Russia’s war on Ukraine latest: France says Ukraine needs firepower now, doesn’t exclude planes later

© Thomson Reuters Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy attends a parliament session in Kyiv

(Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron said he did not rule out sending fighter jets to Ukraine at some point, but that Kyiv was in need of more immediate military firepower, as Ukrainian officials said a fresh Russian offensive was underway.

DIPLOMACY

* “Europe will be with us until our victory. I’ve heard it from a number of European leaders … about the readiness to give us the necessary weapons and support, including the aircraft,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told a news conference in Brussels, where he attended a European Union summit. He did not name the countries.

© Thomson Reuters Ukrainian serviceman rides a military vehicle in the front line city of Bakhmut

* While Zelenskiy said that “Free Europe cannot be imagined without free Ukraine”, he heard from European Council chief Charles Michel that Ukraine’s road to EU membership would be long and hard.

© Thomson Reuters FILE PHOTO: A Russian service member stands in front of a Pantsir anti-aircraft missile system on combat duty in the Luhansk region

* Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said NATO must act together on jets for Ukraine.

* Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it would be Ukrainians who suffer if Britain or other Western countries supply fighter jets to Kyiv, and that the line between indirect and direct Western involvement in the war is disappearing.

© Thomson Reuters Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov attends a joint news conference in Kyiv

* Moscow does not believe Kyiv’s pledges that it will not use long-range Western arms to strike deep into Russian territory, Alexei Polishyuk, a department head at Russia’s foreign ministry, told state-owned RIA news agency.

© Thomson Reuters A Ukrainian serviceman looks on in Bakhmut

NORD STREAM PIPELINES

* Russia’s foreign ministry said European countries were trying to hide the results of their investigations into last year’s explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, accusing them of covering up who was to blame.

FIGHTING

* Kyiv says it expects Moscow to broaden its offensive with a big push as the Feb. 24 anniversary of the invasion nears.

* Russian forces launched a series of overnight strikes that have knocked out power supplies in parts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, local officials said. There was no word on casualties.

* Russia said it had destroyed four Ukrainian artillery depots in the eastern Donetsk region. Ukraine’s military said that over the past 24 hours Russian troops maintained offensives in the regions of Kupyansk, Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Novopavlivka and Vuhledar.

* Serhiy Haidai, Ukraine’s governor of mostly Russian-occupied eastern Luhansk province, described a major new Russian assault around Kreminna, along a northern stretch of the eastern front.

* Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield accounts.

POLITICS/ECONOMY/SOCIETY

* President Vladimir Putin said Russia’s economy had overcome the worst effects of sanctions and was expected to show modest growth this year, despite what he said were attempts to undermine certain industries.

* A quarter of Ukraine’s population is at risk of developing a severe mental health condition as the country grapples with the year-long Russian invasion, a senior health official said.

(Compiled by Simon Cameron-Moore)