Russia

• Pres. Putin delivered his annual address to Russia's parliament, and The Economist called it a "defiant and rambling" speech: he bizarrely blamed the West for starting his invasion of Ukraine and accused the U.S. of escalating the war.
• Putin also formally announced that Russia will no longer participate in the New START nuclear arms treaty, and warned that Russia had put new nuclear weapons into "combat duty."
• Pres. Biden is delivering a speech in Warsaw today that will include a response to Putin.
• Separately, The Moscow Times reported that Russia is using its presidential air fleet to discreetly repatriate the bodies of fallen soldiers to various local morgues to avoid the public backlash that would ensue if Russians were aware of the scale of casualties their troops are facing in Ukraine.

Ukraine

• Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin posted a long audio message accusing unnamed Russian officials of denying his fighters ammunition because of their rivalry with Russian regular forces.
• Prigozhin said he'd been forced to "apologize and obey" to beg for ammunition but was still "unable to solve this problem despite all my connections and contacts."

Iran

• The EU announced new sanctions on Iranian individuals and entities over human rights violations. Iran's culture and education ministers were among those sanctioned.
• The Iranian rial hit an all-time low of under 500,000 rials per U.S. dollar.

Other News

• Another strong earthquake shook the same part of Turkey that was devastated in the Feb. 6 quake. This one killed at least three people, but there may be many more trapped under rubble.