US President Joe Biden will hold talks with his Polish counterpart in Warsaw and is scheduled to deliver an address on Tuesday night, following Monday’s surprise trip to Kyiv to meet Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
(Bloomberg) — US President Joe Biden will hold talks with his Polish counterpart in Warsaw and is scheduled to deliver an address on Tuesday night, following Monday’s surprise trip to Kyiv to meet Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Biden said the goal of his visit to the Ukrainian capital — shortly before this Friday’s one-year mark since Russia’s invasion — was to reaffirm his administration’s “unwavering and unflagging commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin gives his first state-of-the-nation speech in nearly two years in Moscow later in the day. The Kremlin has kept plans for the substance of the address close, but the Russian leader is expected to again make his case that the country is locked in an existential fight with the ‘collective West,’ not just Ukraine, and thus Russians should be prepared for a long struggle.
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Key Developments
- Pentagon Dysfunction Reveals Cracks in US War Machine
- How Europe Ditched Russian Fossil Fuels With Spectacular Speed
- China Looks to Show World It Can Broker Russia-Ukraine Peace
- Biden Seeks Dividends From Kyiv Visit at Poland Summit on War
On the Ground
Ukrainian troops repelled assaults near 11 settlements in the Donetsk, Kharkiv and Luhansk regions over the past day, the country’s General Staff said on Facebook. Russia carried out six missile attacks and 28 air strikes aimed at civilian infrastructure of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions and fired 86 salvos from rocket launchers, it said.
(All times CET)
China Peace Plan ‘Must Include Russian Withdrawal’ (8:30 a.m.)
Any Chinese proposal to end the war in Ukraine must include a complete Russian withdrawal behind its own borders otherwise it won’t work, according to the vice president of the European Commission.
“China always says that one should respect borders so if that’s the starting point for the peace plan then it could work,” the EU’s Frans Timmermans said in an interview with Germany’s Deutschlandfunk radio. “But if the peace plan assumes that the territory Russia has taken remains Russian then it won’t fly,” he said, adding that if it turns out China is supplying the Kremlin with weapons that would have “very serious consequences” for the bloc’s ties with the government in Beijing.
German Exports to Russia Slump (8 a.m.)
German exports to Russia declined by 57.5% to €900 million ($960 million) in January compared with the same month a year earlier due to the war and sanctions, according to Federal Statistics Office data.
Russia therefore dropped to 12th among the most important destinations for German exports outside the EU, from fifth before it launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
US Pledges Most Support to Ukraine (7:52 a.m.)
The US has once again taken the lead in pledging support for Ukraine, having earmarked more than €73 billion ($77.9 billion) for Kyiv, according to data compiled by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. The European Union follows with commitments of about €55 billion.
The US gave about €44 billion in military aid since January 2022, according to the institute’s latest Ukraine Support Tracker, far outstripping commitments from other countries. The UK was the next-largest donor, contributing about €5 billion in military equipment.
Germany Tells China It Can’t Arm Russia (7:52 a.m.)
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said she made clear to China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, that as a permanent member of the UN security council, Beijing is also responsible for the preservation of global peace.
“That, of course, also means that China may not send any weapons, including dual-use goods, to Russia,” Baerbock said after the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. Wang is expected to arrive in Moscow on Tuesday afternoon, Tass reported.
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