Important Takeaways:

• NATO was forced to scramble its warplanes in Poland today as Vladimir Putin used strategic bombers and missiles to attack neighboring Ukraine – even as Vladimir Putin insists he wants peace ‘as soon as possible’.
• Putin’s air force deployed Tu-95MS nuclear-capable strategic bombers to pound targets across Ukraine, causing panic in Kyiv as residents rushed for the metro underground shelters.
• Explosions were heard in Kyiv, Zhytomyr, and Sumy, as well as in several towns across the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Chernihiv. Drones were also used by Russia, with several people reportedly suffering injuries.
• Warsaw’s armed forces operation command headquarters ordered NATO jets to patrol Polish airspace as Russian bombers and missiles soared over Ukraine amid fears they could approach the Polish border.
• ‘Attention, due to the activity of long-range aviation of the Russian Federation, striking targets located, in particular, in the west of Ukraine, military aviation has begun to operate in the airspace of Poland,’ the command headquarters said.
• Ground-based air defenses and radar reconnaissance systems were also ‘put on alert’.
• It comes just one day after a US B-52 bomber flew a sortie less than 50 miles from the Russian border in a show of strength on the third anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine.
• The B-52 jet, which is described as providing the US with ‘immediate nuclear and conventional global strike capability’, flew from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire to the frontline NATO state and was flanked by F35s and F-A18 fighters.
• The planes jetted in formation over soldiers and tanks as a military parade of over 1,000 troops from NATO and the Estonia’s Defense Forces took place in the Estonian capital of Tallinn.
• February 24 marked three years since Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and is also Estonian Independence Day.

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