President Biden said he has “for now” ruled out sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, saying that the U.S. military has deemed other support more crucial at the current stage. Even as Ukraine’s allies rallied in solidarity to mark one year since the start of the war, Biden told ABC News that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “doesn’t need F-16s now.”
Poland delivered four Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine on Friday, officials said, which Ukrainians troops have begun training on in Germany. Western officials say the tanks will help Ukraine fight back against a spring offensive by Russia.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Married on the day of the invasion, one soldier marks two anniversaries: On the morning of Feb. 24, 2022, Ukrainian Sgt. Volodymyr Rusyn got married, hours after getting the early-morning phone call that Russia had invaded. One year later, on his wedding anniversary, he spent the day visiting his troops on the front lines — and making sure his wife got the flowers, report Steve Hendrix and Serhii Korolchuk.
His battalion helped pushed the Russians out of the city of Lyman in the Donetsk region in September, and now they are fighting to keep them from taking it back. A year has been long enough for the tide of war to ebb and flow, and he knows Moscow is keen to reoccupy the semi-demolished city, where he sleeps in an abandoned house.
But this day was special. Rusyn was waiting for a friend in western Ukraine to surprise his wife with flowers and — because the 12 hours between the wedding and his mobilization a year ago were enough to create the child they yearned for — with gifts for the daughter who was born in October.
*This story has not been edited by The Infallible staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.
