Ukraine promises to avenge the alleged execution of one of its soldiers. “Vengeance for our hero will be inevitable”swore the Ukrainian army, after the publication of a video of the execution of one of its men, prisoner, claims “Glory to Ukraine!” before being killed by a flurry of bullets. “According to preliminary data, the deceased is the serviceman of the 30th mechanized brigade Tymofiï Mykolayovych Shadura”she said on Telegram, adding that the deceased, aged 41 and mobilized in December, had been missing since February 3, while he was participating in the fighting near Bakhmout.
kyiv mourns “saboteurs” killed in Russia. Several hundred people attended the Saint Michael monastery in the center of the Ukrainian capital, the funeral of four volunteer fighters killed in December 2022 in the Russian region of Bryansk, during a “sabotage” mission. The FSB, the Russian security services, had announced that they had killed them, claiming that they were armed with guns and explosives. Their bodies were returned earlier this month. The coffins were draped with the banner of the nationalist battalion “Bratstvo” (“Brotherhood”), created on the basis of a political party of the same name.
Warsaw continues to send tanks to kyiv. “Poland will deliver 10 Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ukraine this week”said Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak before flying to Stockholm where he will attend the meeting of European Union Defense Ministers. Warsaw had promised at the end of January to send 14 Leopard 2 tanks in total to kyiv and four had already been delivered on February 24, the day of the first anniversary of the invasion ordered by Moscow. A maintenance center will also be created to “repair and maintain Leopard tanks delivered to Ukraine.”
The EU wants to stock up on shells for Ukraine. European Union defense ministers meet on Wednesday to prepare a plan for delivering ammunition to Ukraine, despite stocks under pressure, with a first emergency component worth one billion euros. kyiv, which fires thousands every day, faces a critical shortage of 155mm shells for its guns. The objective is to move forward for adoption on March 20 at a meeting of heads of European diplomacy.
Ursula von der Leyen advocates “unwavering support” in Kyiv. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for “unwavering military and economic support” for Ukraine, while urging that Russia “pays for his crime of aggression”after proposing in November 2022 to establish a special tribunal to try his abuses. “We will never accept that a military power with dreams of empire sends its tanks beyond an international border”, she added during a speech in front of the Parliament of Canada, in Ottawa. The EU 27 bloc “will never accept this threat to European security and to the very foundations of our international community.”