Three people died, dozens of apartments and cars were damaged as a result of Russian rocket fire in the city of Lviv, not far from the border with Poland. The slow delivery of weapons to Ukraine delayed the counteroffensive planned by Kyiv, which allowed Russia to strengthen its defenses in the occupied territories, including mine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi said in an interview.

Highlights of the war in Ukraine, day 498, LIVETEXT:

07:49 Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used cluster munitions that have killed Ukrainian civilians, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Thursday, as the United States considers whether to respond to the Ukrainian government’s appeal for supplies of the weapons. HRW called on both Russia and Ukraine to stop using these weapons and called on the US not to supply them.

More than 120 countries have signed a treaty banning the weapon, which typically scatters large numbers of so-called smaller bombs over a large area that can kill or maim unsuspecting civilians months or years later. Russia, Ukraine and the USA refused to sign this treaty.

Late last month, a senior Pentagon official said the cluster munitions would be useful for Ukraine to counter Russian forces, but that they had not yet been approved for Kyiv because of restrictions imposed by Congress and allied concerns. (Reuters)

07:21 VIDEO At least three people were killed as a result of Russian rockets hitting a residential building in Lviv

Hungary will no longer vote for any EU aid as the OTP is blacklisted

07:13 The uprising of the Wagner group underscores Russia’s dependence on China. Prigozhin’s rebellion against Moscow has raised concerns in China, with some observers saying it could even jeopardize the “unrestricted” strategic partnership between Putin and Xi.

07:06 Hungary will not accept EU funding until Ukraine removes OTP bank from the blacklist of war sponsors

06:58 Le Monde: Germany had an economic advantage, France a strategic one. The war in Ukraine is muddying the waters. Berlin and Paris must consider the future of an enlarged Europe in which their dominant role will no longer be taken for granted, notes Sylvie Kaufmann, columnist for Le Monde.

06:032 Aid to Ukraine – the USA, the main military and financial contributor. The Baltic countries are the biggest victims. Japan, the largest donor outside the EU and NATO

01:28 The situation with human rights in Belarus is “catastrophic”, according to the UN

A brief summary of recent events:

• British Defense Minister Ben Wallace has long expressed his desire to become the next NATO Secretary General, but Joe Biden opposed it, British media sources reported.
• In Chisinau, there are cases when “persons with the status of diplomats of the Russian Federation quickly arrive on the left bank of the Dniester, in Transnistria, and there they engage only in diplomacy,” said the President of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova. , Ihor Grosu, on Wednesday.
• Investigative journalist of the independent newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” Olena Milashina, who was brutally beaten on Tuesday in Chechnya, was transferred to a hospital in Moscow, Dmytro Muratov said on Wednesday.
• Bulgaria will no longer look at Russia’s interference “with eyes wide shut”, promises the new Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov. One of the priorities of the Bulgarian government is the comprehensive reform of the special services to eliminate agents of Moscow.
• The Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, threatened again that Russia could use nuclear weapons, talking about ending the war in Ukraine “in the American way” and saying that under certain conditions it could end in a few days.
• The Ukrainian army reported new “partial successes” in the town of Klishchiivka, south of Bakhmut, and said that its troops continued to repel the Russian advance on Liman, Avdiivka and Maryinka, also located on the eastern front.
• A young Ukrainian woman who lost her leg last year during an attack in the south of the country in the Odesa region won a gold medal in her first gymnastics competition.
• Germany’s defense ministry on Wednesday rejected the Romanian government’s request to deploy troops on Romanian territory, after Prime Minister Marcel Çolaku announced it a day earlier.
• A new video shared on Russian social networks shows another batch of T-54/55 tanks being sent to the front in Ukraine, and the removal of these combat vehicles from military warehouses is mocked, including by Russian passers-by who saw them being transported on the railway . tracks
• Hungary hosted Mykhailo Murasko, Russia’s health minister, on an official visit on Wednesday, and the Budapest government said it wanted to keep communication channels open with Moscow. Murashko held a joint press conference with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, Péter Sijarto.
• Hundreds of engineers and entrepreneurs met with military officials last month in the basement of a building in central Kyiv, away from the eyes of the world, to try to find new solutions to better neutralize the dangers posed by cheap drones that Russia uses to attack Western equipment. .
• During his visit to Kyiv, China’s Special Representative for Eurasia Li Hui expressed skepticism that the American Patriot system was used by Ukrainians to shoot down Russian Kinjal hypersonic missiles.

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