Sunday’s Coverage: Pentagon Considering US F-16 Fighter Jets To Kyiv

Source: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1614 GMT:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has hosted Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in the Mykolaiv region in southern Ukraine.

Zelenskiy reported that they “reviewed the state of the region’s energy infrastructure, the means of its protection, and the pace of recovery”.

The leaders visited a hospital treating wounded Ukrainian soldiers.

UPDATE 1125 GMT:

Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has confirmed that Warsaw is ready to transfer its F-16 fighters to Ukraine in “full coordination” with NATO countries.

UPDATE 0948 GMT:

Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has told Politico:

We have a very ambitious plan to join the European Union within the next two years. So we expect that this year, in 2023, we can already have this pre-entry stage of negotiations.

Noting the “lightning speed with which at least 20 officials were dismissed or resigned last week, said, “We have a zero-tolerance approach to corruption. Unfortunately, corruption was not born yesterday, but we are certain that we will uproot corruption.”

EU commissioners will meet President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv later this week.

UPDATE 0854 GMT:

“Malika” speaks of defiance and fear among those challenging Vladimir Putin’s invasion and remembering the victims in Ukraine.

The young woman, sobbing, was laying flowers at a makeshift memorial in Moscow to at least 46 victims of a Russian missile on a Dnipro apartment block on January 14.

Moscow police maintain surveillance of the memorial, close to the statue of Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka, and remove the flowers, toys, and photos of the demolished apartment block.

But still people come to pay respect, at the risk of being detained.

Malika says of the police officers, “I despise them.”

She is also wary of passersby. “Someone could overhear that I am playing Okean” — a Ukrainian rock band with anthems opposing the invasion — “and notify the authorities.”

That’s the country we live in now. I look around me at these people who go about their lives as if nothing is happening, and I’m horrified.

UPDATE 0717 GMT:

The latest Russian shelling on Kherson city killed three civilians and injured 10 on Sunday.

The Russians targeted a hospital, school, bus station, post office, bank, and residential buildings.

Among the wounded were two nurses working at the regional hospital.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly address, “The Russian army has been shelling Kherson atrociously all day.”

In the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, a Russian missile strike on a four-story residential building killed an elderly woman and injured three people.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called on partners to accelerate the supply of weapons to Kyiv.

Last week, after 10 months of Ukrainian appeals, an international coalition including Germany and the US committed to the provision of heavy battle tanks. Washington and other countries are also considering the supply of advanced fighter jets.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and military leaders are projecting the battlefield deployment of at least 80 German-made Leopard 2 tanks by April, enough to equip two Ukrainian battalions. However, US-made Abrams tanks will not be available for many months.

See also EA on Ireland’s RTE: Fighter Jets for Ukraine?

EA on Australia’s ABC, Ireland’s Pat Kenny Show, and BBC: “A Game-Changer” — Tanks to Ukraine

In his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskiy cited the “significant defense results” in the past week but emphasized, “We have to make the next week no less powerful for our defense”:

The speed of supply has been and will be one of the key factors in this war.

Russia hopes to drag out the war, to exhaust our forces. So we have to make time our weapon.

We must speed up the events, speed up the supply and opening of new necessary weaponry options for Ukraine.

The President again referred to the Russian attempt to make a significant advance in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine:

Bakhmut, Vuhledar and other areas in the Donetsk region are under constant Russian attacks. There are constant attempts to break through our defense.

The enemy … maintains a high intensity of attacks.