For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.
The latest developments in Russia's war on Ukraine. All times EST.
11:30 p.m.: Agence France-Presse reported that the U.S. Army announced Tuesday that it had awarded $522 million in orders to two companies to manufacture 155 mm artillery ammunition for Ukraine.
The orders, officially decided on January 30, went to Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. and Global Military Products Inc. and came amid worries that Ukraine was fast depleting the stockpiles of artillery shells from the United States and other allies.
Deliveries of the new ammunition are scheduled to begin in March of this year, the Army said in a statement.
10:45 p.m.: The Kyiv Independent tweeted: General Milley: Russia lacks capacity for new attack on Kyiv.
"There is always the potential for missile attacks. Kyiv is the capital and an important goal (for Russia) in the war," said US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.
10:20 p.m.: Russia, locked in a decades-old territorial dispute with Tokyo over a chain of Pacific islands, on Tuesday accused Japan of engaging in Russophobia and mounting "vicious attacks" over the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Soviet troops seized the islands off the northern coast of Japan at the very end of World War Two. The unresolved clash over who has sovereignty over the chain — known in Russia as the Kuril Islands and in Japan as the Northern Territories — has prevented the two sides from signing a formal peace treaty.
Japan — which joined other allies in imposing sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine invasion — marks a Northern Territories Day commemoration every February 7 to remind people of its claim.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the event this year "was marked by a particular intensity of Russophobia," citing statements by officials and what she called "aggressive actions" by far-right Japanese forces near Russian missions.
9:15 p.m.: The Kyiv Independent tweeted: Spain to train Ukrainian soldiers on Leopard tanks starting this week.
55 Ukrainian soldiers will depart to Spain by the end of the week for training on how to operate Leopard tanks, Spanish defense minister Margarita Robles said in Brussels on February 14.
8:28 p.m.:
7:59 p.m.: A European soccer game in Moldova will be played in an empty stadium on Thursday amid concerns about alleged Russian-backed attempts to overthrow the national government, The Associated Press reported.
UEFA said Tuesday no fans will be allowed in the stadium when Sheriff hosts Serbian club Partizan in the first leg of a Europa Conference League knockout playoff.
The behind-closed-doors order was “due to the decision of the authorities in Moldova,” UEFA said in a statement.
7:12 p.m.: The Kyiv Independent reports: Russia's federal agency responsible for censoring, Roskomnadzor, is planning to use AI to track online posts, comments and memes critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a report by Russian investigative outlet iStories.
The information comes from #RussianCensorFiles, a leak of more than 2 million documents of Roskomnadzor, obtained by iStories, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, and other partners.
6:35 p.m.: Russia has held at least 6,000 Ukrainian children - likely many more - in sites in Russian-held Crimea and Russia whose primary purpose appears to be political re-education, according to a U.S.-backed report published on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
The report said Yale University researchers had identified at least 43 camps and other facilities where Ukrainian children have been held that were part of a "large-scale systematic network" operated by Moscow since its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The children included those with parents or clear familial guardianship, those Russia deemed orphans, others who were in the care of Ukrainian state institutions before the invasion and those whose custody was unclear or uncertain due to the war, it said.
"The primary purpose of the camp facilities we've identified appears to be political re-education," Nathaniel Raymond, one of the researchers, said in a briefing to reporters.
Some of the children were moved through the system and adopted by Russian families, or moved into foster care in Russia, the report said.
6:04 p.m.: The Institute for the Study of War tweeted: #Russian authorities are increasingly undertaking measures to promote self-censorship in #Russia under the guise of countering increased information threats resulting from the invasion of #Ukraine.
5:10 p.m.: If Mykyta Staskevich needed another reminder of what his boys hockey team of Ukrainian refugees was playing for back home, it came in the poignant form of the nation’s flag unfolded in the locker room before its game against Romania on Monday, The Associated Press reported.
In blue, representing the sky, were the nicknames of a player’s father and the father of a player’s friend, who have died on the front lines in the war with Russia. In yellow, representing the ground, were the nicknames of two of the player’s fathers — including Staskevich — who are still fighting.
Speaking in Ukrainian, Staskevich’s eyes welled as he provided an answer to what the flag symbolized.
“He wants Ukraine to win the war and to stop the war,” Ukrainian Selects coach Evgheniy Pysarenko said, translating his team’s captain. “Peace.”
The flag was brought to Pysarenko by one of the player’s parents, and served as both motivation and a poignant reminder of why the team is competing in the International Peewee Tournament in Quebec City. The Selects are more than just a hockey team of 11- and 12-year-olds. They’ve come to represent a symbol of peace and a far more hopeful future for a battle-torn nation nearly a year since Russia invaded Ukraine.
4:26 p.m.:
3:55 p.m.: American defense officials on Tuesday sought to dispel any doubt that Iran is supplying drones for Russia’s war in Ukraine, releasing photos and analysis of unmanned aircraft deployed in the conflict to demonstrate Tehran’s involvement, The Associated Press reported.
During a briefing in London, analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency displayed photos of drones that attacked Ukraine alongside images of those previously traced to Iran. A comparison of design details such as tail fins, nose cones and landing gear shows that the weapons used in Ukraine are “indistinguishable” from Shahed-131 and -136 attack drones and Mohajer 6 unmanned aerial vehicles used in the Middle East.
The effort to “show the homework” is intended to help persuade governments or international agencies of Tehran’s involvement. Iran has said it supplied a “small number” of drones to Russia before the invasion of Ukraine but has denied providing any more since troops crossed the border last February.
The evidence proves otherwise, an official from the Defense Intelligence Agency said while speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
“Iran is a partner in the conflict with Russia,” the official said.
3:24 p.m.: Investigative reports say Russian President Vladimir Putin has been using a specially built armored train for his official travel, while a secret railway network has been built near his residences, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported Tuesday.
According to a report by the Proyekt (Project) investigative outlet, one such secret railway station and several railway lines were built on the territory of Valdai national park in the country's northwestern Novgorod region, close to a presidential residence there.
Proyekt says the station, discovered by its correspondents last autumn, has a helipad and is heavily guarded. According to the outlet, the secret railway station and lines were built in 2019.
The report, which includes satellite photos, says another railway station was built in 2015 in Novo-Ogaryovo near Moscow, some 400 meters from Putin's residence.
Another special railway platform and a railway line separated from other railway tracks by a high fence was built near Putin's Bocharov Ruchei residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in 2017, the investigative report said.
2:30 p.m.:
2:10 p.m.: The European Union will on Wednesday launch an ad hoc group to investigate how billions of dollars in frozen Russian funds, including central bank reserves, can be used for reconstruction work in Ukraine, Reuters reported Tuesday, quoting the Swedish government.
“The mandate is to contribute to mapping which funds have been frozen in the European Union ... and secondly how to legally proceed to access those funds,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a news conference in Stockholm.
No prior model exists for how to handle the Russian assets, and the EU must make sure that appropriate legal procedures are established, he said.
“It’s Russian tax payers, not all other tax payers, who must bear the cost of the necessary reconstruction work,” Kristersson added.
Sweden currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency.
1:55 p.m.: It is unclear whether Moscow will extend its participation in a U.N.-backed initiative that has enabled grains to be exported from Ukraine's Black Sea ports, Reuters reported.
Russia said on Monday it would be "inappropriate" to extend the Black Sea grain deal unless sanctions imposed on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine on February 24 last year that have affected its agricultural exports are lifted.
The deal to free up grain exports from Ukraine's southern Black Sea ports was extended on November 17 for 120 days.
Sources familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the deal needs to be renewed by around March 20 at the latest for exports to continue.
1:40 p.m.: The town of Lyman in the Donetsk region was occupied by Russian forces between May and October 2022. It has been severely damaged, and those locals who have not left are doing what they can to get through the winter. VOA’s Yaroslava Movchan has the story.
1:25 p.m.: Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, said on Tuesday that he founded and financed and the Internet Research Agency, a company Washington says is a "troll farm" which meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Reuters reported.
Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, spent years operating on behalf of the Kremlin in the shadows, but has emerged in recent months as one of the most high profile figures connected with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
He has previously admitted interfering in U.S. elections, but his statement on Tuesday appears to go further than before in outlining his specific links to the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA).
"I was never just the financier of the Internet Research Agency. I thought it up, I created it, I managed it for a long time," Prigozhin said in a post shared on social media by the press service of his Concord catering group.
1:10 p.m.: Moldova on Tuesday closed its airspace for over two hours citing safety and security reasons, authorities said, amid tensions between the former Soviet republic and Russia, Agence France-Presse reported.
The development comes a day after Moldova's president Maia Sandu accused Russia of plotting to violently overthrow the country's pro-European leadership with the help of saboteurs disguised as anti-government protesters.
"Moldova's airspace was temporarily closed at 11:24 am (0924 GMT), 14 February, in order to assure the safety and security of civil aviation," Moldova's Civil Aviation Authority said in a press release. "At 14:47 pm (1247 GMT) the airspace was re-opened," it added, without giving further details.
A Moldovan newspaper reported that "a foreign drone" was "flying without permission."
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week told a European Union summit that Kyiv had "intercepted the plan for the destruction of Moldova by Russian intelligence." Russia's foreign ministry on Tuesday denied Moldova's accusations as "completely unfounded and unsubstantiated."
12:50 p.m.:
12:35 p.m.: Testimony on Russian war crimes. Monthly classified briefings. High-profile hearings, TV appearances and even op-eds in conservative media outlets.
Leading Republicans in Congress are not waiting for the next debate over assistance to Ukraine, instead launching an early and aggressive effort to make the case for why the U.S. should continue spending billions of dollars on the war effort.
One of their main challenges: winning over skeptical Republican colleagues.
“I’m very much focused on the dissension within my own party on this,” Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Associated Press.
The task ahead is challenging, particularly in the House. While Republicans have often been the nation’s leading defense hawks, eager for the U.S. to defend its interests through foreign action, former President Donald Trump’s “America First” approach has emboldened a noninterventionist wing that is ascendant. They are clamoring for the Ukraine aid to come to an end.
12:20 p.m.: The two houses in what had been no-man's land between Russian and Ukrainian forces are badly damaged by shelling, there is no central power or heating and the surrounding fields are heavily mined, making them unworkable.
Yet the Kovalyov brothers - Stepan who is 80 and Volodymyr who is 77 - and their wives have decided to stay in the isolated farming village of Posad-Pokrovske in southern Ukraine to live out their days in the place they know best, Reuters reported.
It will not be easy. The elderly couples survive off meager state pensions and rely on relatives and volunteers for food.
Stepan and his wife Tetyana, 79, live in a cellar next to their old bungalow, which, like many other buildings in Posad-Pokrovske, was all but flattened in the fighting.
"We are 80, we've worked all our lives, in the same garden and now we're waiting for death," Stepan told Reuters on a visit to the village in late January. "What else can we be waiting for?"
12:05 p.m.:
11:50 a.m.: As Vitalii Khroniuk lay facedown on the ground taking cover from Russian artillery fire, the Ukrainian solider had just one regret: He had never had a child, The Associated Press reported.
Aware that he could die at any moment, the 29-year-old decided to try cryopreservation — the process of freezing sperm or eggs that some Ukrainian soldiers are turning to as they face the possibility that they might never go home.
“It’s not scary to die, but it’s scary when you don’t leave anyone behind,” said Khroniuk, who had quickly joined the war effort, without a thought about his future, when Russia invaded Ukraine nearly a year ago.
During a vacation home in January, he and his partner went to a private clinic in Kyiv, IVMED, that is waiving the $55 cost of cryopreservation for soldiers. The clinic has had about 100 soldiers freeze sperm since the invasion, says its chief doctor, Halyna Strelko. Assisted conception services to get pregnant currently cost $800 to $3,500.
“We don’t know how else to help. We can only make children or help make them. We don’t have weapons, we can’t fight, but what we do is also important,” said Strelko, whose clinic had to close during the first months of the war as Kyiv was under attack but reopened after the Russian military retreated from the area.
11:35 a.m.: The Russian ruble struck its weakest mark since late April on Tuesday, hurt by lower foreign currency revenue inflows from hydrocarbon exports and a continued recovery in imports as companies build new supply chains, Reuters reported.
The ruble was 0.1% weaker against the dollar at 73.88, having hit 73.9850 during the session, its lowest point since April 25. The Russian currency lost 0.3% to trade at 79.26 versus the euro and shed 0.3% against the yuan to 10.83.
The ruble’s weakening from around the 68 mark to the dollar in mid-January to current levels can be explained mainly by foreign exchange market dynamics and imports, Alfa Capital analysts said.
11:15 a.m.:
10:45 a.m.: U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says Ukraine is "contemplating an offensive" in the spring, only weeks away, VOA’s senior diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reported.
Austin spoke at a press conference following Tuesday’s meeting of the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels.
"What Ukraine wants to do at the first possible moment is to establish or create momentum and establish conditions on the battlefield that continue to be in its favor. And so we expect to see them conduct an offensive sometime in the spring,” Austin said.
“And because of that we and all the partners in the in the Ukraine defense contact group have been working hard to ensure that they have the armored capability ...they need," he added.
Tuesday's meeting of defense heads from several NATO countries follows a January 20 conference at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany that was key to decisions to send Kyiv scores of modern battle tanks, including the U.S. M1 Abrams, German Leopard 2 and British Challenger 2.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials have since been urging allies to send fighter aircraft and long-range missiles to counter the offensive and recapture lost territory, pressuring NATO to demonstrate support for Kyiv.
Germany started training Ukrainian soldiers on the Leopard 2 tanks on Monday at an army base in the northern town of Munster where Ukrainian troops are already exercising on Marder infantry fighting vehicles that will also be handed over to Kyiv.
10 a.m.: Russian forces continued their attacks on Ukrainian towns in the eastern Donetsk region on Tuesday, as Ukraine’s Western allies gathered in Brussels to discuss possible further military aid for Kyiv, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
Ukrainian officials said Russian artillery was hitting targets all along the front lines in Donetsk, including the contested city of Bakhmut, a key target for Russia’s invading army.
"There is not a single square meter in Bakhmut that is safe or that is not in range of enemy fire or drones," regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told Ukrainian media.
9:45 a.m.:
9:15 a.m.: The Kremlin said on Tuesday that the U.S.-led NATO military alliance demonstrated its hostility towards Russia every day, and was becoming more and more involved in the conflict in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
"NATO is an organization which is hostile to us and which proves this hostility every day," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
"It is trying its best to make its involvement in the conflict around Ukraine as clear as possible," Peskov added.
Moscow has said weapons supplies to Ukraine by NATO countries are dragging out the conflict and raising the possibility of a further escalation. Kyiv and the West say deliveries of advanced military hardware are crucial in helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia's offensive.
8:50 a.m.: Ukraine on Tuesday renewed its appeal to Western countries for fighter jets to help frustrate Moscow’s invasion, as senior defense officials from the United States and its NATO allies said the war with Russia is approaching a critical stage, The Associated Press reported.
With the war set to enter its second year at the end of next week, the Ukraine contact group met at NATO headquarters in Brussels and Ukraine made its requirements clear. Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, when asked what military aid his country is seeking now, showed reporters an image of a fighter jet.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pushed hard for combat planes last week when he visited London, Paris and Brussels on just his second foreign trip since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022. His plea came days after Western allies pledged to provide Kyiv with tanks.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, asked when he expects Russia’s so-called spring offensive to begin, said that “the reality is that we have seen the start already.” He told reporters in Brussels, “For me, this just highlights the importance of timing. It’s urgent to provide Ukraine with more weapons.”
The possibility of sending combat aircraft to Ukraine is still being discussed. The United States has said no to sending fighter jets for Ukraine, but the United Kingdom is assessing the possibility and, on Tuesday, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said providing jets “has to be part of the consideration.”
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that finding ammunition and air defenses is “much more important at the moment than the discussion about fighter jets.” He said Ukraine’s partners “should focus on what is now at center stage, particularly in view of a Russian offensive that is apparently taking place.”
8:25 a.m.: The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency this morning released an unclassified report confirming the use of three variety of Iranian-made drones by Russia in its war against Ukraine. The report is short and relies almost exclusively on visual comparisons. VOA’s national security correspondent Jeff Seldin shared the key images on Twitter.
8:10 a.m.: Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has failed to renew the media accreditation and visa for one of Finland’s journalists, a media advocacy group said Monday.
Arja Paananen, who works for Finland’s Ilta-Sanomat has reported from Moscow since the 1990s but she left in October 2022 when her visa expired.
The foreign ministry in August had criticized Paananen’s coverage, deeming an editorial on a speech about Putin as a “blatant example of anti-Russian propaganda” the Committee to Protect Journalists reported.
7:55 a.m.: His private army is pushing hard to give Russia a battlefield win in Ukraine, but mounting evidence suggests the Kremlin has moved to curb what it sees as the excessive political clout of Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, Reuters reported.
Prigozhin, a 61-year-old ex-convict, has grabbed headlines in recent months over his bloody role in Ukraine and is sometimes portrayed in the West as a real-life James Bond villain.
Shaven-headed and fond of coarse language, he has made a splash in Russian-language media too where he has reveled in being sanctioned by the West, publicly insulted Russia's top military brass, tried to parlay battlefield success into Kremlin favor, and detailed his recruitment of tens of thousands of convicts for his private army.
His profile became so prominent that allies and analysts began speculating he was angling for an official job or career in politics.
7:40 a.m.:
7:05 a.m.: Kyrgyzstan will host a Russia-led security bloc's peacekeeping drills this year instead of Armenia, which last month declined to host the exercise, the bloc's chief of staff said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
Armenia, engaged in a dispute with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, said last month it would be unreasonable for it to host the drills of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in the near future.
Anatoly Sidorov, the chief of the CTSO united staff, told a briefing on Tuesday that Kyrgyzstan has volunteered to host the "Indestructible Brotherhood" drills. He provided no further details.
Asked about the bloc's potential deployment in Ukraine, Sidorov said he saw no need for that.
6:50 a.m.: Germany has signed a deal for new ammunition for self-propelled anti-aircraft guns it provided to Ukraine to be produced at home after it ran into difficulties securing supplies from elsewhere, the defense minister said Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.
Germany has supplied 32 of the Gepard anti-aircraft guns since it first agreed to send them to Ukraine in late April, and has pledged 37 in total. The German military hasn’t used them since 2012, so they came from stocks held in reserve by the defense industry.
Securing more ammunition for the guns has been a challenge, a matter of mounting concern as defense against repeated barrages of Russian missile and drone strikes has become a top priority for Kyiv.
Germany so far has been unsuccessful in months of efforts to persuade neutral Switzerland to approve exports to Ukraine of stockpiles in the Alpine country of Gepard ammunition, which was manufactured there by a subsidiary of German defense company Rheinmetall.
There are also stocks of the ammunition in Brazil, but President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made clear when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited last month that his country wants no involvement of any kind in the war in Ukraine and wouldn’t provide Germany with any.
6:25 a.m.:
6:10 a.m.: Russian attacks across eight Ukrainian regions killed three people and injured six others over the past 24 hours, The Kyiv Independent reported Tuesday.
Russia hit 15 settlements in the Donetsk region, killing one civilian and injuring three more, the media organization said, quoting Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.
6 a.m.: Meticulously crafted over decades as a major revenue stream for the Kremlin, Moscow's gas trade with Europe is unlikely to recover from the ravages of military conflict.
After President Vladimir Putin's "special military operation" in Ukraine began almost a year ago, a combination of Western sanctions and Russia's decision to cut supplies to Europe drastically reduced the country's energy exports.
The latest sanctions, including price caps, are likely to disrupt oil trade further but it is easier to find new markets for crude and refined products than for gas.
5:45 a.m.: One Ukrainian worker has been killed and many have been hurt in recent days trying to repair the power network following Russian air strikes, Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
Russia struck energy facilities across Ukraine in the latest wave of air strikes on Friday, but Galushchenko and national grid operator Ukrenergo said the country was producing enough energy to meet consumers' needs.
"With the incredible efforts of energy workers, it's possible to keep the generation, delivery and distribution of electricity at the required level to meet the needs of consumers," Galushchenko said in a statement.
"These successes have their own high price, the price of human life. In frontline areas, energy workers work under fire and in dangerous places."
He said there had been a number of accidents "in recent days," including incidents in which workers were hurt at energy companies in the southern region of Mykolayiv and in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.
"Mines blew up the cars of repairmen of Mykolaivbolenergo and Kharkivbolenergo. There is a dead person, many wounded," Galushchenko said, without indicating how badly the surviving workers had been hurt.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the professionalism of Ukrainian energy workers in a video address on Sunday, praising the speed at which they had restored power to the nation.
Ukrenergo said power plants were now generating enough electricity to cover consumption, with increased output at hydroelectric power stations helping make up for one unit being out of service at a thermal plant.
"There is currently no capacity deficit in the power system," Ukrenergo said.
It said the electricity supply may have to be limited later on Tuesday in the southern region of Odesa after damage to the network there. Galushchenko said outages were also possible in the western Khmelnitskyi region to enable repairs.
5:20 a.m.:
4:45 a.m.: At the start of Tuesday’s meeting of the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Ukraine has “urgent requirements to help it meet this crucial moment in the course of the war” and called on the group to intensify its focus.
“The Kremlin is still betting that it can wait us out,” Austin said. “But one year on, we are united as ever, and that shared resolve will help sustain Ukraine’s momentum in the weeks ahead and help Ukraine travel the challenging road that lies beyond.”
4:35 a.m.: NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday it was important Sweden and Finland joined NATO as soon as possible, but ratifying them at the same time was not the "main question", according to Agence France-Presse.
Parliaments in all 30 members of the military alliance must formally ratify Finland and Sweden before they can be admitted. Turkey and Hungary are the only two NATO members not to have done this.
Stoltenberg's comments come after Turkey suggested it could greenlight Finland's bid to join without accepting Sweden into the alliance.
"So the main question is not whether Finland and Sweden are ratified together. The main question is that they are both ratified as full members as soon as possible," Stoltenberg said ahead of a meeting of NATO allies.
"I'm confident that both will be full members and we are working hard to get both ratified as soon as possible," the NATO secretary general added.
Finland insists its "strong desire" remains to join NATO together with Sweden.
But a majority of Finns said in a poll this month that they wanted to join NATO even if Sweden's membership was delayed.
4:05 a.m.: According to the latest estimates from Norway, Agence France-Presse reported, the conflict has wounded or killed 180,000 Russian soldiers and 100,000 Ukrainian troops.
Other Western sources estimate the war has caused 150,000 casualties on each side.
AFP gives the comparison that some 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed in a whole decade of fighting in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989.
AFP provided a further, in-depth look at the conflict, by the numbers.
3:30 a.m.: Shipping and coastal communities around Ukraine's major seaport hub of Odesa received a warning from military officials on Tuesday over the high risk of naval mines drifting along the coast and washing ashore, Reuters reported.
Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of using mines off the Ukrainian coast, which prevents safe navigation in the region. The Soviet-made mines were anchored, but in a storm some of them could come loose and be carried by the current.
"There is a high probability of naval mines breaking off their anchors and washing up on the shore, as well as drifting along the coast," Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesman of Odesa military administration, wrote on Telegram messaging app.
"Since March last year, Russia has continued to use anti-ship mines on anchors as an unguided weapon against Ukraine," he said in a separate video.
Russia blockaded Odesa's ports — the main loading points for Ukrainian grain exports, after its forces invaded Ukraine in late February 2022. Russia calls the invasion a "special military operation."
The blockade was lifted on three Ukrainian Black Sea ports at the end of July under a deal between Moscow and Kyiv brokered by the United Nations and Turkey. And between then and the end of January, Ukraine exported more than 17 million tons of grain and oilseeds through the safe passage corridor, Ukrainian grain traders union UGA said last week.
The union noted that in January 2023, exports of agricultural products "decreased significantly due to deliberate delays in ship inspections by Russia." Russia has denied the accusations.
Ukraine grain exports in the 2022/23 season, which runs through to June, are down 28.7% to 29.2 million tons as of February 13, due to a smaller harvest and logistical difficulties caused by the Russian invasion, agriculture ministry data showed on Monday.
2:45 a.m.: Reuters reported that Russia rejected on Tuesday an accusation by Moldova's president that Moscow is plotting to destabilize the former Soviet republic.
Moldova's president, Maia Sandu, said on Monday that Russia was planning to use foreign saboteurs to bring down her tiny country's leadership, stop it joining the European Union and use it in the war against Ukraine.
"Such claims are completely unfounded and unsubstantiated," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.
Russia blamed Ukraine for stirring tension between Russia and Moldova, saying Kyiv was trying to draw Moldova "into a tough confrontation with Russia."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week his country had uncovered a Russian intelligence plan "for the destruction of Moldova."
Days later, Moldova's government resigned.
Sandu, whose country borders Ukraine, has repeatedly expressed concern about Russia's intentions and about the presence of Russian troops in the breakaway Transdniestria region.
1:55 a.m.:
1:10 a.m.: Agence France-Presse reported that a South Korean court on Tuesday granted two Russian asylum seekers who have been stranded at Incheon airport for months the right to apply for refugee status, allowing them to enter the country.
The Incheon District Court rejected one other Russian national's plea, without detailing the reasons for their decision.
The three men, whose lawyer requested they not be named out of concern for the safety of their families in Russia, have been living inside Incheon International Airport since October when they fled to avoid being drafted to fight in Ukraine.
They landed in South Korea with hopes of being granted asylum, but the country's Justice Ministry rejected their refugee applications at the airport.
Seeking to avoid enlistment does not qualify as a valid reason for receiving refugee status in South Korea, where all able-bodied men must serve 18 months of compulsory military service.
The rejection prompted the three men to bring the case to court, while they remained stranded in transit areas at the airport for months.
"We welcome the court's decision on the two but it is regrettable that it rejected the other one's plea," said attorney Lee Jong-chan, who represents the three Russians.
"They came here trying to avoid killing innocent people and getting themselves killed in a war initiated by their home country. It took them four months just to win the right to apply for refugee status," he said.
The two will end their months-long airport stay and be settled in South Korea while undergoing the asylum recognition process, which could take years.
The third Russian has the right to appeal, but will have to remain at the airport in the interim.
There are two more Russians trapped at the airport who have also been denied the right to apply for asylum.
The court will rule on their cases later this month.
South Korea has signed international conventions on refugees but typically accepts just a handful of asylum seekers each year.
12:35 a.m.: Ukraine denied Russia's earlier claim that it had seized control of Krasna Hora, a village about 5 kilometers north of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk Oblast, The Kyiv Independent reported.
"There are ongoing battles there," Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the Eastern Grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, told CNN. "We are keeping it under our control."
Bakhmut remains the primary focus of the Russian aggression, according to Cherevatyi.
12:01 a.m.: Two Dutch F-35 fighters intercepted a formation of three Russian military aircraft near Poland and escorted them out, the Netherlands' defense ministry said in a statement late on Monday.
"The then unknown aircraft approached the Polish NATO area of responsibility from Kaliningrad," according to Reuters' translation of the ministry's statement.
Kaliningrad is a Russian Baltic coast enclave located between NATO and European Union members Poland and Lithuania.
"After identification, it turned out to be three aircraft: a Russian IL-20M Coot-A that was escorted by two Su-27 Flankers. The Dutch F-35s escorted the formation from a distance and handed over the escort to NATO partners."
The Il-20M Coot-A is NATO's reporting name for the Russian Ilyushin Il-20M reconnaissance aircraft while the Su-27 Flankers are NATO's reporting name for the Sukhoi Su-28 fighter aircraft.
Russia's defense ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for a comment.
The Netherlands' defense ministry said that eight Dutch F-35s are stationed in Poland for February and March.
Some information in this report came from Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
