Top politicians and military leaders from around the world are meeting in Germany on Friday, and Ukrainian officials are expected to speak at a security conference as they try to fend off Russian missile attacks on cities and massive front-line attacks. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and US Vice President Kamala Harris are among the many dignitaries attending the Munich Security Conference. Russia has stepped up ground attacks in southern and eastern Ukraine, and a major new Russian offensive appears to be taking shape nearly a year after the invasion began.

The latest on the war in Ukraine, day 359, LIVETEXT:

07:23 Russia’s decision to cut crude oil production by 500,000 barrels a day reflects its inability to sell all of its oil, US Assistant Treasury Secretary Ben Harris said on Thursday, according to Reuters.

01:30Zelenskyi in the evening address on Thursday: Another 101 Ukrainians who were in Russian captivity have returned home / Continue to liberate our territory, a priority for which we are carefully preparing

The President of Ukraine states that keeping the situation on the front lines under control and preparing for any escalation by the enemy is a priority for the near future. He also says that the further liberation of Ukrainian territory is “a priority that we are carefully preparing.”

01:12The head of the WHO in Europe is impressed by the stability of the Ukrainian health care system

Hans Kluge, European director of the World Health Organization, on Thursday congratulated Ukraine’s health care system for not succumbing to the war and disease outbreaks predicted when Russia invaded the country a year ago, CNN reported.

Kluge recalled “a lot of pessimistic predictions” last year, including that “the health care system will collapse” and that there will be an “explosion of Covid-19, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS.”

00:51 The support of Ukraine from the US Congress will not decrease, the senator told AFP

The United States will continue to provide important aid packages to Ukraine, despite the hostility of some Republicans, the influential Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse assured in an interview with AFP on Thursday, before leaving for the Munich Security Conference.

00:40On Thursday morning, Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraine’s largest oil refinery

00:05 For the first time since the beginning of the war, an Israeli minister came to Kyiv / the Ukraine-Russia-Iran-Israel equation complicates relations

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen arrived in Kyiv on Thursday, the first such visit since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as Israel coordinates strikes with Russia on suspected Iranian targets in Syria and has not pledged direct arms supplies to Kyiv.

A quick recap of the latest developments on Friday morning:

• Russian rockets and artillery shelled a residential neighborhood in the city of Bakhmut on Thursday, killing three men and two women and wounding nine others, Ukraine’s prosecutor general said, adding that it was being investigated as a war crime.
• On Thursday morning, Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraine’s largest oil refinery. The Kremenchug oil refinery, about 200 kilometers southeast of the capital Kyiv, was also damaged, but Ukrainian authorities did not provide details on the extent of the damage.
• General Mark Milley: Neither Russia nor Ukraine has a chance to achieve their goals. The war will end at the negotiating table. Neither Russia nor Ukraine has a chance to achieve their military goals, so the war will probably end at the negotiating table, said the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Army General Mark Milley in an interview with the Financial Times.
• For the first time since the beginning of the war, an Israeli minister came to Kyiv / Rivneka Ukraine-Russia-Iran-Israel complicates relations. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen arrived in Kyiv on Thursday, the first such visit since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as Israel coordinates strikes with Russia on suspected Iranian targets in Syria and has not pledged direct arms supplies to Kyiv.
• The editor of the Minsk agreements admitted that he did not count on their achievement when he conceived them / Former Kremlin strategist is satisfied with the annexation of new Ukrainian regions
• Volodymyr Zelenskyi ruled out the transfer of any territory of Ukraine “in favor of Putin” in a potential peace agreement with Russia. In an interview with the BBC, the Ukrainian leader said that giving up any territory would mean that Russia could “keep coming back”.
• Wagner again criticizes the Russian army for not hastening the offensive. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of a Russian paramilitary group, said the city of Bakhmut, the epicenter of fighting in eastern Ukraine, would not fall until “March or April”, attacking Russia’s “military bureaucracy” which he said was delaying the offensive, AFP reported.
• The new Russian offensive in the east of Ukraine is “very deplorable”, said a US official / “More than 200,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded”. “You see a war raging in the east, in Bakhmut,” said US Undersecretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland. “Russia has announced that it is starting a new offensive. Well, if that’s the case, that’s pretty pathetic, I’d say.’
• Belarus will join the war with Russia if it is attacked, Lukashenko threatens. Belarusian President Oleksandr Lukashenko said on Thursday that he would order his troops to fight on Russia’s side if another country attacks Belarus, writes The Guardian.
• Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said that the Kremlin was preparing a “plan B” with the help of oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk after Russian forces failed to take over the country.
• VIDEO On Thursday, a powerful explosion occurred in Armyansk, a city in the Russian-occupied Crimea, which is located near the border of the peninsula with the Kherson region in southern Ukraine.
• NATO must prepare for a prolonged confrontation with Russia as Russian President Vladimir Putin shows no desire for peace a year after he launched a war against Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with AFP published on Thursday.

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Thursday’s events related to Russian aggression were broadcast LIVE on HotNews.ro