(Bloomberg) — The intensity of Russia’s military actions, both on the ground in eastern Ukraine and through Friday’s massive missile barrage, is increasing as the one-year mark of the invasion approaches.
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Top US and Ukrainian military leaders speak ahead of Tuesday’s meeting of the Ramstein group of allies in Brussels. There will also be a NATO defense ministerial as well as a Munich security conference starting Friday. Ukrainian military commander Valery Zaluzny told Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley that Kyiv’s forces continued to hold the disputed town of Bakhmut, north of Donetsk.
Russia launched its biggest missile strikes so far this year on Friday, as President Volodymyr Zelensky called for more weapons to fend off Vladimir Putin’s offensive. Moody’s Investors Service cut Ukraine’s credit rating to its second-lowest on Friday, citing “long-lasting challenges” to its economy and public finances from the war with Russia.
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on the ground
The Ukrainian General Staff said dozens of settlements in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions were hit by rockets, airstrikes and drones on Saturday. Three rockets were fired at Kharkiv’s infrastructure late Saturday, injuring one civilian. Civilian infrastructure was also damaged in Kherson, with one injury reported. According to the General Staff, five drones were shot down. Russian troops focused their main efforts on offensive operations in the Kupyansk, Lyman, Bakhmut and Avdiyevska directions in eastern Ukraine, using aircraft to attack the positions of Kyiv’s troops.
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Russian casualties likely at highest rate since February, UK says (8 AM)
The UK Ministry of Defense said in a Twitter update that over the past two weeks, “Russia has suffered its highest rate of casualties since the first week of the invasion” as poorly trained and under-resourced troops increasingly enter the battlefield. are increasing.
As for the UK estimate, which the UK said it could not confirm but was “likely to be accurate,” the Russian casualties over the past seven days averaged 824. The UK said Ukraine is also seeing a high casualty rate.
US, Ukraine defense chiefs speak ahead of Ramstein (7 AM)
Defense Minister of Ukraine spoke with his US counterpart, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin with a view to the next gathering of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.
The Ramstein meeting, named for the US air base in Germany, will be held at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday. The NATO Defense Ministerial meeting is to be held on Wednesday. Austin and Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley will participate.
“We discussed the current situation on the front, the urgent needs and priorities of the Defense Forces of Ukraine,” Ukraine’s Oleksiy Reznikov said on Twitter.
Ukraine presses for sanctions on Russian nuclear industry (7 am)
Ukraine’s energy minister said on Facebook after meeting with one of the acting IAEA expert groups that the UN nuclear agency, which has missions at all Ukrainian nuclear power plants, needs to accelerate the process of imposing sanctions on the Russian nuclear industry. should help.
“Russia must respond strictly to the seizure of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, to missiles and drones near nuclear power facilities, and to its disregard of international principles of nuclear and radiation safety,” Herman Halushchenko said.
Zaluzny tells US joint chiefs that Ukraine is still holding Bakhmut (5:40 PM)
Valery Zaluzny, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, spoke with Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley on Saturday. The last announced call between the pair was on 25 January.
According to a Twitter post, Miley and Zaluznyi discussed Friday the massive Russian missile barrage, air defense for Ukraine and Russia’s use of underwater drones that could threaten the Black Sea safe-transit corridor .
Kremlin forces are attacking Ukrainian positions in the Donetsk region more than 50 times a day, Zaluzny told Miley. The Ukrainian commander also said that his forces would “continue to keep Bakhmut under our control.”
Zelensky looks to rebuild JP Morgan summit (10:45 am)
President Volodymyr Zelensky told an investment summit organized by JP Morgan that Ukraine needed foreign investment to diversify and decentralize its energy system and make it less vulnerable to Russian attacks.
Zelensky met with three senior bank officials in Kiev and addressed the conference via video link, according to a posting on the president’s website.
Ukraine’s economy ministry said Thursday it would work with JP Morgan to attract private investment to rebuild the country. The ministry, JP Morgan and American investment company BlackRock signed an MoU.
Moody’s cuts Ukraine credit rating on ‘possible’ restructuring (11 PM)
Moody’s Investors Service cut Ukraine’s credit rating to the second lowest score, citing “long-lasting challenges” to its economy and public finances from the war with Russia.
The agency now lowers Ukraine a notch on CA par with Argentina. According to a statement on Friday, Moody’s has also changed the outlook from negative to stable.
Ukraine has about $23 billion in international bonds outstanding, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Read more: Ukraine credit rating cut by Moody’s on ‘possible’ restructuring
Putin weaponizing energy with oil production cuts: White House (10 PM)
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Russia’s plan to cut its oil output by 500,000 barrels per day next month shows that President Vladimir Putin is ready to use resources like energy as a weapon. To what extent are you ready?
Kirby said Putin’s move was not surprising following the G-7 and European Union’s decision to impose price caps on Russian oil and oil products. The US will continue to work with other allies and partners, including OPEC, he said, adding that he has no specific talks to speak of at this time.
Oil posted its biggest weekly gain in four months after Russia threatened to cut production in response to Western energy sanctions.
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