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Morning Headlines
Reuters: Ukraine's F-16 fighter jets didn't have enough missiles to shoot down Russian drones and missiles for more than three weeks after supplies from Kyiv's partners dried up just as Moscow was preparing a massive winter air campaign.
The Kyiv Independent: Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear corporation, operates 21 entities that are directly involved in weapons production — but face no EU sanctions, according to a report published March 4 by the Kyiv-based think tank DiXi Group.
ISW: Russian forces are intensifying their use of drones, including Shaheds, at both the tactical and operational levels as part of their battlefield air interdiction campaign.
The Insider: This May, Russia will open its pavilion at the Venice Biennale for the first time since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
More News
The Kyiv Independent: Putin signed a decree on March 4 expanding the Russian regular army to nearly 2.4 million personnel, according to a Russian legal acts website.
Euractiv: The EU’s emergency protection scheme for Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s war is unlikely to continue in its current form beyond 2027, the Commission’s special envoy for Ukrainians in the EU, Ylva Johansson, said on Wednesday.
Ukrainska Pravda: Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has said it will establish the facts around reports that Russia has handed over to Hungary two Ukrainian prisoners of war who also hold Hungarian citizenship.
The Insider: The Iranian regime acquired and is using the FindFace facial recognition system developed by Russian company NtechLab, which is under Western sanctions.
Reuters: Germany's intelligence service on Wednesday accused Moscow of hiding the true cost of the war in Ukraine, saying Russia's budget deficit in 2025 was more than 2.36 trillion roubles ($30.45 billion) higher than officially stated.
The Moscow Times: Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Wednesday that the city government will reduce the size of its workforce by 15% after budget revenues in recent months fell short of projections.
Reuters: Russian gas tanker Arctic Metagaz sank near Libya's coast following explosions and a fire, Libya's maritime rescue agency said in an advisory on Wednesday seen by Reuters.
The Moscow Times: Putin has urged Russia’s Interior Ministry to recruit 'veterans' of the country’s war in Ukraine to help address growing personnel shortages in the country’s police force.
United24 Media: Russian conscripts in Russia have begun receiving automatic bans on leaving the country after failing to appear at enlistment offices, according to The Moscow Times on March 4. The report linked the measure to the full-scale rollout of Russia’s electronic summons registry.
The Moscow Times: Russia is spending tens of millions of dollars to recruit Ukraine war 'veterans' into Paralympic sport, fast-tracking wounded soldiers from hospital wards into regional and national teams.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukrainian forces struck the Russian port of Novorossiysk, hitting the minesweeper Valentin Pikul and "severely" damaging two anti-submarine ships, the Yeysk and the Kasimov, on March 2, Security Service of Ukraine said.
The Moscow Times: Russia’s prison population has fallen to a historic low, the newly appointed first deputy chief justice of the Supreme Court said Wednesday, coming after years of the Russian military’s recruitment of convicted criminals to fight in Ukraine.
Reuters: Hungarian oil company MOL and its Slovak subsidiary Slovnaft have reported Croatian oil pipeline operator JANAF to the EU competition watchdog over its refusal to allow the transit of Russian seaborne oil imports, they said on Wednesday.
Reuters: The U.S. government will exempt the German unit of Russia's Rosneft from sanctions against the oil major indefinitely, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.
RFE/RL: Several air defense and electronic warfare installations appear to have cropped up around a site in Belarus where Russia may have deployed a nuclear-capable, hypersonic missile system called Oreshnik, recent satellite imagery indicates.
Reuters: Putin will hold talks with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto later on Wednesday and discuss Ukraine's "blackmailing" of Slovakia and Hungary over oil supplies.
Reuters: Ukraine has informed Slovakia that oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline are not expected to restart in the coming days, and the next update is due on Friday, the Slovak Economy Ministry said on Wednesday.
Euractiv: Rob Jetten, the new prime minister of the Netherlands, said he was “open” to the proposal from Hungary and Slovakia to send a European fact-finding mission to determine what is happening with the Druzhba oil pipeline in Ukraine.
Reuters: At least five people were injured on Wednesday in two Russian attacks targeting railway infrastructure in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said.
The Moscow Times: Russian flag carrier Aeroflot on Wednesday reported a net loss of 1.7 billion roubles ($21.94 million) for the fourth quarter of 2025.
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