Ukraine war in Newsblog | Russia reports hypersonic weapon test

Day 337 since the beginning of the war: The USA is probably considering delivering Abrams tanks after all. Switzerland could soon release ammunition. All information in the news blog.

10:57 am: According to official information, another senior official of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has had to leave because of the scandal surrounding the purchase of overpriced food for soldiers. “The Director of the Purchasing Department in the Ministry of Defense (Bohdan) Khmelnytskyi was fired,” Anastasiya Radina, head of the Committee on Combating Corruption in the Ukrainian Parliament, said on Facebook on Wednesday night. Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov had previously resigned because of the affair. Read more about it here.

Over the weekend, media reports in Ukraine caused a stir that the Ministry of Defense was buying food for its soldiers at prices up to three times higher than retail prices in stores. Experts also see the mass layoffs as a liberation from Head of State Volodymyr Zelensky, who, one year before the presidential election, does not want to tarnish himself with the image of a corrupt politician. In addition, he would otherwise have to fear for the continuation of the western aid that is essential to the war effort, it is said.

10.45 a.m.: Russia says the expected delivery of US Abrams tanks to Ukraine is pointless. They would be destroyed there, the Kremlin declares. Their potential for the Ukrainian military is overestimated. It’s expensive madness.

10.20 a.m.: The Russian government has tasked the prison authorities with setting up 25 penal colonies in the areas of Ukraine that have been annexed since the beginning of the war. Twelve prisons are being built in the Donetsk region, seven in Luhansk, three in the occupied part of the Cherson region and two in the Zaporizhia region, where an open prison camp is also to be built. This emerges from a government order on Tuesday, about which the state-run “Parlamentskaya Gazeta” reported.

9.34 am: According to British intelligence services, Russia has sent several tanks in poor condition to Ukraine. The armed forces there were reluctant to accept the tanks because of their miserable condition, the British Ministry of Defense said in its daily briefing. Specifically, it is about Russian T-15 Armata battle tanks, some of which Moscow has prepared for use in the Ukraine war, according to the British.

9.15 a.m.: Alice Weidel, head of the AfD party and parliamentary group, warns of an escalation of the war with a view to the planned deliveries of battle tanks to Ukraine: “Germany is increasingly threatening to become a war party – with unforeseeable consequences for our country and its citizens,” said Weidel t-online. “Following the battle tanks, planes are required, then logistics troops after them, so that more Ukrainians can come to the front, and eventually combat troops.” Weidel emphasized: “Nobody attacked Germany. Nobody attacked a NATO country. With the promise to deliver battle tanks, the AfD faction fears an escalation of the war.”

8:59 a.m.: According to a military expert from Switzerland, Russia has overcome a phase of weakness in the war against Ukraine. “We are heading towards a situation in which battle tanks play an important role in terms of defense and counter-offensives,” says Niklas Masuhr, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the ETH University in Zurich, the German Press Agency. Since the fall, Russia has improved its position, for example by building defensive lines.

Regarding the course of the war, the military expert said: “Ukraine has carried out its previous counter-offensives in Russian phases of weakness, especially in the fall. Since then, however, Russia has consolidated and has a steady hand at command level.” Ukraine can also not rely on the fact that “Russian shortcomings from the first year will necessarily be repeated”. The war has been going on since February last year.