Sunday news digest: Putin’s nuclear forces, Zelenskyy talks to Lukashenko
Olga Gluschenko – Monday, 28 February 2022, 08:00 AM
News from Sunday 27 February: Putin orders nuclear forces on standby; Zelensky talks to Lukashenko before his possible offensive.
Putin’s nuclear forces: Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the transfer of deterrence forces to a special combat duty regime.
The Pentagon responded to Putin’s threats by stating that the US can defend itself, its allies and its partners.
Zelenskyy-Lukashenko call: There is a high probability that the self-proclaimed government of the Belarus Republic will imminently approve an order declaring the Belarusian army’s participation in the war against Ukraine initiated by the Russian Federation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with the self-proclaimed president of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko before his likely invasion of Ukraine in alliance with Russia.
Other important news: The Commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny stated that a Bayraktar UAV, a Turkish medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned combat aerial vehicle, destroyed a column of enemy equipment in the Kherson region.
An Opposition Platform Parliamentarian of the For Life (OPFL) party and godfather to Putin’s child, Viktor Medvedchuk, has escaped arrest.
In Mykolayiv, Ukraine’s National Guard stopped trucks marked as belonging to the ATB supermarket chain where Russian soldiers were hiding.
Gennady Matsegora, mayor of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region and OPFL representative elected in 2020, agreed to cede control of his city to the Russian invaders.
The Kyiv State Design Bureau Luch handed over all of its products, originally intended for export, to the Ukrainian military.
On the evening of 27 February, the President of Ukraine and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom had a telephone conversation in which Zelenskyy told Johnson that the next twenty-four hours would be crucial for Ukraine.
On 28 February, a video call will take place between the leaders of the United States, European Union, NATO, Canada, Japan and six other European countries to discuss the situation in Ukraine.