Ukraine – Russia war: latest news live | Zelensky travels to Brussels this Thursday to meet with EU leaders

What has happened in the last hours

On the 350th day of the war started by Russia against Ukraine, these are the key data at 8:00 p.m. this Wednesday, February 8:

Zelensky asks the British Parliament to support sending fighter jets to Ukraine. The President of Ukraine, Volodímir Zelenski, began a whirlwind tour of Western Europe on Tuesday, a month and a half after he visited Washington. After meeting this Wednesday in London with the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and King Carlos III, he will fly to Paris this same day to meet with the French President, Emmanuel Macron, and the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, as confirmed by a source. of the Elysee. He is scheduled to attend the European Council in Brussels on Thursday.

Zelenski, before the Parliament of Westminster: “The victory of Ukraine will stop future aggressors.” The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, is speaking at this moment in London, before the Westminster Parliament. “I have come to appear before you on behalf of our warriors, who are now in the trenches under enemy artillery fire”, he has said. He has also made reference to those who defend “the skies that protect Ukrainians against the enemy” and who “have fled” from Ukraine. “I have come on behalf of each and every one of the fathers and mothers who are waiting for their sons and daughters to return from the war.”

The Russian embassy in London is warning the UK that delivering fighter jets to Ukraine would have “consequences”. The Russian embassy in London has warned the United Kingdom on Wednesday that delivering fighters to Ukraine would have “military and political consequences for the European continent and the rest of the world,” according to the official Russian agency TASS. The statement is in response to the UK’s decision to train Ukrainian pilots in the use of advanced NATO-type fighters.

Sunak expects Ukraine to beat Russia on the battlefield “this year”. The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, thanked the United Kingdom on Wednesday for its “great support since the first days of the large-scale invasion” of Russia in his country, before meeting British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Downing Street. . The British prime minister, for his part, has assured him that this support will continue until the Ukrainian victory, which he hopes will be this year.

Ukraine does not believe that Russia is organizing a general offensive like the one a year ago. Ukrainian intelligence does not see Russian troop movements to predict a general offensive like the one a year ago. This was stated this Wednesday by Fenir Venislavski, a member of the parliamentary committee on intelligence and national security and parliamentary representative of President Volodimir Zelenski, who has stated that Moscow is concentrating its efforts on the eastern and southern fronts, in the provinces of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Lugansk, the four that Moscow has illegally annexed since the start of the invasion a year ago.

Putin authorized the delivery to the pro-Russian separatists of the missiles with which they shot down the MH17 flight. Experts investigating the downing of the Malaysia Airlines plane (MH17), killing nearly 300 people in July 2014, have “strong indications” that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the shipment to pro-Russian separatists in the east. of the Ukraine of the BUK missile systems, one of the projectiles of which was the one that brought down the device.

In this photo by Andrew Matthews, for Reuters, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visit Ukrainian soldiers being trained in the use of British Challenger 2 tanks, at a barracks in Lulworth, Dorset. , southwest of England.