Financial Times – Christopher Miller / Battle of Bakhmut nears tipping point as Russia intensifies offensive

• The battle of Bakhmut is approaching a tipping point, with Russia throwing waves of fresh troops into the fight as it tries to break Ukraine’s grip on the eastern city and secure President Vladimir Putin’s first significant battlefield victory since early summer. 
• After eight months of grinding combat, Russian forces are bearing down on the city from three directions, leaving Ukraine’s main supply line under severe pressure and Kyiv facing an agonising choice over the cost of holding its ground. 
• While analysts say Bakhmut has little military significance, the city has become the focal point of both Ukrainian resistance and Moscow’s drive to regain battlefield momentum.
• Ukrainians have taken to referring to the city in recent months as “Fortress Bakhmut” because it has remained standing after incessant heavy fighting. And “Bakhmut holds” has become a battle cry used by soldiers and their supporters, as well as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his nightly addresses.

Euractiv – Jonathan Packroff / EU announces own green industry plan in global subsidy race

• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented the Green Deal Industrial Plan on Wednesday (1 February) in an effort by the EU to keep up with a worldwide race in subsidy schemes for green industries.
• As the EU aims for climate neutrality by 2050, key industries such as the manufacturing of wind turbines, solar panels, and battery-electric vehicles must be ready to supply the necessary technologies to decarbonise the economy.
• “We know that in the fight against climate change, most important is the net-zero industry,” von der Leyen said when presenting the plan.
• Countries around the world are therefore boosting subsidy schemes for green industries, von der Leyen said, mentioning Japan, India, the UK, Canada, and the US Inflation Reduction Act. 

Financial Times – Valentina Romei / ECB set to raise rates despite fall in eurozone inflation

• Eurozone rate-setters are set to raise borrowing costs by another half percentage point on Thursday, after figures published on Wednesday showed underlying inflationary pressures in the region remain uncomfortably high. 
• The regional rate for core inflation – which excludes changes in food and energy prices, and is considered the best measure of the stickiness of price pressures — remained unchanged at an all-time high of 5.2 per cent in the year to January. 
• The figure, coupled with the resilience of eurozone output during the final quarter of 2022, all but confirms the European Central Bank will raise its deposit rate by another half a percentage point to 2.5 per cent at around lunchtime on Thursday. 
• The bank raised rates by 2.5 percentage points over the second half of 2022 in response to inflation, which hit a record high of 10.6 per cent in October. The headline rate fell from 9.2 per cent in the year to December to 8.5 per cent last month – still more than four times the ECB’s 2 per cent goal.

The Guardian / Israel carries out airstrikes on Gaza Strip

• Israel conducted airstrikes on the central Gaza Strip early on Thursday, according to journalists and witnesses, hours after the military said it intercepted a rocket fired from the Palestinian territory.
• New rounds of rockets were fired from Gaza after these strikes, and fresh explosions could be heard from Gaza City about 3.15am local time, Agence France-Presse journalists reported. In a statement issued at 2.41am, the Israeli army confirmed it was “striking in the Gaza Strip”.
• According to local security sources and witnesses, the first strikes – at least seven – hit a training centre of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. The centre is located in al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
• A second round of airstrikes by the Israeli army targeted the al-Qassam Brigades’ training centre south-west of Gaza City, according to local security sources.

Today’s longer reads:

• Project Syndicate – Camila Villard Duran / Getting to monetary integration in Latin America
• Financial Times – Alan Beattie / The EU will struggle to de-risk its trade with China