Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy with US Vice President Kamala Harris at the Munich Securty Conference, February 17, 2024

Saturday’s Coverage: Kyiv Signs Security Agreements with Germany and France

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1814 GMT:

The Ukraine military has accused Russian forces of again shooting prisoners of war.

The army posted a video purportedly showing two Ukrainian troops running towards a Russian soldier in a trench. The Russian grabs the two and shoots them numerous times until they stop moving.

The Ukrainian military posted on Telegram, “This morning…the Russians once again showed their attitude to international humanitarian law by shooting two Ukrainian prisoners of war.”

Ukrainian media reported the incident happened northeast of the village of Vesele in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

Russian forces have recurrently been caught executing Ukrainian POWs.

See also Ukraine War, Day 673: Another Russian Execution of POWs

UPDATE 1803 GMT:

Denmark is donating all artillery rounds from its stockpiles to Ukraine.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen informed the Munich Security Conference of the step.

If you ask Ukrainians, they are asking us for ammunition now, artillery now….

This is not a question of only production because we have the weapons, we have ammunition, we have air defence that we don’t have to use ourselves at the moment that we should deliver to Ukraine….

Russia does not want peace with us. They are destabilizing the western world from many different angles — in the Arctic region, the Balkans, and Africa — with disinformation, cyber-attacks, hybrid war, and obviously in Ukraine.

UPDATE 1253 GMT:

More than 100 Kremlin documents, obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post, confirm Russia’s disinformation campaign to undermine Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The documents establish “information psychological operations… with the aim of dividing and destabilising Ukrainian society”. Thousands of social media posts and hundreds of fabricated articles, created by troll farms and circulated in Ukraine and across Europe, sought to exploit rumors such as tensions between Zelenskiy and the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s military, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

Zelenskiy dismissed Zaluzhnyi earlier this month in a “reset” of the military.

At a meeting on January 16, 2023, Vladimir Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, Sergey Kiriyenko, “laid out four key objectives for the Ukraine propaganda team: discrediting Kyiv’s military and political leadership, splitting the Ukrainian elite, demoralizing Ukrainian troops, and disorienting the Ukrainian population.

Success was measured through indicators: “lower the ratings of key personnel in Zelensky’s office, the Ukrainian government, and the command of Ukraine’s armed forces”; increase the belief among the Ukrainian population that the country’s elite was working only for itself; and “growth in the number of government dismissals and public conflicts”. To increase fear and anxiety, Ukrainian war losses were to be exaggerated.

UPDATE 0805 GMT:

Ukraine Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk says another Russian warplane was shot down on Sunday morning.

The Su-34 fighter bomber is the fourth Russian warplane downed since Friday, following the destruction of two other Su-34s and a Su-35 fighter.

Oleshchuk said air defenses also intercepted 12 of 14 Iran-made Shahed attack drones and a Kh-59 missile.

Russia also fired six S-300 anti-aircraft guided missiles and three Kh-22 cruise missiles. A school in Slovyansk and civilian infrastructure in Kramatorsk (see below) in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine were hit.

UPDATE 0752 GMT:

Two civilians have been killed in a Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

A woman was slain immediately and the body of a 23-year-old man was later retrieved from the rubble of a house.

Russian shelling of the Sumy region in northern Ukraine killed one resident and injured another in the community of Khotin. Homes and a farm building were damaged.

In Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region in the northeast, the body of a 55-year-old woman has been recovered from a two-story building destroyed by Russian shelling on Saturday afternoon.

Five people were injured as several homes were damaged and a utility company was struck.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has assured, “We can get our land back” — but has warned, “We must act now.”

Zelenskiy addressed the audience of global leaders as Ukraine’s forces face a shortage of artillery shells on the frontline. The lack of munitions is compounded by a blockade on further US aid by Trumpists and hard-right Republicans in the lower chamber of Congress, the House.

Hours before the President spoke, Ukrainian forces withdrew from the devastated town of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine after an intense four-month Russian assault.

Avdiivka about 20 km (12.5 miles) from Russia’s main position of Donetsk city, is of limited strategic communication and came at a high cost for Moscow’s forces. It is only the second city or town captured by Russia since July 2022, following the seizure of Bakhmut in Dontesk in May 2023.

But the Kremlin hopes that a symbolic success will bolster its narrative that its invasion cannot be defeated and that the international community should halt support for Kyiv.

In Munich, Zelenskiy emphasized Kyiv’s ability to defeat the Russian invasion and the necessity of ensuring that it does so.

We can get our land back. And Putin can lose. And this has already happened more than once on the battlefield….

If we do not act now, Putin will manage to make the next years catastrophic – catastrophic for other nations as well….

He has made the genocide of our people just an ordinary part of his policy.

Referring to Avdiivka in the Donetsk region after a four-month Russian assault, the President said Russia had lost “tens of thousands of people” in the assault, more than seven times higher than Ukraine’s casualties.

But he pointed to further setbacks if Moscow succeeds in depriving Ukrainian defenders of necessary assistance, “Unfortunately, keeping Ukraine in an artificial deficit of weapons, particularly in deficit of artillery and long-range capabilities, allows Putin to adapt to the current intensity of the war….Hatred knows no pause.”

He asked the audience:

How long will the world let Russia be like this? There is no one for whom the ongoing war in Europe does not pose a threat….

Please, do not ask Ukraine when the war will end. Ask yourself, why is Putin still able to continue it?

The President concluded, “May our world based on rules never become the world of yesterday.”

Avdiivka Withdrawal Because of “Congressional Inaction” in US

A White House readout of a call between Zelenskiy and US President Joe Biden emphasized that Ukraine had to withdraw from Avdiivka “due to dwindling supplies as a result of Congressional inaction. resulting in Russia’s first notable gains in months”.

Biden spoke to Zelenskiy about the US Senate’s passage of a bill with $60.1 billion in aid to Ukraine, after four months of bipartisan negotiations, and the threat of the House’s Trumpists and hard-right Republicans that the legislation is “dead on arrival”.

Biden said, “I spoke with Zelensky this afternoon to let him know that I was confident we’re going to get that money.”

He noted that the Ukrainian people continue to defend their country “bravely and heroically”, in the face of the “absurd” and “unethical” decision by the House to go on recess until February 28.

“I’m going to fight to get them the ammunition they need,” Biden declared.

Zelenskiy posted after the conversation, “Supporting Ukraine means supporting democracy and freedom. Together, we must protect these values.”

In Munich, Zelenskiy met Vice President Kamala Harris and conferred with US legislators: