Battle | Ex-Russian ambassador: Navalny's return was wrong

Olaf Scholz categorically rejects sending German soldiers to Ukraine. Putin's friend Dmitry Medvedev insulted Macron. More information on the news blog.

7:51 am: Former Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andrij Melnyk, in an interview with “Wirtschaftswoche”, criticized President Olaf Scholes for not delivering Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. “I'm in awe, man! I'm angry and stunned,” Melnyk said.

For ten months, Ukrainians have been struggling with compelling arguments to convince the president to release the cruise missiles. “Until the last minute, Ukrainians believed that common sense would win over stubbornness. All in vain,” criticized Melnyk Scholz.

Melnyk was Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany from 2015 to 2022. At the time he often drew attention to harsh criticism, for example calling Scholes “a disgraced liverwurst”.

7:29 am: Former Russian ambassador Boris Bondarev said in an interview with “Spiegel” that Alexei Navalny's biggest mistake was returning to Russia. “I don't know if his team wanted to turn him into a kind of Nelson Mandela or expected mass protests, but they miscalculated,” he said. A politician should be free to pursue his political activities. In prison he is not a help, but a burden.

The Russian opposition now needs a clear idea of ​​what it wants to achieve, a positive agenda. “They should be clear not only which system they want to change, but which system they want to build,” he demanded. He does not currently see any politician who can implement this.

Boris Bondarev was the Russian Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland from 2019 to May 2022. When the war in Ukraine began, he broke with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since then, he has been living under police protection at an undisclosed location in Switzerland to hide from the Russian regime's reprisals.

5:24 am: A Ukrainian drone strike was carried out on Thursday night, the Russian military leadership said. The Russian Defense Ministry's Telegram channel reported that air defense systems in the Kursk region detected the missile and shot it down. Information cannot be independently verified.

5:12 am: Russian troops are dropping soldiers in waves in the battle for the village of Khringi without using armored vehicles, Natalia Humenyuk, a spokeswoman for the Southern Operations Command, said on Wednesday. Krynky is a small village in Kherson Oblast on the east bank of the Dnipro River. Before the outbreak of war, less than 1,000 people lived there. Fierce fighting has been raging around the city for weeks.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed Russia had already captured Khringy, but Ukraine's Southern Operations Command denied this on February 21. Humeniuk said, according to the Kyivindependent newspaper, that Russia made only one unsuccessful attempt to attack the village during the day because it was unable to relocate and reinforce its troops. He added that attacks are likely to increase as the cycle develops.

4.30 am: Christoph Heusken, head of the Munich Security Conference, continues to believe that Germany will deliver Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine, despite Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) not being clear. “I have not given up hope that this “no” is not final, especially since the arguments presented are not valid: South Korea has Taurus without Bundeswehr soldiers, and the Ukrainians can also handle modern weapons,” Hesken told the Editorial Network. Germany (RND/Thursday).