Bank manager's case
A former top manager of nationalised PrivatBank and co-founder of Monobank, Volodymyr Yatsenko, has been apprehended. His plane was about to leave Ukraine's airspace when it was ordered to return to Kyiv by the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine. Upon landing, Yatsenko was declared a suspect in an embezzlement case. The notice of suspicion was signed by Prosecutor-General Iryna Venediktova.
Yatsenko has been detained.
Donbas
Russia-backed militants have committed five ceasefire violations since midnight, having killed one Ukrainian serviceman and wounded two more, the Joint Forces Operation HQ has said.
Militants fired on the Ukrainian army's positions with mounted and handheld grenade launchers and small arms near Avdiyivka, with handheld anti-tank grenade launchers near Maryinka, and with underbarrel grenade launchers and small arms near Vodyane. They also remotely planted POM-2 anti-personnel landmines near Vodyane.
Near Pivdenne, militants fired with automatic mounted grenade launchers, heavy machine-guns and small arms.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has found two caches with grenades and explosives equipped by saboteurs in Luhansk Region in 2014. The caches were located near a glass factory in Lysychansk and a forest between the villages of Bila Hora and Ustynivka.
Security
Starting from 18 February, the National Cyber Security Coordination Centre has been registering massive DDoS attacks on the Ukrainian segment of the Internet, particularly on the defence and security sector. The websites affected included those of the SBU, the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC), other government agencies and strategic enterprises. IP addresses belonging to certain Russian traffic exchange networks were used for the attacks based on a new mechanism which has not been previously observed in such incidents.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NSDC Secretary Oleksiy Danilov met to discuss current threats to the state and economic security, in particular in finance and energy, as well as further steps in enforcing the recent decisions of the NSDC. They also discussed hiring more staff for the NSDC.
Drills
Ukrainian border guards held a shooting practice and carried out a march on armoured vehicles in Sumy Region close to the Russian border, the State Border Service has said.
Ukrainian paratroopers will hold an exercise close to the administrative border with Russia-annexed Crimea in March to practice and advance response to air and sea military threats, Joint Forces Commander Lt-Gen Serhiy Nayev has said, according to Ukrinform.
Defence
As part of the IDEX-2021 arms expo, the Ukrainian defence concern Ukroboronprom and Pakistan have signed a 85.6m-dollar deal to repair T-80UD tanks.
Crimea
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has accused Russia of trying to discredit Kyiv's Crimean Platform initiative and prevent global leaders from attending its inauguration summit in August.
Economy
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that there are lobbyists in Ukraine who hinder the country's relations with the IMF. He added that the stand-by programme has not been closed and the state expects two tranches of 700m dollars.
The Cabinet of Ministers has decided to index pensions as of 1 March, which in practical terms will mean that they will increase by 308 hryvnyas on average. Around 8m pensioners are expected to be entitled to higher pensions. The sides also discussed new orders for the supply of the 6TD1 and 6TD2 engines to Pakistan, the company said.
Coronavirus
On the morning of 22 February, Ukraine reported 3,206 new Covid-19 cases and 53 fatalities.
According to a deputy head of the presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the first batch of the Indian-made CoviShield vaccine (AstraZeneca) may arrive in Ukraine next morning.