The war that began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is approaching a grim one-year milestone, with mounting military and civilian deaths.
As Russia steps up attacks around Bakhmut, Western nations have raised their military support for Ukraine to the highest level yet, with commitments to send main battle tanks.
Read our in-depth coverage. For all our coverage, visit our Ukraine war page.
China warns against ‘fueling fire’ in Ukraine war
Putin plays long game with West over Ukraine: former U.S. diplomat
India’s Russian imports soar 400% as U.S. offers little resistance
Bangladesh nuclear plant payments held up by Russia sanctions
Russian war sanctions show why U.S. must rethink its strategies
Note: Nikkei Asia decided in March 2022 to suspend its reporting from Russia until further information becomes available regarding the scope of the revised criminal code. Entries include material from wire services and other sources.
Here are the latest developments:
Tuesday, Feb. 21 (Tokyo time)
3:30 p.m. Russian President Vladimir Putin will update the country’s elite on the war in Ukraine on Tuesday, nearly one year to the day since ordering an invasion. Putin will focus on what he casts as the “special military operation” in Ukraine, give his analysis of the international situation and outline his vision of Russia’s development after the West slapped on the severest sanctions in recent history. “At such a crucial and very complicated juncture in our development, our lives, everyone is waiting for a message in the hope of hearing an assessment of what is happening, an assessment of the special military operation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state television. The speech, to members of both houses of parliament and to military commanders and soldiers, is due to begin at 0900 GMT in central Moscow.
11:30 a.m. China is “deeply worried” about the escalation of the Ukraine conflict and the possibility of the situation spiraling out of control, China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang says. Beijing, which last year struck a “no limits” partnership with Moscow, has refrained from condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The United States has warned of consequences if China provides military support to Russia, which Beijing says it is not doing. “We urge certain countries to immediately stop fueling the fire,” Qin said during a speech.
7:30 a.m. U.S. President Joe Biden landed in the Polish capital, Warsaw, on Monday evening, Polish television footage shows, after making a surprise visit to Ukraine. Earlier in the day Biden walked around Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, on an unannounced visit, promising to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes, on a trip timed to upstage the Kremlin ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
1:00 a.m. Russia’s economy contracted 2.1% last year, the federal statistics service said on Monday, compared with a 5.6% year-on-year rise in 2021, hurt by the fallout from Moscow’s decision to send tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine last February. Rosstat’s first gross domestic product (GDP) estimate for 2022 was a marked improvement on forecasts made soon after the conflict began. The economy ministry at one point predicted that Russia’s economy would shrink more than 12% last year, exceeding the falls in output seen after the Soviet Union collapsed and during the 1998 financial crisis.
12:30 a.m. President Joe Biden’s surprise visit to Kyiv was “meticulously planned over a period of months, involving several officers in the White House,” Jon Finer, the U.S. principal deputy national security adviser, says during a press call.
Planning for operational security was conducted by only a few people each from the White House, Pentagon, National Security Council and other groups. “The president was fully briefed on each stage of the plan and any potential contingencies, and then made the final ‘go’ or ‘no go’ decision after a huddle in the Oval Office and by phone with some key members of his national security cabinet on Friday,” Finer says.
“We did notify the Russians that President Biden would be traveling to Kyiv,” says Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser. “We did so some hours before his departure for de-confliction purposes.”
Biden had the opportunity for extended talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Sullivan says.
“They talked about Ukraine’s needs in terms of energy, infrastructure, economic support, humanitarian needs,” he says. “And they also talked about the political side of this, including the upcoming U.N. General Assembly session on Ukraine.”
Monday, Feb. 20
U.S. President Joe Biden visits St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Cathedral with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Feb. 20.
© Reuters
7:26 p.m. U.S. President Joe Biden says during an unannounced visit to Kyiv that Washington will provide Ukraine with a new military aid package worth $500 million. Biden says the package details will be announced on Tuesday and that Washington will also provide more ammunition for high mobility artillery rocket systems in Ukraine’s possession. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has written on Telegram that Biden’s visit is an “extremely important sign of support for all Ukrainians” and has posted a photo of the two leaders shaking hands.
7:10 p.m. China tells the United States to keep out of its relationship with Russia, just as Beijing’s top diplomat prepares for a visit to Moscow, and possibly a meeting with Vladimir Putin, to discuss ideas for peace in Ukraine. China is preparing to outline its position on a possible “political settlement” to the Ukraine war just as Washington and Beijing spar over the shooting down of spy balloons over the United States and amid U.S. claims China may supply weapons to Moscow.
7:04 p.m. U.S. President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Monday, days before the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Read more.
1:00 p.m. Russia has charged 680 Ukrainian officials, including 118 members of the armed forces and defense ministry, with breaking laws governing the conduct of war, including the use of weapons against civilians, TASS news agency reports. According to the report, which quoted Russia’s chief public investigator, the Ukrainian officials were charged with the “use of prohibited means and methods of warfare,” referring to Article 356 of the Russian criminal code. Of the 680, 138 have been charged in absentia.
9:00 a.m. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview published on Sunday that French President Emmanuel Macron was wasting his time considering any sort of dialogue with Russia. Zelenskyy, interviewed by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, was responding to a suggestion by Macron that Russia should be “defeated but not crushed” and that the conflict in Ukraine would have to be settled by negotiations. The two presidents spoke by telephone on Sunday. “It will be a useless dialogue. In fact, Macron is wasting his time. I have come to the conclusion that we are not able to change the Russian attitude,” Zelenskyy told the Italian daily.
1:00 a.m. The Ukraine war will have cost the German economy around 160 billion euros ($171 billion) — or some 4% of its gross domestic output — in lost value creation by the end of the year, the head of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) says. That means GDP per capita in Europe’s largest economy will be 2,000 euros lower than it would otherwise have been, DIHK chief Peter Adrian told the “Rheinische Post.” Industry makes up a higher share of the economy in Germany than in many other countries, and the sector is for the most part energy-intensive, meaning German companies have been especially hard hit by a surge in energy prices, which last year hit record highs in Europe.
For earlier updates, click here.
Discussion about this post