Dutch government to deliver F-16 jets to Ukraine The Dutch government will send an initial 18 F-16 jets to Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced on Friday following a conversation with the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte. “We discussed frontline developments, the situation in the Black Sea, and Ukraine’s current military needs, including artillery, drones, and air defence,” Zelenskiy wrote on X. “We agreed to continue our joint work on security guarantees following the G7 Vilnius Declaration. We also discussed the next Peace Formula meeting and efforts to further consolidate international support for the Ukrainian vision of a just peace.” The delivery of the fighter jets is still pending on an export permit by the Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs and the fulfillment of criteria for staff and infrastructure in Ukraine, Rutte added without giving a timeline for these decisions. But the announcement made it possible to reserve funds and people to prepare the planes for delivery, the government said. “Today I informed President Zelenskiy of our government’s decision to prepare an initial 18 F-16 fighter aircraft for delivery to Ukraine,” Rutte wrote on X. “The delivery of F-16s is one of the most important elements of the agreements made on military support for Ukraine.” The Netherlands sent its first U.S. made F-16s to a new training facility for Ukrainian pilots and staff in Romania last month. Denmark, Norway and Belgium have also announced they will give F-16 jets to Ukraine, after the US government approved sending them to defend against Russia as soon as pilot training is completed. Closing Summary It is approaching 5pm in Ukraine. Here’s a roundup of the day’s events: Ukraine shot down 24 of 28 Shahed drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack that damaged residential buildings in Kyiv and an infrastructure facility and grain warehouse in southern regions, officials said. More than two dozen Russian drones targeted Ukraine’s capital, hitting the 24th, 25th and 26th storeys of an apartment building and injuring two people, and causing lesser damage to several other residential buildings, according to Reuters. In the south, Russia again tried to hit port infrastructure – a frequent target since it pulled out of a UN-brokered deal that allowed safe passage of Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea. On Friday, Russia said its air defences intercepted five Ukrainian drones south of Moscow in the space of less than an hour. The defence ministry said four were intercepted over Kaluga region and a fifth was destroyed inside the Moscow region. Russia may sever diplomatic ties with the US if Washington confiscates Russian assets frozen over the Ukrainian conflict, the Interfax news agency quoted the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, as saying on Friday. Russia will never leave in peace any country that seizes its assets, the Kremlin said on Friday, saying it would look at what western assets it could seize in retaliation in such a scenario. The Kremlin was commenting on an idea being actively discussed in the west, where some politicians have suggested that frozen Russian assets worth $300bn be handed to Ukraine. The Dutch government will send an initial 18 F-16 jets to Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced on Friday following a conversation with the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte. Russia is ready to swiftly respond in kind to Washington deploying short- and medium-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said. The Kremlin accused the Wall Street Journal of publishing “pulp fiction” on Friday after it reported that the death of the mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash had been orchestrated by a Russian security official, Nikolai Patrushev. A top Russian diplomat has said Moscow and Washington were still engaged in sensitive negotiations over a prisoner exchange, but accused the US side of leaking details to the media. The United States said on Friday it would place sanctions on foreign banks that supported Russia’s war in Ukraine, in a new bid to exert economic pressure on Moscow as it diversifies from the west to China. The Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, visited Kyiv on Friday to present an aid package for Ukraine on his first official foreign visit, a ministry spokesperson said. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, held a telephone call with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, on Friday to discuss ways to de-escalate the conflict in Gaza as well as humanitarian relief efforts, the Kremlin said. The renowned Russian writer Boris Akunin, who was declared a terrorist by Moscow and became the target of a criminal inquiry this week, says he fears the moves signal a new milestone in the country’s history under Vladimir Putin. “Putin’s regime has clearly decided to take a very important new step on its way from a police, autocratic state to a totalitarian state,” Akunin, who lives in exile, told Agence France-Presse. Photojournalist Jelle Krings has been documenting Ukraine’s flower industry since the start of the Russian invasion, looking at how it helps the country cope with war. From a greenhouse production plant built with Dutch technologies, we follow the supply chain of flowers throughout the country to the people who use them, exploring the meaning of flowers in Ukraine’s wartime society. At the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Moscow’s troops just a few miles away from Kyiv, a sudden explosion from an incoming mortar sent shock waves through the glass of one of the largest greenhouses in the outskirts of the capital. Despite the chaos, a few hours after the blast a small group of workers inside the facility carried on with their invisible yet crucial task for the country’s morale and resilience – to cut flowers. The United States on Friday issued a general licence authorising some transactions with Russia’s sanction-hit Expobank through to 21 March, according to a notice posted on the US Treasury’s website. Expobank has proposed to buy HSBC’s unit in Russia and the general licence should ease the British lender’s long-awaited departure from the country. Washington imposed sanctions on Expobank earlier this month. President Joe Biden’s new executive order strengthening US sanctions against Russia will put new pressure on banks to ensure that their services are not being used to aid Russia’s efforts to circumvent sanctions, the US deputy treasury secretary, Wally Adeyemo said on Friday. Adeyemo said in an interview on CNBC that most major financial institutions were adhering to US sanctions aimed at preventing Russia from acquiring materials needed for its war effort. But the new executive order due to be signed on Friday allows the Treasury to target banks in countries such as China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates that may be willingly or unwittingly helping Russia evade sanctions, Adeyemo said. “What this tool says is that if you’re a financial institution, you need to take steps to make sure that you are not being used” by Russian front companies to evade sanctions, he said. Dutch government to deliver F-16 jets to Ukraine The Dutch government will send an initial 18 F-16 jets to Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced on Friday following a conversation with the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte. “We discussed frontline developments, the situation in the Black Sea, and Ukraine’s current military needs, including artillery, drones, and air defence,” Zelenskiy wrote on X. “We agreed to continue our joint work on security guarantees following the G7 Vilnius Declaration. We also discussed the next Peace Formula meeting and efforts to further consolidate international support for the Ukrainian vision of a just peace.” The delivery of the fighter jets is still pending on an export permit by the Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs and the fulfillment of criteria for staff and infrastructure in Ukraine, Rutte added without giving a timeline for these decisions. But the announcement made it possible to reserve funds and people to prepare the planes for delivery, the government said. “Today I informed President Zelenskiy of our government’s decision to prepare an initial 18 F-16 fighter aircraft for delivery to Ukraine,” Rutte wrote on X. “The delivery of F-16s is one of the most important elements of the agreements made on military support for Ukraine.” The Netherlands sent its first U.S. made F-16s to a new training facility for Ukrainian pilots and staff in Romania last month. Denmark, Norway and Belgium have also announced they will give F-16 jets to Ukraine, after the US government approved sending them to defend against Russia as soon as pilot training is completed. The Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, visited Kyiv on Friday to present an aid package for Ukraine on his first official foreign visit, a ministry spokesperson said. Poland has been involved in humanitarian and military assistance for neighbouring Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Poland also welcomed millions of Ukrainian refugees. “This is an important visit because he is the first politician of this rank to appear in Kiyv after the EU’s decision to start the accession process with Ukraine and Moldova,” a ministry spokesperson, Pawel Wronski, was quoted by the news agency PAP as saying. All 27 EU states except Hungary agreed last week to start accession talks with Ukraine. Sikorski will also meet the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the spokesperson said. “The minister is preparing and presenting an aid package for Ukraine, as well as an idea for cooperation and political support,” he said. “Poland cannot only be a military hub, but should also be an economic and political hub for Ukraine. The minister will declare support for Ukrainian aspirations and for Ukraine’s preparations for EU membership.” One problem that has overshadowed Polish-Ukrainian relations in recent weeks is the issue of grain from Ukraine and a blockade of several border crossings by truck drivers. The countries’ farm ministers held online talks, the Ukrainian ministry said on the Telegram messenger app on Friday. Russia says drones shot down near Moscow Russia said its air defences intercepted five Ukrainian drones south of Moscow in the space of less than an hour on Friday. The defence ministry said four were intercepted over Kaluga region and a fifth was destroyed inside the Moscow region, Reuters reports Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, apparently referring to the latter incident, said fragments of the drone had fallen in the city of Podolsk but no casualties or damage had been reported. Drone attacks aimed at Moscow have subsided since the summer, when they repeatedly hit a business district of the capital and forced frequent airport closures. The UK’s Ministry of Defence has posted this map showing the current state of the front line in Ukraine: Ukraine shot down 24 of 28 Shahed drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack that damaged residential buildings in Kyiv and an infrastructure facility and grain warehouse in southern regions, officials said. Reuters reports that more than two dozen Russian drones targeted Ukraine’s capital, hitting the 24th, 25th and 26th storeys of an apartment building and injuring two people, and causing lesser damage to several other residential buildings. In the south, Russia again tried to hit port infrastructure – a frequent target since it pulled out of a UN-brokered deal that allowed safe passage of Ukrainian grain shipments though the Black Sea. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, held a telephone call with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, on Friday to discuss ways to de-escalate the conflict in Gaza as well as humanitarian relief efforts, the Kremlin said. It said the two men agreed that Abbas would visit Russia at a date to be agreed. Here are the latest images coming across the wires from Ukraine: The United States said Friday it would place sanctions on foreign banks that supported Russia’s war in Ukraine, in a new bid to exert economic pressure on Moscow as it diversifies from the west to China. Under an executive order to be signed on Friday by the president, Joe Biden, the US would be authorised to issue so-called secondary sanctions against financial institutions that supported Russia’s defence industry, officials told Agence France-Presse. The US, the world’s largest economy, was sending a message to financial institutions that they have “a very stark choice”, a senior official said on customary condition of anonymity. “Ultimately, for almost any bank in the world, you give them the choice between continuing to sell a modest amount of goods to Russia’s military-industrial complex or being connected to the US financial system – they’re going to choose being connected to the US financial system, given that our economy is far bigger, and our currency is the one used around the world,” he said. But Russia has been seeking to reduce reliance on dollars, euros and yen since its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered a wave of western sanctions. China’s largest banks have extended billions of dollars worth of credit in renminbi to Russia since the war as western institutions exit. The US official voiced hope that European and US banks, while not directly invested in Russia, would put pressure on partners operating in the country.