TOP HEADLINES

· Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Vladimir Putin "threatened" him with a missile strike during a phone call in the run up to the invasion of Ukraine. "He said, 'Boris, I don't want to hurt you but, with a missile, it would only take a minute' or something like that. Jolly," Johnson said, recalling the "very long" and "most extraordinary" call in February 2022 which followed a visit by the then prime minister to Kyiv.

· The Kremlin said Johnson is lying about the threat of a missile strike on him. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that what Johnson said was not true, or "more precisely, a lie."

· Chancellor Olaf Scholz reiterated that Germany will not send fighter jets to Ukraine in an interview with Tagesspiegel, as Kyiv steps up calls for more advanced weapons from the West to help repel Russia's invasion. Scholz warned against raising "the risk of escalation," with Moscow already sharply condemning the tank pledges.

· Russian missile strikes killed three people in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson while fighting raged in the eastern Donetsk region where the key town of Vuhledar was shelled, Ukrainian officials said.

· NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg visited South Korea, a U.S. ally and major arms exporter, on Monday and urged Seoul to increase military support to Ukraine. He said there was an "urgent need" for ammunition.

· Russia accused the Ukrainian military of deliberately striking a hospital in a Russian-held area of eastern Ukraine on Saturday in what it said was a war crime that killed 14 people and wounded 24 patients and medical staff. 

· Fores, a Russian company based in the Urals, said it will offer five million roubles ($72,000) in cash to the first soldiers who destroy or capture western-made tanks in Ukraine, after the Kremlin vowed Russian forces would wipe out any Western tanks shipped to Ukraine.

· Tearful mourners in Kyiv commemorated a British volunteer aid worker, Andrew Bagshaw, killed while attempting a rescue mission from the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar.

· With the U.S. having decided to supply tanks to Ukraine, it makes no sense for Russia to talk to Kyiv or its Western "puppet masters" the RIA news agency quoted Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying.

· A Kremlin spokesperson told RIA on Sunday that Vladimir Putin was open to contacts with Olaf Scholz. The German chancellor was quoted by Tagesspiegel as saying, "I will also speak to Putin again – because it is necessary to speak."

IN DETAIL

Germany won't send fighter jets to Ukraine, says Scholz

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has reiterated that Germany will not send fighter jets to Ukraine, as Kyiv steps up calls for more advanced weapons from the West to help repel Russia's invasion. Scholz only just agreed on Wednesday to send 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and to allow other European countries to send theirs, after weeks of intense debate and mounting pressure from allies. 

"I can only advise against entering into a constant bidding war when it comes to weapons systems," Scholz said in an interview with the Tagesspiegel newspaper. "If, as soon as a decision (on tanks) has been made, the next debate starts in Germany, that doesn't come across as serious and undermines citizens' confidence in government decisions."

Scholz's decision to green-light the tanks was accompanied by a U.S. announcement that it would send 31 of its Abrams tanks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Berlin and Washington for the move, seen as a breakthrough in efforts to support the war-torn country.

But Zelenskyy immediately stressed that Ukraine needed more heavy weapons from NATO allies to fend off Russian troops - including fighter jets and long-range missiles. Scholz warned against raising "the risk of escalation," with Moscow already sharply condemning the tank pledges.

"There is no war between NATO and Russia. We will not allow such an escalation," he said. The chancellor added that it was "necessary" to continue speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The last phone call between the leaders was in early December.

"I will talk to Putin by phone again," Scholz said. "But of course it's also clear that as long as Russia continues to wage war with unabated aggression, the current situation will not change."