Ukrainian President Zelenskyj has held a briefing in the east of the country for the first time. The first British “Challenger” tanks have arrived in Ukraine. All developments in the live blog.
3:42 a.m
Zelenskyj holds first situation briefing in eastern Ukraine
According to Ukrainian President Zelensky, his military briefing with the general staff was held outside of the capital Kiev for the first time. “We discussed the general situation in the front areas, strengthening and protecting our borders along the entire front – from the Kherson region to the Kharkiv region,” he said in his daily video address. He did not provide details about the results of the meeting.
The briefing took place in the industrial city of Dnipro, where there are many armaments factories. In addition, Zelenskyi visited Zaporizhia and the cities of Nikopol and Marhanets in the Dnipropetrovsk region, which are often exposed to Russian rocket attacks. “Today Russian rockets hit residential buildings in Zaporizhia,” said Zelenskyy. These were “burned, unfortunately partly destroyed”. Zelenskyj again accused Moscow of deliberate terror against the civilian population.
The 45-year-old also reported on a meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, in Zaporizhia. There it was about the security of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russian troops further south in the region since the beginning of the war. Grossi wants to continue to the nuclear power plant this week to get an idea of the situation on site.
3:42 a.m
First British “Challenger” tanks arrived in Ukraine
In addition to the German “Leopard 2” tanks, the first British “Challenger” type battle tanks have also arrived in Ukraine and are to be used in a counter-offensive by Ukraine in the spring. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said he inspected “new arrivals” for the Ukrainian armed forces – “Challenger” tanks as well as German “Marder” armored personnel carriers, “Cougar” armored trucks and “Stryker” armored transporters from the US .
The Challenger tanks from Britain “are already in Ukraine,” said the spokeswoman for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. “A year ago, nobody would have expected such strong support from our partners,” Resnikov explained on the online service Facebook. He described the British “Challengers” as “military works of art”.