The delivery of F16 fighter jets to Ukraine will be a signal that Russia will lose – the sooner the decision on the aircraft is implemented, the better, Volodymyr Zelenskyi said. “The first Ukrainian F-16 will be one of the strongest signals in the world that Russia will lose only because of its aggression. It will be weaker and more isolated,” the Ukrainian president said.

Highlights of the war in Ukraine, day 456, LIVETEXT:

07:46 Hundreds of thousands of South Korean artillery shells are headed to Ukraine via the United States after Seoul initially resisted arming Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Citing anonymous sources, the newspaper reported that Seoul had reached a “confidential agreement” with Washington on the transfer of missiles to the United States for delivery to Ukraine. Jeong Ha-kyu, a spokesman for South Korea’s Defense Ministry, said Thursday that it was in talks with the Pentagon about exporting the munitions, but that the WSJ article contained “inaccurate parts,” declining to elaborate.

07:08“We *** ourselves in Kyiv and in Kherson,” says Prigozhin. “Russia got scared and withdrew troops” from Kyiv in the first days of the war, said the founder of Wagner’s mercenary group,

06:58 ANALYSIS: Goodbye, “red lines”: why the veto of Western aircraft was lifted for Ukraine. At the beginning of the conflict, it was believed that sending Western aircraft to Kyiv could be a risky decision because of the difficult and complex balance created with Russia.

06:15Ukraine: The army said it repelled a new attack by Russian drones on Kyiv. A new “massive” attack by Russian drones on the city, the “twelfth” since May

00:58 NASAMS for Ukraine: Washington approved the sale of surface-to-air missiles to Kyiv. On Wednesday, the United States announced the sale of advanced NASAMS anti-aircraft missile systems to Ukraine worth about $285 million to bolster its air defenses.

00:40 VIDEO Zelensky: The first Ukrainian F-16 will be one of the strongest signals to the world that Russia will lose due to its own aggression, will become weaker and more isolated

A brief summary of recent events:

• Two Russian groups that launched a two-day incursion into the Russian border region of Belgorod boasted on Wednesday of the “success” of their operation, which they said was a sign of weak Russian defenses.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday compared NATO’s eastward expansion to Adolf Hitler’s desire to occupy new territories in Eastern Europe.
• The Russian Defense Ministry said that a Ukrainian drone attacked the Russian reconnaissance ship “Ivan Hurs” in Turkey’s exclusive economic zone on Wednesday.
• Chinese President Xi Jinping promised on Wednesday to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who is on a visit to Beijing, China’s “firm support” for its “fundamental interests”: “China is ready to continue its firm mutual support with Russia on matters of fundamental interest for all”.
• Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Oleksiy Makeev, said that the Ukrainian army will receive a significant number of Leopard 1 tanks in the near future.
• “This has never existed in human history.” Vladimir Putin has been ridiculed after he claimed he couldn’t see “Ukraine” on a 17th-century French map.
• The Kremlin says it is not interested in ending the conflict with Ukraine. Russia will carry out its “special military operation” until the end, until it defends its interests and achieves its goals – either by military action or “by other available means”, Dmytro Peskov said.
• The Orthodox Church of Ukraine, loyal to Kyiv, announced on Wednesday that it has decided to switch to the Julian calendar, according to which Christmas is celebrated on December 25.
• Russia suspects its leading researchers of passing the secrets of hypersonic missiles to China, not to the “collective West.”
• General Waldemar Skrzypczak, a former commander of Poland’s ground forces and deputy defense minister in Warsaw, says neighboring countries should be prepared for an uprising in Belarus against Lukashenka.
• The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, entered Oslo harbor for the first time on Wednesday, demonstrating NATO’s strength amid tensions between the alliance and Russia.
• There were more deserters in the Russian army in 3 months than in the whole of last year. They receive only conditional terms to be sent to fight in Ukraine.

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