[Korrespondent] 22:39 Russia's unsuccessful attack on Ugledar revealed the conceptual problems of its army, which largely operates according to old patterns, but, unlike the Soviet armed forces, does not have a multi-million strength. Read more in the material Cemetery of Russian tanks .
21:57 The Bakhmut fortress stands despite the desperate attempts of the Russian army to take it at any cost. The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine says that the situation in the city is "difficult and tense." About what is happening - in the material Battle for Bakhmut .
21:48 Zelensky said that he had held an energy meeting today: "This winter is over. It was very difficult, and every Ukrainian felt this difficulty without exaggeration. But still, we were able to provide Ukraine with energy and heat. Yes, the threat to the energy system remains. But and the work for the sake of the energy system continues. We have fixed the current tasks - in order to finish this heating season normally. And we have already begun to prepare for the next season."
21:33 A meeting between Lukashenka and Xi Jinping took place in Beijing. The negotiations were one-on-one and lasted four hours. The Belarusian leader's visit to China came amid growing tensions between the US and China in recent weeks, including Washington's concerns that Beijing is considering sending the Russian army lethal weapons. For more details, see the article What Lukashenka and the Head of China Discussed .
21:06 The Armed Forces of Ukraine are currently shooting down about 80% of Russian missiles, and in some cases even more, said the commander of the Joint Forces Sergei Naev. At the same time, he added that the enemy is also changing tactics and methods of using air attack weapons. According to Naev, Ukraine conducts a thorough analysis after each strike to ensure that the air defense resilience is at the highest level.
20:29 The Russians launched a missile attack on civilian and critical infrastructure in the Kremenchug region, information about the victims and destruction is being specified, said the head of the Poltava OVA Dmitry Lunin.
19:57 The Biden administration sees "no evidence" that Putin is ready for serious peace talks on Ukraine, Blinken said. "On the contrary, all the evidence suggests otherwise," the US Secretary of State stressed.
19:11 In the Lugansk region, the summer-autumn 2022 harvest is massively spoiled, as the Russian occupation "administration" completely blocks all local farmers from selling grain both on the domestic and foreign markets, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said. Also, local "authorities" unofficially banned all local bakeries from accepting grain from local farmers.
18:38 Germany will increase ammunition production and repair capacity to support Ukraine, Scholz said: "We will provide advanced ammunition production - both for weapons that we supply ourselves, and for those that come from classic stocks available in Eastern Europe."
18:32 The Ministry of Defense has published summary tables of the average level of pay for military personnel since March 2023.
18:09 A Russian A-50 aircraft at the Machulishchi airfield in Belarus was attacked by two DJI UAVs converted to kamikaze drones, the ByPol ​​group reported. According to satellite imagery, the plane received two significant damage. In particular, a key element was damaged - a three-coordinate radar station, namely a locator. The second damage, most likely, is located in the area of ​​​​the location of the radome of the satellite radio link antenna, in the front part near the nose compartment.
17:51 The New York Times writes that the largest tank battle of this war took place near Ugledar, and Russia "staggeringly lost" it. The publication notes that the Russian army not only failed to capture Ugledar, but also made the same mistake that cost Moscow hundreds of tanks at the beginning of the war: the advancing columns were ambushed. A three-week battle on the plain has led to the fact that the Russians have lost more than 130 tanks and armored personnel carriers, the fields are literally strewn with corpses and fragments of destroyed equipment.
17:36 The mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, reported explosions in the occupied Pologi, Zaporozhye region, as well as at the Melitopol airfield.
17:34 Two organizations from Geneva have been working for several months to lay the foundation for new negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, according to the Swiss TV channel RTS. According to him, outside official channels and under conditions of confidentiality, international relations experts and mediation specialists from the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD Centre) and the Center for Security Policy (GCSP) maintain contacts with Kiev and Moscow.
The names of the negotiators have not been released, but GCSP director Thomas Greminger said they are senior experts with access to the presidential administrations of both countries. Journalists suggest that these may be former officials, politicians or the military.
17:17 Russia is fueling social unrest in Moldova. President Maia Sandu officially accuses the Kremlin of plotting a coup. For more details, see What's Happening in Moldova .
16:53 Provocations on the border with Moldova are not ruled out, but there is no critical threat, Russian forces in the occupied Transnistria are not enough to open a second front, said Natalya Gumenyuk, speaker of the OK Pivden. She added that, purely geographically, the Russian forces cannot receive support in this area.
16:24 The European Commission proposes to significantly increase the production of ammunition in order to meet the needs of Ukraine and its own, Spiegel writes, citing sources. At the first stage, they want to increase supplies to Ukraine, compensating countries for these expenses with payments from the EU. Further, they plan to carry out a joint purchase of 155-mm ammunition, and at the third stage - to ensure a long-term increase in European ammunition production capacities.
The document with the relevant proposals has already been handed over to the ambassadors of the EU countries. Brussels believes that peacetime in Europe is over and it is necessary to radically change our approaches to the defense sector.
15:58 Serbs who were recruited to fight in Ukraine "will be arrested when they return to Serbia and will be within the reach of our institutions," President Aleksandar Vucic said.
15:47 France this year will significantly increase the volume of orders for 155-mm shells for Caesar howitzers, which are supplied to Ukraine, said Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu.
15:31 The Russians hit Chernobaevka from artillery, a one-year-old child was wounded, Kherson OVA reported.
15:16 Russia has lost more soldiers in the war against Ukraine than in all armed conflicts since 1945 - after the end of World War II, the US Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has calculated. According to the organization, the total losses of the Russian Federation in Ukraine in killed and wounded range from 200 to 250 thousand people. This figure includes the Russian army, mercenaries from various PMCs, DPR and LPR militants.
15:08 The Russians shelled the village of Zmievka, Kherson region - a local resident and a volunteer from Krivoy Rog were injured, the OVA reported.
15:04 The EU is shifting its focus from the adoption of new sanctions against Russia to the enforcement and strengthening of existing ones, writes Politico. Diplomats from about ten EU countries told the publication that sanctions against any remaining sectors would hit the bloc more than Russia.
14:59 Russian carriers still operate 467 Airbus and Boeing aircraft, up from the 544 they used a year ago, according to Cirium. Russian airlines after the ban on flights to the United States and Western European countries increased the number of flights to Thailand, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
14:56 Russia supplies China with large volumes of nuclear fuel for a fast neutron reactor located on Changbiao Island. It can produce plutonium needed to develop nuclear warheads, according to Bloomberg. According to US intelligence, if the reactor starts up this year, then China will be able to quadruple its stockpiles of nuclear weapons within 12 years, which will allow the country to catch up in nuclear potential with the United States and Russia.
14:51 The Kiev city military administration clarified that it was not a balloon, but an enemy UAV that was shot down in the sky over the capital today.
14:48 Lukashenka and Xi Jinping discussed the war in Ukraine at the talks in Beijing, Chinese TV reports. The Chinese leader said that it is necessary to "adhere to the position of a political settlement, abandon the Cold War mentality and respect the legitimate interests of all countries." Lukashenka noted in response that Minsk fully supports the position and proposals of China on a political solution to the crisis.
14:13 In the occupied Kadiyivka, Lugansk region, an explosion occurred at a factory that the Russians use as a military base, said the head of the OVA, Serhiy Gaidai. According to him, the Russians tried to hide trucks with ammunition there.
14:04 The Russians intend to hold pseudo-elections in the occupied territory of the Zaporozhye region, in particular in Melitopol, the mayor of the city Ivan Fedorov said. According to him, the so-called "vice-governor" of the Zaporozhye region, Sergei Tolmachev, has already been given appropriate instructions for preparation. And one of the collaborators, Galina Katyushchenko, was appointed by the Russian CEC as the "head of the central election commission" in the Melitopol region.
In addition, representatives of Russian political parties, including the Liberal Democratic Party and United Russia, are already gathering in the region to carry out propaganda work.
13:57 Ukraine is strictly committed to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and refutes fake information from the Russian Foreign Ministry about Kiev's alleged preparation of a "provocation using radioactive substances," said Oleg Nikolenko, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
13:41 An unidentified air object was recorded in Kiev today during an air raid. According to preliminary data, it was a small ball launched from the northern direction towards the capital. At the moment, the object does not pose a threat, measures have been taken to eliminate it, said Sergey Popko, head of the KGVA.
13:38 The EU delegation will not support the statement following the meeting of the G20 foreign ministers in India if it does not contain a condemnation of Russia's war against Ukraine, Reuters reports citing its own source. Separately, Borrell said that the success of the meeting in New Delhi will be measured by what it can do about the war in Ukraine and its consequences: "This war must be condemned. I hope, I am sure that the diplomatic potential of India will be used to make Russia understand that this war must end."
Russia, in turn, said it was using the meeting to tell the world "who is responsible for the political and economic crisis the world is in." The main G20 meetings will be held on Thursday, March 2.
13:27 The rotation of the IAEA expert group at the Zaporizhia NPP is delayed by more than three weeks, the agency's director general Rafael Grossi said. He expressed hope that this week the rotation will finally take place. Grossi also said that the water level in the Kakhovka reservoir, from which water enters the cooling pond at the ZNPP, has stabilized in recent weeks.
13:24 Russia uses experienced Wagner PMC mercenaries in Bakhmut with experience in fighting in Syria, Libya, and other hot spots, but the Armed Forces of Ukraine are holding positions, preventing the enemy from encircling the city, said Sergei Cherevaty, spokesman for the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces. "We are inflicting huge losses. What we are now gaining from the enemy is that we do not allow him to systematically break through our defenses, we do not allow him to quickly go to the rear, we do not allow him to surround our troops," he added.
13:20 Ukrainian troops destroy enemy equipment almost daily in the area of ​​the Kinburn Spit, Natalya Gumenyuk, speaker of OK Pivden, said. Over the past 24 hours alone, the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed four boats, five pieces of equipment and two pieces of heavy artillery on the Kinburn Spit.
12:58 The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced the prevention of an attempt by Kiev to conduct a "massive drone attack on Crimean facilities. Allegedly, six UAVs were shot down by air defense systems, and four more were disabled by electronic warfare equipment.
12:25 Kuleba said that on March 1, "Putin suffered the fifth big defeat since the day of the full-scale invasion - Ukraine defeated his winter terror." The Foreign Minister also listed the first four defeats of the Russian Federation during this time:
- The first defeat was when, from the first minutes of the offensive, we did not allow Putin to paralyze us with fear.
- The second is when we thwarted the Russian blitzkrieg plan. Ukraine did not fall in three days, or seven, or a month, or a year.
- We inflicted the third defeat on the Russian Federation on the diplomatic front: a global coalition for Ukraine, resolutions, isolation, flows of weapons, sanctions, energy, financial and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.
- The fourth defeat is the loss by Russia of a large number of occupied territories of Ukraine due to effective actions and counter-offensives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the rest of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.
11:44 Lukashenka said at a meeting with Xi Jinping that Belarus supports the Chinese "peace plan".
11:38 There has been no shortage of power in the energy system of Ukraine for 18 days and so far it is not predicted. The country's electricity demand is fully covered by the production capacity of power plants and a small amount of imports from Europe, Ukrenergo said. The situation remains difficult only in the front-line regions: as a result of Russian shelling, there are damages in the main networks in the Dnipropetrovsk region, as well as in the networks of distribution system operators in the Donetsk and Kherson regions.
11:33 The government of Moldova called the accusations of the Russian Foreign Ministry against Ukraine, which is allegedly preparing "provocations" near the unrecognized Transnistria using "radioactive substances", as lies. "The states are monitoring the situation and do not confirm the information disseminated by the Russian side," the statement says.
10:55 In the Lugansk region, Russians have begun to use Lancet kamikaze drones more often, said the head of the OVA, Sergei Gaidai. "We are already working with our international friends to obtain equipment that will make it impossible for these enemy UAVs to operate smoothly," he added.
Gaidai also said that the Russian army is trying to attack Belogorovka and in the Kremenskoye direction (Nevskoye and Makeevka), continues to shell de-occupied settlements along the front line.
10:52 Podolyak said that Ukraine does not strike on the territory of Russia: "Ukraine is waging a defensive war in order to de-occupy all its territories. This is an axiom. Processes of panic and disintegration are growing in the Russian Federation, a manifestation of which is an increase in internal attacks by unidentified aircraft on infrastructure ".
10:38 The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the "provocation" allegedly being prepared by Kiev with the use of radioactive materials could occur near Pridnestrovie, "around which tension is being escalated."
10:23 The transfer of Chinese drones to Russia will violate international law, said German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock. She recalled that as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has a special responsibility: "This means that China cannot send drones to an aggressor, a state, a president waging a war of aggression that violates international law."
10:14 British intelligence is noticing that Russia has begun launching Shahed drones from the Bryansk region, while it used to do so from the Krasnodar Territory, across the Sea of ​​Azov. Analysts say the second launch pad will give the Russians a different axis of attack closer to Kyiv. This is likely to reduce the time spent in the air over the territory of Ukraine and will be an attempt to further stretch the Ukrainian air defense.
The decrease in the rate of UAV attacks indicates that Russia has exhausted its current supply and is likely to try to replenish it, according to intelligence.
09:43 In Mariupol, in order to strengthen control over communication and prevent the transfer of information to Ukraine, the Russians informed the "budgetary" workers about the mandatory tapping of phones. To do this, everyone is required to provide their personal phones for the installation of a special program, said the adviser to the mayor of the city, Petr Andryushchenko. Also, the occupying "authorities" reported on the installation of equipment to control Internet traffic. At the same time, the number of patrols on the streets has increased, and sources report another wave of sweeps and searches with the involvement of the National Guard.
09:18 The Russians fired at Chuguev in the Kharkiv region in the morning - two people were injured, including a 13-year-old child, Oleg Sinegubov, head of the OVA, said.
08:56 According to the command of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on the night of March 1, the Russians attacked Ukraine from the northern direction with shock drones of the Shahed type: all four drones were destroyed.
08:49 In the Kherson region over the past day, as a result of Russian shelling, five people were killed, seven were injured. In the Kharkiv region, one dead, in the Donetsk region - three dead, four wounded, according to the IVA.
08:45 The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) believes that Russia can use Lukashenka's visit to China to achieve several of its goals, including circumventing the sanctions regime and promoting the narrative that Moscow is supposedly ready for peace talks.
08:39 In January, Russia received $18.5 billion from oil and gas exports, which is 40% less than a year earlier, according to the International Energy Agency. The IEA expects that this decline in oil and gas revenues "will be sharper in the coming months and even worse in the medium term."
08:18 The General Staff announced the approximate losses of the Russian Federation as of the morning of March 1.
- personnel - about 149,890 (+650) people liquidated,
- tanks - 3395 (+7),
- armored combat vehicles - 6638 (+8),
- artillery systems - 2393 (+10),
- MLRS - 479 (+1),
- air defense systems - 247 (+0),
- aircraft - 300 (+0),
- helicopters - 288 (+0),
- UAV operational-tactical level - 2055 (+4),
- cruise missiles - 873 (+0),
- ships/boats - 18 (+0),
- automotive equipment and tankers - 5257 (+5),
- special equipment - 230 (+0).
08:14 Over the past day, the Defense Forces repulsed more than 85 enemy attacks in the Kupyansky, Limansky, Bakhmutsky, Avdeevsky and Miner directions, the General Staff said in the morning summary . According to the General Staff, for the umpteenth time, the evacuation of certain categories of citizens from the Crimea is recorded. Recently, Russian servicemen stationed in Perevalnoye have been sending their families to Russia.
07:09 The State Duma of the Russian Federation has amended the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses on liability "for discrediting participants in a special operation" - now there will be a maximum punishment of up to 15 years in prison and up to 5 million rubles in a fine, speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said.
02:40 China spends billions of dollars to spread pro-Russian propaganda, said James Rubin, coordinator of the Center for Global Engagement at the US State Department. At the same time, he added that Beijing operates on a global scale and spends even more than Moscow for these purposes.
01:12 The United States has not found any evidence that Western weapons are being used by Ukraine for other purposes. At the same time, the Armed Forces of Ukraine effectively use them on the battlefield, said Pentagon Assistant Celeste Wallander. Another Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant General Douglas Sims, said that there were no reports of missing weapons from Ukraine, and it was not in the interests of Ukrainians to get rid of them.
00:55 In the Poltava region, according to preliminary data, up to five enemy UAVs were shot down, said the head of the OVA Dmitry Lunin.