President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that unless Ukraine wins a drawn-out battle for the key eastern city of Bakhmut, Russia could begin building international support for a deal that would require the government in Kyiv to make unacceptable compromises.
(Bloomberg) — President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that unless Ukraine wins a drawn-out battle for the key eastern city of Bakhmut, Russia could begin building international support for a deal that would require the government in Kyiv to make unacceptable compromises.
If Bakhmut fell to Russian forces, President Vladimir Putin would “sell this victory to the West, to his society, to China, to Iran,” Zelenskiy said in an interview with The Associated Press. “If he will feel some blood — smell that we are weak — he will push, push, push,” the Ukrainian leader added.
Zelenskiy also said he wants Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit and is still waiting to talk to him. Xi visited Moscow earlier this month in a strong show of support for Putin and was then expected to hold his first conversation with Zelenskiy since the invasion.
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(All times CET)
Premiers Urge Big Tech to Fight Disinformation (10 a.m.)
The prime ministers of Ukraine, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Moldova signed a joint letter calling on major technology and social media platforms to combat disinformation which seeks to destabilize their nations and weaken their democracies.
They urged the companies to refrain from accepting payments from sanctioned individuals, deploy algorithms to promote accuracy, make their policies more transparent, improve content moderation and clearly mark AI-generated content and so-called “deepfakes” to identify automated manipulation campaigns.
Putin Won’t Last if He Loses Crimea: Kasparov (9 a.m.)
“I don’t think that Putin or his vertical of power could withstand the liberation of Crimea, because it’s an essential part of the myth,” Garry Kasparov, a Russian opposition activist and chess grandmaster, told the Latvian news site Delfi. “Without which it will not hold together.”
Personalized dictatorships rely on the idea that the leader is invulnerable, Kasparov said, adding that “a Ukrainian victory will shatter this myth” and Russia could then have the opportunity to change. Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula has been under Russian occupation since 2014.
Russia Occupies 65% of Bakhmut: ISW (8:30 a.m.)
Russian forces have advanced into an additional 5% of Bakhmut in the past seven days and they currently occupy roughly 65% of the city, according to the latest assessment by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.
Troops from Russia’s Wagner Group paramilitary organization are likely working to consolidate gains in northern and central Bakhmut to push toward the center and expand their zone of control into western areas of the city, the institute said.
War Intensifying Russian Labor Shortages (8 a.m.)
Putin’s drive to expand Russia’s armed forces is adding to labor shortages as the war draws hundreds of thousands of workers into the military from other sectors of the economy.
Federal Statistics Service data suggest a net increase in the military last year of approximately 400,000 amid already record-low unemployment, Bloomberg Economics estimates, after Putin ordered the call-up of 300,000 reservists in the country’s first partial mobilization since World War II.
Zelenskiy Hasn’t Spoken With Xi Since War Started (7 a.m.)
In his AP interview, Zelenskiy said he hasn’t had any contact with Xi since Kremlin forces invaded Ukraine early last year.
“We are ready to see him here,” he said. “I want to speak with him. I had contact with him before full-scale war. But during all this year, more than one year, I didn’t have.”
He also voiced concerns that shifting political forces in Washington could affect the war. Some politicians in the US have questioned whether Washington should continue to supply Ukraine with military aid.
Belarus Opposition Leader Meets Sullivan (12:40 a.m.)
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who said the two discussed measures to challenge the country’s longtime leader, Alexander Lukashenko, and Putin’s plan to station nuclear weapons there.
During the Monday encounter, Sullivan expressed “the steadfast support of the United States for the Belarusian people’s pursuit of a sovereign and democratic future, including free and fair elections as well as human rights protections,” according to a White House statement. In the 2020 election, Tsikhanouskaya challenged Lukashenko and fled the day after the vote following threats from officials.
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