Latest in Ukraine: Ukrainian President Makes Surprise Visit to Finland

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy makes surprise trip to Finland
Russian fuel depot in Ukraine catches fire
U.S. expected to announce new military aid package to Ukraine  

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine arrived in Finland Wednesday to participate in a summit with the leaders of five Nordic nations. 

Zelenskyy will meet with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, Norway’s Jonas Gahr Støre, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Iceland’s Katrín Jakobsdóttir at the official residence of Finnish President Sauli Niinistö.

Zelenskyy’s trip to Finland comes just weeks after the Nordic nation was admitted as the 31st member nation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – NATO.  Helsinki sought membership in the Western-based military alliance in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last February.   

A fuel depot in southern Russia caught fire early Wednesday morning.

Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of Russia’s southwestern Krasnodar region, said on the messaging app Telegram that the depot was located in the village of Volna.  Governor Kondratyev said there were no reports of casualties from the fire.  

Volna is near the bridge that spans over the Kerch Strait that separates mainland Russia from the Crimean peninsula, which Russia forcibly annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The bridge, which is a vital link for Russia’s military to transport supplies to its soldiers in Ukraine, was partially destroyed by a truck bomb last October that Moscow blamed on Kiev.

The U.S.-based cable news network CNN is reporting that Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency says the blaze at the fuel depot was caused by a drone strike.

Wednesday’s fuel depot fire comes after a suspected drone attack last Saturday on an oil depot in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol.   

Two Russian freight trains were derailed by explosive devices near the border with Belarus and Ukraine Monday and Tuesday.   

The incidents could be part of a series of attacks carried out by Ukrainian forces ahead of an expected counteroffensive, although Kyiv has not taken responsibility for them.

Russia’s Federal Security Service said Wednesday it has arrested seven people connected to a Ukrainian military intelligence unit.

The FSB said in a statement the group was planning to carry out major “sabotage and terrorist attacks in Crimea” and was responsible for an attack on a railway in February.  The agency also said the group was planning attacks on Crimean political leaders, including Russian-installed Governor Sergei Aksyonov.   

Meanwhile, Russian forces have carried out another wave of drone strikes across Ukraine. Officials in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, said their air defense systems successfully shot down the drones, but Agence France Presse is reporting that four people were killed and seven injured in drone strikes in the southern region of Kherson, quoting regional administration officials.   

After a lull of nearly two months, Russia fired a wave of missiles before dawn last Friday, including one that killed 23 civilians while they slept in an apartment building in the city of Uman hundreds of miles from the front.

New US military aid

The United States is sending Ukraine about $300 million in military aid, with the official announcement expected as early as Wednesday, U.S. officials said, as Ukraine gears up for a spring counteroffensive. 

The package will include rounds for artillery, howitzers, along with rockets for HIMARS, mortars, missiles and anti-tank rifles. 

For the first time, the United States is sending Hydra-70 rockets, which are launched from aircraft and could be used in air support for advancing Ukraine ground forces. 

The weapons will come from Pentagon stocks and resemble earlier deliveries.  

The 37th shipment of arms to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, February 2022, comes as Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said Ukraine is in the “home stretch, when we can say: ‘Yes everything is ready.'” 

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.    
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