After promising heavy battle tanks last week, the Ukrainian leadership is currently urging its Western allies to supply fighter jets.

Biden has now rejected this, thereby straightening out statements by his Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer.

Meanwhile, France and Australia have agreed to jointly supply Ukraine with artillery ammunition.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen visited the south of the attacked country.

And Kyiv continues to press for Russia to be banned from the Olympics.

Barely a year after the start of the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated the need for his country's complete victory.

"Russian terror must lose everywhere and in every respect: both on the battlefield and insofar as not a single ruin remains in our country," Zelenskyy said in his evening video address on Monday.

"So that we can rebuild everything and prove that freedom is stronger."

Biden: US will not deliver F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine

The United States will not deliver F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, according to President Joe Biden.

When asked by a reporter, "Will the US provide F-16s to Ukraine?" Biden said "no" in Washington Monday.

So far, it has been said that the US government has not ruled out any particular weapon system and is aligning support with what Ukraine needs.

It will be “discussed very carefully,” it said last Friday.

French President Emmanuel Macron, on the other hand, does not fundamentally rule out the delivery of combat aircraft to Ukraine.

"In principle, nothing is forbidden," he said on Monday in The Hague when asked whether France might supply fighter jets to Ukraine.

However, Macron set some conditions against which Ukrainian requests would be examined on a case-by-case basis: First, Kyiv would have to make an “official request”.

In addition, the weapons should not have an escalating effect and should not touch Russian soil, but should only be used for defense.

Nor should the French army be weakened by arms deliveries.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has proposed a mediation initiative by Brazil and China to end the Ukraine war.

"It is necessary to form a group of countries that is strong enough and respected and sit down with the two at a negotiating table," Lula said in a joint press conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the Brazilian capital Brasília on Monday.

He has already spoken to Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron about the initiative.

The left-wing politician brought himself into play as an intermediary to talk to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Russian President Vladimir Putin - as well as China.

"Our Chinese friends play a very important role in this," he said.

"It's time for China to get involved."

France and Australia are supplying Ukraine with artillery ammunition

France and Australia want to jointly supply Ukraine with artillery ammunition to ward off the Russian war of aggression.

The French Foreign Ministry said the 155mm ammunition was urgently needed by Ukraine.

The ammunition intended for artillery pieces can be used, among other things, to shell tanks.

There are several thousand projectiles that the defense industries of both countries jointly manufactured.

The Ukrainian ambassador in Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, meanwhile insisted on the delivery of combat aircraft to his country after the commitment to battle tanks.

"We have not yet asked Germany about fighter jets," Makeiev told DW.

But they are important because they are needed to shoot down Russian missiles.

"Russia fires many rockets at Ukrainian cities and infrastructure" - the fighter jets are part of the Ukrainian efforts to defend the airspace.

In addition to security initiatives, humanitarian aid is also essential, stressed Selenskyj.

In the southern city of Mykolaiv, for example, restoring the water supply destroyed by Russian troops was particularly important, said the Ukrainian head of state a few hours earlier, with a view to a visit there with Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen.

Frederiksen and Selenskyj had visited a hospital and the seaport in Mykolaiv, which had around 470,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.

Ukraine continues to press IOC for Russia's Olympic ban

At the same time, Ukraine is continuing to put pressure on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) not to allow Russia and Belarus to compete in international competitions because of the war.

“The IOC is a promoter of war, murder and destruction.

The IOC happily watches the Russian Federation destroy and then offers it a platform to promote genocide and encourages it to keep killing,” wrote Mykhailo Podoliak, an adviser in Ukraine's presidential office, on Twitter.

Addressing IOC President Thomas Bach, he added: "Obviously Russian money buying Olympic hypocrisy doesn't smell like Ukrainian blood.

Right, Mr. Bach?” A short time later, an IOC spokesman “strongly rejected these and other defamatory statements”.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) presented its new forecast for global economic growth on Tuesday.

Despite the consequences of the war in Ukraine and continued high inflation, she does not expect the global economy to slide into recession this year, said IMF director Kristalina Georgieva in advance.