The city in the Luhansk region has been heavily contested for days.
(Photo: dpa)
Moscow, Kyiv In view of the massive destruction of cultural heritage caused by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has emphatically called for Moscow’s exclusion from UNESCO. “Unesco is no place for barbarians,” Zelensky said in his video address in Kyiv on Saturday.
Russian troops would destroy cultural monuments, churches and other religious sites en masse. That’s reason enough to exclude the country from the United Nations cultural and educational organization, he said.
113 churches have already been destroyed or damaged. Russia is a “terror state” that is destroying historical heritage with its artillery. At the end of May he had already demanded that Russia be excluded from UNESCO.
Since the war began on February 24, Russia has already fired more than 2,500 rockets at Ukraine, Zelensky complained. “Our heroes stand their ground and do whatever it takes to inflict maximum casualties on the enemy.”
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Referring to the focus of the fighting in Donbass in eastern Ukraine, the head of state said the day will come when Russia will leave the area alone. Only the command of one person is decisive for this, he said, without naming Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Heavy attacks around Seyerodonetsk continue
Zelensky and the Ukrainian general staff reported heavy fighting, especially in eastern Ukraine. There is a focus in the Luhansk region with the heavily contested administrative center Sievjerodonetsk. Bloody street fighting continued, Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian President calls for Russia’s exclusion from UNESCO.
(Photo: dpa)
The Ukrainian armed forces want to continue to prevent Russian troops from taking complete control there. If the city falls, Russia would have achieved an important war goal: complete control of the Luhansk region. Russian airstrikes in the region were also reported.
First report of Germans killed on the Ukrainian side
For the first time, Ukraine officially informed about the death of a German volunteer fighter in the fighting. The International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine announced on Saturday in Kyiv that three volunteers from France, Australia and the Netherlands were among the “fallen brothers in arms”.
The names of the four men were also included in the statement, but not the time or place of their deaths. The Federal Foreign Office in Berlin said the embassy in Kyiv was trying to find out more and was “in contact with the Ukrainian authorities who have spread the relevant news”.
Zelensky called on volunteers from all over the world to join the fight against the Russian army. For this purpose, the Legion was founded, which is now actively recruiting. The Russian military repeatedly reports the “annihilation” of mercenaries, and according to Moscow figures, the number of foreigners killed is in the thousands.
Exchanged bodies for the first time
According to authorities in Kyiv, Ukraine and Russia have handed over the bodies of 160 soldiers to the other side. The exchange took place on June 2 along the front line in the Zaporizhia region, it said. According to Ukrainian information, negotiations on the exchange of prisoners of war are still ongoing on both sides. Thousands of Ukrainian fighters are in Russian violence, including the defenders of Mariupol, who held the fort there at the Azovstal steelworks until Kyiv ceded the city in May.
Russian troops before taking the city of Sievjerodonetsk in the Donbass
In Russia, according to the Bryansk region, a village on the border with Ukraine has again been shelled from the neighboring country. When the village of Sluchevsk was shelled, a man was injured and two houses caught fire. This was announced by the governor of the region, Alexander Bogomas, on his Telegram news channel on Saturday. He accused Ukrainian forces of shooting at the village. The injured resident had to be taken to a hospital. The fires have been extinguished.
That brings the day
While their home country is suffering from the Russian war of aggression, the Ukrainian national team is only one win away from qualifying for the World Cup in Qatar at the end of the year. In order to achieve this big goal, the team led by former Dortmund Bundesliga professional Andriy Jarmolenko must defeat Wales this Sunday (6 p.m.) in Cardiff. It’s about the last European ticket for the World Cup – and also about strengthening the national pride of the Ukrainians and the morale of the soldiers through success on the international stage.
This is how the Handelsblatt reports on the consequences of the Ukraine war:
Ukraine had reached the final of the playoffs with a 3-1 win in Scotland. It was the first competitive game since the beginning of the war at the end of February. Should Ukraine qualify, they would face England, Iran and the USA in Group B of the World Cup preliminary round.
More: You can read all current developments on the Ukraine war in our news blog.