Ukraine-News ++ Russian soldiers take part in exercises in Belarus ++

Status: 08:57 am| Reading time: 4 minutes

RUS soldiers are engaged in military training in Belarus. “Soldiers of the Western Military District continue intensive combat training at the firing ranges of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Combat training takes place both day and night. Videos released by the ministry show Russian soldiers training near tanks in winter terrain, firing weapons including artillery.

Belarus has declared in the past that it does not want to intervene in the war between Russia and Ukraine. However, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ordered troops to move to the Ukrainian border.

All Improvements in Live Ticker:

7:30 am – Scholz sees danger of nuclear escalation in Ukraine war

Chancellor Olaf Schaalz (SPD) sees the risk of nuclear escalation in the fallout from the Ukraine war. “Russia has stopped threatening to use nuclear weapons,” Scholes told the Funke media group (Thursday editions) and French newspaper Ouest-France. It is “a response to the international community drawing a red line”.

Asked if the risk of nuclear escalation had been averted, Scholz said: “At the moment we have hammered a peg against it.”

The president again called on Moscow to immediately end the war and withdraw troops from Ukraine. At the same time, he was ready to “talk with Russia about arms control in Europe.” It was given to Moscow before the war – “nothing has changed in this situation”.

At the same time, Sholes supported Kiev aid. “Next to the US, Germany is one of the countries that provides the most support to Ukraine, including arms,” ​​he said. The Central Government always works in close consultation with its partners. “With this, no one is offering Western-style main battle tanks,” the Chancellor added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Moscow would use nuclear weapons in response to the attack. “We consider weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons, as a means of defense,” the Kremlin chief said.

4:22 am – Schwesig calls for relief for heating oil customers

Ahead of the Prime Ministers’ Conference on Thursday, Manuela Švecic (SPD), head of the government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, is pushing for more help for heating oil, pellet or briquette customers, and for quick hardship rules for small and medium-sized companies. . “We still don’t have a solution for consumers who heat with oil, pellets or briquettes, even if their costs have risen sharply,” says Schwesig in an interview with Editorial Network Germany (RND).

00:01 – Putin: Ukraine war will last “a long time”.

Nine-and-a-half months after the invasion of Ukraine, Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin has not ruled out a protracted war against the neighboring country. “Of course, it could be a long process,” Putin said at a meeting with representatives of the Human Rights Council he set up. He explained that about half of the roughly 300,000 reservists drafted in the past few weeks have been stationed in Ukraine.

10:55 pm – Ukraine: Over 1000 Russian attacks on our power grid

According to Ukrainian sources, Russia has attacked the Ukrainian power grid more than 1,000 times. “These attacks are the biggest blow ever to a power grid. More than 1,000 grenades and rockets were fired at electrical equipment, lines and substations,” Interfax quoted Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, head of Ukraine’s network operator Ukrenergo, as saying. Energy infrastructure is still functioning despite significant damage.

9:50 pm – Russian journalist sentenced to 22 years in prison – court rejects appeal

A court in Moscow has rejected a former journalist’s appeal and upheld his 22-year prison sentence for treason. Ivan Safronov was accused of leaking military secrets to Czech intelligence and a German. He has dismissed the allegations as ridiculous and said he did nothing illegal.

Safronov worked as a military affairs correspondent for the business newspaper Kommersant and later became an adviser to the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. At the trial he claimed that as a journalist, he published information gathered from government agency and military department sources. He had no access to classified documents.

Safronov was arrested in July 2020 in Moscow. The case against him was widely characterized as politically motivated. His colleagues criticized the verdict as completely baseless and called for his acquittal. They suspect retaliation by the authorities because he reported on incidents in the military and shady arms deals.

The European Union has called on the Russian authorities to drop all charges against Safronov and release him unconditionally.

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