Russia-Ukraine war live: multiple Ukraine officials resign amid corruption claims; Nato ‘confident’ of German tanks solution soon | World news
Nato’s Stoltenberg ‘confident’ of solution on German tanks soon
Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg is confident the alliance will find a solution soon on the delivery of battle tanks to Ukraine, he said after meeting Germany’s defence minister on Tuesday.
“At this pivotal moment in the war, we must provide heavier and more advanced systems to Ukraine, and we must do it faster,” Stoltenberg told reporters, standing alongside the German defence minister, Boris Pistorius.
“I therefore welcome our discussion today. We discussed the issue of battle tanks. Consultations among allies will continue and I’m confident we will have a solution soon,” Reuters reports Stoltenberg added.
Pistorius said there was no disunity among allies about sending heavy battle tanks to Ukraine and stressed that Berlin would act quickly if there was a positive decision to do so. However, he stressed that Nato must not become a party to the war in Ukraine.
Key events
Summary of the day so far …
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The deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said on Tuesday he had asked President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday to relieve him of his duties as part of a wave of government resignations and dismissals. The move comes amid a corruption scandal which saw Infrastructure deputy Vasyl Lozinskyi sacked and detained for an alleged theft of $400,000 from the winter aid budget. Tymoshenko, 33, had been the deputy head of presidential office since 2019, overseeing regions and regional policies. He also worked with Zelenskiy during his election campaign, overseeing media and creative content.
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Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, responsible for supplying troops with food and equipment, has also resigned, citing “media accusations” of corruption that he and the ministry say are baseless. A statement on the defence ministry’s website said Shapovalov’s resignation was “a worthy deed” that would help retain trust in the ministry
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Deputy prosecutor general Oleksiy Symonenko has been removed from his post, according to the prosecutor general’s office, and two deputy ministers resigned from Ukraine’s ministry of communities and territories Development – Vyacheslav Negoda and Ivan Lukerya. Reportedly the heads of five regional authorities have also been dismissed, in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kyiv, Sumy and Kherson.
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Germany has now received Poland’s official request to re-export Leopard tanks to Ukraine, Polish defence minister Mariusz Blaszczak said.
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The final decision on whether Germany will give permission will be taken at the chancellery in Berlin, a senior official at the foreign ministry said on Tuesday. “At the end of the day, the decision will obviously be taken at the chancellery, in consensus by the government,” Tobias Lindner, state secretary at the foreign ministry, said at a defence conference in Berlin.
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Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg is confident the alliance will find a solution soon, he said after meeting Germany’s defence minister on Tuesday. “At this pivotal moment in the war, we must provide heavier and more advanced systems to Ukraine, and we must do it faster,” Stoltenberg said.
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New German defence minister Boris Pistorius said there was no disunity among allies about sending heavy battle tanks to Ukraine and said that Berlin would act quickly if there was a positive decision to do so. However, he stressed that Nato must not become a party to the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin warned Monday that the people of Ukraine will “pay the price” if the west decides to send tanks to support Kyiv.
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Finland’s foreign minister Pekka Haavisto has signalled a possible pause in discussions with Turkey over Finnish ambitions to join Nato alongside Sweden, which he says is due to the pressure of Turkey’s forthcoming election.
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Russia’s ambassador to Estonia, Vladimir Lipaev, has accused the west of arming the Baltic state with weapons that could strike at St Petersburg.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back with you later. Harry Taylor will be with you now for the next few hours.
Two more deputy ministers resign amid Ukraine government corruption scandal
Two deputy ministers resigned from Ukraine’s ministry of communities and territories development on Tuesday amid a broader exit of senior officials from the government, which has become engulfed in a corruption scandal following the dismissal of infrastructure deputy Vasyl Lozinskyi.
Reuters reports that Vyacheslav Negoda and Ivan Lukerya both confirmed the moves on their Facebook pages.
So far today presidential aide Kyrylo Tymoshenko and deputy defence minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov have both resigned, and a deputy in the prosecutor general’s office has been dismissed. There are reports that five regional governors in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kyiv, Sumy and Kherson have also been dismissed.
As my colleague Isobel Koshiw noted yesterday:
Before the war, corruption scandals were an almost daily feature of Ukrainian political life. The country was ranked 122 out of 180 by Transparency International in 2021, making it one of the world’s most corrupt countries. The EU has made anti-corruption reforms one of the key requirements for Ukraine gaining EU membership.
Since the war, there have been far fewer known instances of corruption as society focused on the wartime effort. But journalists have returned to scrutinising the elites in recent months.
Five regional governors dismissed in Ukraine – reports
Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne is reporting on Telegram that the heads of administration in five of Ukraine’s regions have been dismissed, naming Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kyiv, Sumy and Kherson as the regions affected.
More details soon …
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, one of the occupied regions of the Donbas which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed, has posted a series of images to Telegram which he claims shows the damage in Kostyantynivka following a Russian attack. He writes:
The Russians shelled Kostyantynivka — wounding four people. Among the wounded are two children. All the victims were given medical assistance – their health is currently satisfactory.
As a result of the shelling, high-rise buildings were damaged – the exact consequences have yet to be established. This is another blow to the city, which is located in the relative rear [away from the frontline in Donetsk]. And another targeted attack on civilians.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne has reported from Odesa that the number of Russian vessels in operation in the Black Sea has risen to 11. It claims that three surface ships and one submarine armed with Kalibr missiles are among them.
Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, said on Tuesday that Ukraine had proposed a non-aggression pact with his country, the Belta state news agency reported.
Reuters reports that Lukashenko was cited as disclosing the alleged offer to a meeting of government and law enforcement officials at which he also accused the west of arming militants in Ukraine who could potentially destabilise the situation in Belarus.
Russia used Belarus as a springboard in February 2022 to launch its failed offensive to capture Kyiv, and Russia and Belarus have continued to stage joint military drills during the course of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne reports that there is an emergency power shutdown in the Lviv region after the consumption limits were exceeded.
The final decision on whether Germany will send Leopard tanks to Ukraine or allow other countries to do so will be taken at the chancellery in Berlin, a senior official at the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
“At the end of the day, the decision will obviously be taken at the chancellery, in consensus by the government,” Tobias Lindner, state secretary at the foreign ministry, said at a defence conference in Berlin organised by Handelsblatt.
“Where my minister stands in this debate is well-known, I believe,” Reuters reports he added, referring to foreign minister Annalena Baerbock who said on Sunday that Germany would not stand in the way of other countries supplying Leopard tanks to Kyiv.
At the moment, the Berlin government was waiting to see whether countries submitted re-export requests which then would be passed on to Germany’s national security council that decides on such requests, Lindner said.
Poland says it has sent such a request, and that Germany received it this morning.
Germany has received Poland’s official request to re-export Leopard tanks
Germany has now received Poland’s official request to re-export Leopard tanks to Ukraine, Reuters reports Polish defence minister Mariusz Blaszczak said.
Nato’s Stoltenberg ‘confident’ of solution on German tanks soon
Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg is confident the alliance will find a solution soon on the delivery of battle tanks to Ukraine, he said after meeting Germany’s defence minister on Tuesday.
“At this pivotal moment in the war, we must provide heavier and more advanced systems to Ukraine, and we must do it faster,” Stoltenberg told reporters, standing alongside the German defence minister, Boris Pistorius.
“I therefore welcome our discussion today. We discussed the issue of battle tanks. Consultations among allies will continue and I’m confident we will have a solution soon,” Reuters reports Stoltenberg added.
Pistorius said there was no disunity among allies about sending heavy battle tanks to Ukraine and stressed that Berlin would act quickly if there was a positive decision to do so. However, he stressed that Nato must not become a party to the war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, has said today’s personnel shakeup showed Volodymyr Zelenskiy was reacting to a “key public demand” that justice should apply to everyone. “Zelenskiy’s personnel decisions testify to the key priorities of the state. The president sees and hears society. And he directly responds to a key public demand – justice for all,” Reuters reported he said on Twitter.
Deputy head of the president’s office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy defence minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov and a deputy to the prosecutor general left their posts as part of the shakeup earlier today.
Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of Lviv, has reported on the Telegram messaging app that overnight there were no air alerts in his region and the night passed peacefully. He stated that the schedule of hourly electricity blackouts in the region continues as “consumption limits for our region continue to remain at the level of less than half of the need”.
Kozytskyi stated that yesterday 43 internally displaced people arrived in the region on evacuation trains, and 13 arrived by bus.
Ukraine’s state emergency service has posted to the Telegram messaging app to report that in the last day it attended 132 sites of damage caused by “the consequences of hostilities of the Russian Federation”. It specifies:
During the day, units of the state emergency service carried out 132 trips to eliminate the consequences of shelling by the occupiers of populated areas and infrastructure facilities, 12 fires were extinguished. Assistance was provided to 74 persons.
It says that in total, since the beginning of Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine, “78,124 trips were made to eliminate the consequences of shelling, 13,794 fires were extinguished, 3,880 people were rescued”.
Russia’s ambassador to Estonia, Vladimir Lipaev, has accused the west of arming the Baltic state with weapons that could strike at St Petersburg.
Russian state-owned news agency Tass quotes the ambassador telling the Soloviev Live TV channel:
The Anglo-Saxons had an interest in creating an anti-Russian outpost here to put pressure on the Russian Federation. And we are talking not only about economic, political, cultural, but also military pressure.
Estonia is actively arming, it’s not clear why, types of conventional weapons that are capable of targeting St. Petersburg. A medium-range anti-missile defence system is being created.
His words come in a week of diplomatic tension between Russia and its neighbours around the Baltic sea. Yesterday, Russia said it was downgrading diplomatic relations with Estonia, accusing Tallinn of “total Russophobia”. The Russian foreign ministry said it had told the Estonian envoy he must leave next month, and both countries would be represented in each other’s capitals by an interim charge d’affaires instead of an ambassador. Latvia has said itwill downgrade its diplomatic ties with Russia and inform its Russian ambassador to leave the country by 24 February.
Ukraine’s deputy prosecutor general Symonenko removed from post
Ukraine’s deputy prosecutor general, Oleksiy Symonenko, has been removed from his post during a shake-up of senior officials, the prosecutor general’s office said.
Reuters reports the statement announcing his removal on Tuesday gave no reason for the decision but said it had been “according to his own wish”.
Earlier, the presidential aide Kyrylo Tymoshenko and deputy defence minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov both resigned, as Ukraine is gripped in a corruption scandal within its government.
Reuters has a quick snap to say that Ukraine’s deputy prosecutor general has been fired. The move comes after both presidential aide Kyrylo Tymoshenko and deputy defence minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov resigned, amid a corruption scandal across the government.
More details soon …
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Shapovalov resigns citing ‘media accusations’ of corruption
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, responsible for supplying troops with food and equipment, has resigned, citing “media accusations” of corruption that he and the ministry say are baseless.
A statement on the defence ministry’s website said Shapovalov’s resignation was “a worthy deed” that would help retain trust in the ministry, Reuters reports.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has published its daily operational briefing on how it sees the situation on the ground in Ukraine. Today the focus is on speculation about the Russian military hierarchy, with the MoD report claiming:
General Colonel Mikhail Teplinsky has likely been dismissed as one of Russia’s key operational commanders in Ukraine. Teplinsky was the officer on the ground in charge of Russia’s relatively successful withdrawal from west of the Dnipro in November 2022, and he has received praise in Russia as a capable and pragmatic commander. Teplinsky’s dismissal is likely another symptom of continued divisions within the senior hierarchy of Russia’s operation as General Valery Gerasimov attempts to impose his personal authority on the campaign.
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