As the war enters its 720th day, key developments include:
This is the situation as of Tuesday, February 13, 2024.
finding
- Norway's intelligence agency has warned that Russia is gaining an “advantage” in the Ukraine war, with more troops and material supplies from Iran, China, North Korea and Belarus. Nils Andreas Stensones, head of military intelligence, said Kiev would need “massive” military aid from the West to turn the situation around.
- Researchers in Kiev said preliminary analysis concluded that Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital last week with a hypersonic Zircon missile, marking the weapon's first use in the war. Russia says Zircon has a range of 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) and travels nine times the speed of sound.
- Ukraine's air force said its air defense systems destroyed 14 of the 17 drones launched by Russia during the night and one Kh-59 cruise missile. Some buildings, including in the center of Dnipropetrovsk, were damaged, but there were no reports of casualties.
- The Kremlin has denied Ukrainian claims that the military is using Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet system for military communications in some occupied parts of Ukraine. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the system cannot be used because it has not been certified for use in Russia and has not been officially supplied to Russia.
politics and diplomacy
- The European Union has adopted a law to pool windfall profits from Russia's central bank's frozen assets, a concrete first step toward the bloc's goal of using the money to finance Ukraine's reconstruction. After Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago, about 300 billion euros ($323 billion) of assets in Russia's central bank were frozen.
- The U.S. Department of Justice has charged Kristina Przyleva, a Canadian-Russian woman, with a money laundering conspiracy for her role in a multimillion-dollar scheme to send drone and missile parts to Russia for military use against Ukraine. announced that he had pleaded guilty in a US court to the charges.She could receive up to 20 years in prison
- Russia has imposed sanctions on 18 British nationals, including officials, historians and Russia experts, for trying to demonize Russia. Moscow also claimed that British strategy in Ukraine led to further escalation of the war and loss of life.
- France's Agency Viguinum, which works to defend against foreign online threats, said it had discovered a “structured and coordinated” network of Russian websites aimed at spreading Kremlin propaganda in Europe and the United States. .
- A Moscow court has ordered Mehta's spokesperson Andy Stone to be arrested for two months pending trial on numerous terrorism-related charges. Mehta's main social platforms, Facebook and Instagram, were banned shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, and Mehta was subsequently convicted of “extremist activities” in Russia. Stone is not in Moscow.
weapons
- Ukraine's Digital Minister Mykhailo Fedorov told Reuters that Ukraine plans to build thousands of long-range drones capable of deep strikes against Russia in 2024, and has already produced drones capable of reaching Moscow and St. Petersburg. He said that there are as many as 10 companies.
- Moldovan authorities said they had destroyed about 50 kilograms of explosives found on part of a Russian-launched Shahed drone that crashed on territory near the southern town of Eturia, close to the border with Ukraine.
