Ukraine: Russia’s armed forces destroyed a major fuel depot outside Kyiv in a missile strike, Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday. Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told a briefing that the strike happened on Thursday evening, using Kalibr cruise missiles fired from the sea. Konashenkov said the depot was used to supply Ukraine’s armed forces in the centre of the country.
Russian strikes killed 4 civilians and wounded several others while targeting a medical facility in Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv on Friday. Ukrainian officials in the strategic port city of Mariupol said Friday some 300 people could have died in last week’s Russian strike on a theatre where hundreds were sheltering. The US and European Union announced an agreement to try and boost the supply of liquefied natural gas to European countries by the end of 2022 with at least 15 billion cubic meters.
In its latest update, the UK’s Ministry of defence says Ukraine has reoccupied towns and occupied defensive positions up to 35 km east of Kyiv. About half the population of the eastern city of Kharkiv has left, and food and other essentials are dwindling for those who stay behind. US President Joe Biden will be in Poland on Friday to discuss the Ukraine crisis with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda, a day after he arrived in Brussels, Belgium, where he participated in extraordinary summits of NATO and the G7 to discuss the war.
Meanwhile, a day ago, Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy called for worldwide demonstrations against the invasion of his country by Russia, which completed one full month on February 24th. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who authorised the offensive, has repeatedly called it a ‘special military operation’ launched to ‘de-nazify’ the east European nation.