Russian sergeant kills own troops with grenade

• Rheinmetall, Germany’s leading defence manufacturer, has said it can’t supply battle tanks to Ukraine before 2024
• Western countries are to send more heavy weapons to Ukraine soon, said NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg in an interview with German media
• Russian forces have shelled a hospital in Kherson, damaging one of its buildings that provide medical care
• A former commander of Russia’s Wagner group has fled from Russia to Norway and applied for political asylum, according to Gulagu, a project against torture in Russia
• A Cold War anti-aircraft carrier missile was used by Russia yesterday to destroy an apartment block in Dnipro, central Ukraine, the Ukrainian ministry of defence has said
• Rescue staff team up with working dogs, corgis and alsatians, in the search for residents
• Russian troops have been increasing their presence in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia, according to Yevhen Yerin, a spokesperson for the southern command of Ukrainian forces
• A Ukrainian soldier has killed at least 25 Russian troops at a military unit in the fight for Soledar
• The Donetsk region was the target of another wave of Russian missile strikes and shelling

Rheinmetall, Germany’s leading defence manufacturer, has said it can’t supply battle tanks to Ukraine before 2024.

CEO Armin Papperger told Bild today that repairing the decommissioned tanks for battle will take just “under a year”.

Rheinmetall has 22 Leopard 2 models and 88 Leopard 1 in stock.

The company needs a government order to fix the tanks because the “costs are several hundred million euros”, he added.

“This means that even if the decision is made tomorrow that we can send our Leopard tanks to Kyiv, delivery will take until the beginning of next year,” Mr Papperger said.

Western countries are to send more heavy weapons to Ukraine soon, said NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg in an interview with German media.

“The recent pledges for heavy warfare equipment are important — and I expect more in the near future,” he said ahead of a meeting with Ukraine Defence Contact Group, which coordinates arms supplies to Kyiv, at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
 

Russian forces have shelled a hospital in Kherson, damaging one of its buildings that provide medical care.

No casualties have been reported, said the governor of Kherson, Yaroslav Yanushevych.

A former commander of Russia’s Wagner group has fled from Russia to Norway and applied for political asylum, according to Gulagu, a project against torture in Russia.

Mr Medvedev said he is ready to talk about the extrajudicial killings he has witnessed and to testify against Russian mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was involved in the murders of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians.

Mr Prigozhin has used the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to expand Wagner PMC.

In a news report published today, Gulagu, wrote: “Another evacuation completed successfully. We are not even talking about evacuation, but about illegally crossing the border and escaping from Russia under the barking of watchdogs and shots in the back from the border service of the FSB.”

Mr Medvedev left the Russian Federation near the settlement Nikel of the Murmansk region on Thursday.

After arriving in Norway he was accompanied by guards to Oslo where he is being held.

A Cold War anti-aircraft carrier missile was used by Russia yesterday to destroy an apartment block in Dnipro, central Ukraine, the Ukrainian ministry of defence has said.

Kh-22 missiles were developed in the 1960s to destroy the US' largest warships but are now, once again, being fired by Russian Tupolev-22M bombers against civilian targets in Ukraine.

"This is how Soviet generals dreamed of sinking American aircraft carriers in the name of the ideals of Communism," the Ukrainian ministry of defence said.

The missile strike on Saturday killed at least 25 people, including six children.

Russia fired Kh-22 missiles at Ukrainian cities several times between May and October, when it switched to using Iran-made drones to preserve its dwindling stocks of missiles.

It now appears to have reverted back to using cruise and ballistic missiles once again.

Rescue staff team up with working dogs, corgis and alsatians, in the search for residents.

The dogs wear protective shoes so they can move among the debris without being injured.   

A resident is rescued from the fourth floor, 16 hours after Russian forces bombed the apartment.

Russian troops have been increasing their presence in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia, according to Yevhen Yerin, a spokesperson for the southern command of Ukrainian forces.
“There is a strengthening of their forces in some areas. Per our intelligence analysis, it's highly likely they are preparing to repel our offensive and attempt a counteroffensive,”  Mr Yerin said, according to Ukrinform, the state-owned news agency.
He said Russia is trying to conscript locals as its troops are blocking Ukrainians from fleeing the occupied areas of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

Read the full story here.

A Ukrainian soldier has killed at least 25 Russian troops with a Himars missile at a military unit in the fight for Soledar.

A video of the attack was shared by Ukrainian @bayraktar_1love account, which monitors the frontline, on Telegram on Friday.

It shows troops allegedly from the Wagner group walking past rail tracks and taking shelter as the rocket strikes.

“Tracking of a Russian military unit and subsequent HIMARS/M270 strike at their location, eastern front,” the post read.

Borys Filatov, the mayor of Dnipro, has said the chances of finding more survivors are already minimal.

Around 40 people are still unaccounted for after the missile strike.

The Donetsk region was the target of another wave of Russian missile strikes and shelling.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of Donetsk, said the region had suffered multiple attacks overnight and this morning.

Forces shelled several settlements, including the frontline town of Avdiivka, with multiple rocket launch systems damaging houses, he said on Telegram today.

Russian forces killed one civilian in the shelling of Kurakhivka, west of the occupied city of Donetsk. At least five residential homes were destroyed.

The direction of Volnovasky, Vugledar, Novoukrayinka and Bogoyavlenka came under fire — according to preliminary information, no one was injured.

Six children have died in a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in the east-central Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

The death toll has climbed to 21, officials said today, as rescue workers continue to search for survivors in the wreckage of the nine-storey building.

Valentyn Reznichenko, the governor of Dnipro, said this morning that seventy-three people were injured with 40 in hospital including four in intensive care.

Emergency workers toiled through the night searching for survivors. They said earlier they had heard people screaming for help from underneath piles of debris.

The attack has destroyed 72 apartments and damaged more than 230 – leaving around 1,700 people without homes.

In an address last night, President Volodymyr Zelensky paid tribute to the victims.

He said: ''The world must stop evil. Debris clearance in Dnipro continues. All services are working. We're fighting for every person, every life. We'll find everyone involved in terror. Everyone will bear responsibility. Utmost.''

Russian president Vladimir Putin said the special military operation was showing a positive trend and that he hoped Russian soldiers would deliver further gains after Soledar.

"The dynamic is positive," Mr Putin told Rossiya 1 state television. "Everything is developing within the framework of the plan of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff."

"And I hope that our fighters will please us even more with the results of their combat," he said.

Russia's Ministry of Defence said today its forces had launched a wave of missile strikes against Ukrainian military and infrastructure sites yesterday.

At least 21 people were killed in a strike on a Russian apartment complex in the eastern city of Dnipro, Ukrainian authorities say.

The ministry did not mention Dnipro as a specific target of any strikes but said that "all assigned objects were hit. The targets of the strike have been achieved."

Authorities in Moldova said today that specialist teams have carried out "controlled detonations" of explosives that were discovered in parts of rocket debris that border officials found in a northern village near Ukraine.

Moldova's Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a statement that an on-site investigation turned up about 80 kilograms of explosives in the remains of the rocket discovered yesterday in the Briceni district village of Larga.

Bomb squads from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense later performed the controlled explosions, and authorities extended the security zone around the debris, the interior ministry said.

Photographs posted on the ministry's Facebook page show a large cylindrical object loaded with white powder. 

The ministry has not said when the rocket was fired or who fired it but said it originated "from Russia's air attacks on Ukraine".

Russian forces struck an apartment block in Dnipro with a Kh-22 cruise missile that was designed in the 1960s to attack aircraft carriers.

Russia’s armed forces may increase its upper military conscription age from 27 to 30 to increase the number of its troops in Ukraine without causing alarm like the unpopular ‘partial mobilisation' recruitment process.

In its latest intelligence update, the UK's Ministry of Defence said the move could achieve Russia’s desired 30 per cent increase to the size of its force.

Andrey Kartapolov, the head of the Russian State Duma Defence Committee, suggested the new age limit could be introduced in time for the Spring 2023 draft.

Last year, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin said he supported such a move. Russian officials often make such calls to sound out public reactions, according to the report.

While Russia is reportedly conducting secret mobilisation for the war against Ukraine, the routine spring draft will commence on April 1.

Rishi Sunak has confirmed that Ukraine will shortly receive the first British Challenger 2 tanks, piling pressure on Germany to follow suit.

The move makes the UK the first Western power to supply Ukraine with main battle tanks.

A squadron of 14 Challenger 2s will be sent in the coming weeks and the UK will begin training the Ukrainian army to use them this week, Downing Street said.

Mr Sunak said that the modern tanks were needed to "seize the moment" and to "push back Russian troops" in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, on Saturday.

"The Prime Minister outlined the UK's ambition to intensify our support to Ukraine, including through the provision of Challenger 2 tanks and additional artillery systems," a Downing Street spokesman said.

Read the full story by James Kilner here.

Russia cancelled a scheduled exchange of prisoners of war at the last minute on Saturday, the Ukrainian body dealing with prisoners said.

"Another round of exchange of prisoners was planned today with the Russian side," the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on Telegram.

"However, it was cancelled at the last moment at the initiative of the Russian side."

Russia and Ukraine have conducted multiple prisoner swaps, with the most recent being on January 8.