military industrial complex.
PA Media reports the UK is also sanctioning senior executives at the Russian state-owned nuclear power company Rosatom, as well as bosses at Russia’s two largest defence companies and four banks.
Cleverly said: “Ukrainians are turning the tide on Russia but they cannot do it alone. That is why we must do more to help Ukraine win.”
“Today we are sanctioning the elites who run Putin’s key industries and committing to prohibit the export to Russia of every item Russia has been found using on the battlefield.”
Jamie Grierson
The archbishop of Canterbury has said an end to the war in Ukraine cannot lead to Russia being treated like Germany after the first world war.
Justin Welby, writing in the Daily Telegraph as Ukraine marks the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion, also said Kyiv must not be forced into a “Munich Agreement-like compromise”, a reference to the doomed settlement that failed to prevent the second world war.
“Provided a just peace between Russia and Ukraine can be achieved, there must be a security structure that makes another war unlikely,” he said. “Russia cannot end up like Germany after 1919; it must be able to recover and be secure without being allowed to repeat its aggression.
“The great powers must find ways, ideally through a conference, to design the conditions for long-term security, as was done in 1945. Today, it must be done for a new century, including UN reform, while the cost of conflict is fading from most European memories.”
The treaty of Versailles, signed in Paris in 1919, was seen as humiliating by many Germans, and some historians argue that it created an enduring bitterness that helped the Nazis rise to power.
But Welby also urged world leaders not to force Ukraine into an “unjust peace”, as he spoke about the impact of visiting Kyiv.
Read more here: Welby calls for just peace between Russia and Ukraine on war anniversary
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