Russian missile attack on Khmelnytskyi, ChatGPT available in Ukraine: highlights of the day

Missile strike on Khmelnytskyi

On the morning of February 18, air raid alerts sounded in a number of regions. The head of the President's Office, Andriy Yermak, wrote that the occupiers were using tactical aircraft, including in the airspace of the occupied territories, and launching missiles. Ukrainian air defense was operating.

Explosions were heard in Khmelnytskyi and Kherson. In Khmelnytskyi, two civilians were injured and infrastructure was damages: three educational institutions, several hundred windows in high-rise buildings, a number of commercial facilities, stores, cafes, and civilian cars were damaged.

On February 18, the Ukrainian Air Force shot down two of the four Kalibr cruise missiles launched by the Russians from the Black Sea. At the same time, Energoatom said that at 8:25 and 8:27 a.m., two Russian missiles were spotted over the territory of the Pivdennoukrayinsk Nuclear Power Plant: they flew dangerously close to the nuclear facility.

ChatGPT now available in Ukraine

ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI, is now available in Ukraine. At the same time, the program will not work in the territories temporarily occupied by Russia, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said.

According to Fedorov, the program will not work in the territories temporarily occupied by Russia so that enemies do not use it for anti-Ukrainian propaganda.

Shelling of Kharkiv Oblast

On February 18, Russian troops shelled Kupyansk and Chuhuyiv districts of Kharkiv Oblasr. The strike caused destruction, a casualty and injuries, said the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, Oleg Synegubov.

At about 2 p.m., Russian shelling in the village of Kivsharivka wounded two people who were outside at the time of the attack: a 57-year-old woman and a 53-year-old man. Both were hospitalized. The building of an educational institution was also damaged.

After 2 p.m., the occupiers fired on the city of Vovchansk. A Russian shell hit a private house there, killing a civilian man.

Russian aviation amassment near Ukraine

Russia has amassed about 450 tactical warplanes and 300 helicopters near Ukraine, half of them are strike aircraft. However, it is unlikely that the Russians will use them for an air attack, particularly on Kyiv, said Andriy Yusov, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

The intelligence official said that Russia could use these planes and helicopters to support an offensive in the east, primarily in Donbas, in an effort to fulfill Vladimir Putin's goal of capturing Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by the end of March. However, Yusov predicts that the Russians will not be able to realize this goal even with air support.

Other news:

• The Dutch government has decided to close its consulate in St. Petersburg and limit the number of Russian diplomats who can work at the Russian embassy in The Hague. The Dutch Foreign Minister said that Russia "continues to try to secretly introduce intelligence agents into the Netherlands under the guise of diplomacy."
• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Russia has lost about 200,000 soldiers in the full-scale war against Ukraine, including wounded and killed. He also said that one million citizens have left Russia because of the war;
• the Ukrainian military destroyed a motorboat with the occupiers who were trying to land on an island in the Dnipro Delta. In addition, the aviation of the Defense Forces carried out four air strikes on the clusters of Russian personnel and military equipment;
• British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said that his country could provide Ukraine with modern fighter jets only after the war is over;
• In Belarus, the Russians do not have enough forces and means to carry out another invasion of Ukraine from there within the next 2-3 weeks, according to the representative of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Andriy Chernyak.