​French President Emmanuel Macron said he would not rule out sending fighter jets to Ukraine at some point, but that such a thing would take time and Kiev urgently needed combat power as Ukrainian officials said a new Russian offensive was underway.

The latest on the war in Ukraine, day 352, LIVETEXT:

07:47 At least 17 Russian missiles hit the city of Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine on Friday morning, the city’s acting mayor, Anatoly Kurtiev, said. The attacks targeted energy infrastructure, he said on the Telegram messaging app, adding that authorities were now collecting information on damage and casualties.

07:18It’s official: Ukrainian troops have arrived in Belgium to train underwater drones.

06:09 Zelensky will open a meeting of sports ministers regarding the presence of Russians at the 2024 Olympics.

00:35Hungary will continue to support Ukraine, although Viktor Orbán advocates a ceasefire.

A brief summary of recent events:

• “Europe will be with us until we win. We heard this from a number of European leaders… about the readiness to provide us with the necessary weapons and support, including aviation,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a press conference in Brussels, where he participated in the EU summit.
• The Prime Minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, said that NATO should act jointly on planes for Ukraine.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov said Ukrainians would be the ones to suffer if Britain or other Western countries supplied fighter jets to Kiev, and that the line between indirect and direct Western involvement in the war was blurring.
• Moscow does not believe Kyiv’s promises that it will not use Western long-range weapons for strikes on Russian territory, Oleksiy Polishyuk, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, told the state news agency RIA.
• Russia’s foreign ministry said European countries tried to cover up the results of their investigation into last year’s Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions and accused them of hiding the culprits.
• Kyiv says it expects Moscow to expand its offensive as the February 24 anniversary of the invasion approaches.
• According to local officials, Russian forces launched a series of night strikes that knocked out electricity in parts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Russia announced that it destroyed four Ukrainian artillery depots in the east of the Donetsk region.
• The Ukrainian army reported that during the past day, Russian troops continued their offensive in the districts of Kupyansk, Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiyivka, Novopavlivka, and Vugledar.
• Russia has launched a large-scale offensive in the east of Ukraine and is trying to break through the defenses near the city of Kreminna, said the governor of Luhansk region, Serhii Gaidai.
• Vladimir Putin said the Russian economy had overcome the worst of the sanctions and was expected to show moderate growth this year, despite what he called attempts to undermine certain industries.
• A quarter of Ukraine’s population is at risk of developing severe mental illness as the Russian invasion continues for nearly a year, a senior health official has said.
• Lithuania will transfer to Ukraine 36 anti-aircraft systems that will be able to effectively counter Iranian-made drones used by Russia.
• Poland will close an important checkpoint on the border with Belarus until further notice, Poland’s interior minister said on Thursday.
• Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov stated that 621 officials of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine were brought to justice as a result of internal inspections.
• Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas proposed to the EU a system similar to the system of procurement of anti-covid vaccines for the purchase of weapons for Ukraine
• Following Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s statements regarding Moscow’s plan to destroy the Republic of Moldova, the administration of the President of Chisinau sent the responsible institutions “to use all the informational assistance of partners to predict and prevent any attempts to undermine the state.” The intelligence and security service in Chisinau confirms that it was warned by Ukraine about the Russian plan to destroy the Republic of Moldova.
• SpaceX has taken steps to prevent the Ukrainian military from using the American company founded by billionaire Elon Musk, the Starlink satellite Internet service, to control drones during the war.
• Leopards are followed by panthers. A large German arms manufacturer wants to send modern Panther KF51 tanks to Kyiv.

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• Thursday’s events were broadcast live on HotNews.ro