Moscow, Kyiv While Russia is apparently using more reserves in the battle for the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievjerodonetsk, Ukraine expects the war to end in two to six months. Russia had carried out “assault operations” in Sieverodonetsk with artillery support and “reinforced its grouping with the mobile reserve of the 2nd army corps,” the Ukrainian general staff said in its situation report on Saturday. Fighting in the city continued on the 101st day of the war.
In view of the burdens on German citizens as a result of the war, SPD leader Lars Klingbeil in Germany is considering how war profiteers can be asked to pay more. Citizens, on the other hand, should possibly be further relieved. In view of rising prices, the traffic light coalition wants to decide on further relief before the parliamentary summer break, SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich told the news portal t-online.
More than 100 days after the beginning of the war, there is no end in sight. “It can take another two to six months,” said Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak in an interview with the Russian opposition online portal Medusa.
In the end it depends on how the mood in the societies of Europe, Ukraine and Russia changes. Podoliak made it clear that negotiations would only begin when the situation on the battlefield changed and Russia no longer felt it could dictate the terms.
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He again warned against territorial concessions to Russia: that will not end the war. The Russian advance is aimed less at conquering specific areas than at destroying Ukraine itself.
An early end of the war is not in sight.
(Photo: AP)
Podoljak estimated the number of killed and wounded on the Russian side at a total of 80,000 people. This includes dead and wounded in the regular army, the separatists and the mercenary group “Wagner”. However, he conceded that after a catastrophic initial phase of the war for Moscow, with up to 1,000 war deaths per day, the current daily casualty figures for Russian and Ukrainian troops are “comparable”.
No decision in Sieverodonetsk
In the Siegerodonetsk battle, there seems to be a back and forth between Russian and Ukrainian military victories and setbacks. The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Hajdaj, announced on his Telegram channel that the Ukrainian troops had recently even recaptured parts of the former city. Accordingly, they now controlled around half of the administrative center again.
Sievjerodonetsk is considered the last major city in the Luhansk region that is not yet completely in Russian hands. If it falls, Russia would have achieved an important milestone for them: complete control of the Luhansk region.
Russian troops before taking the city of Sievjerodonetsk in the Donbass
According to the Ukrainian general staff, Russian attacks on the suburb of Ustynovka have been unsuccessful, as has an attempted ground offensive in the Bakhmut area. The Russian attacks are aimed at cutting off supplies and encircling the Ukrainian troops in Sieverodonetsk. According to the Ukrainian general staff, Russian attacks on Saturday night in the direction of Sloviansk were also unsuccessful. Attempts to storm were repulsed in the villages of Bogorodychne and Wirnopillja. All information on military events cannot be independently verified.
Russia: Training center for Ukrainian artillerymen hit
According to Moscow, the Russian military destroyed a center for training artillerymen in Western weapons technology in Ukraine. “High-precision air-to-surface missiles struck an artillery training center of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Stetskivka area of the Sumy region,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
At the center, soldiers were trained on the western M777 howitzer, he added. A “camp of foreign mercenaries” in the Odessa region in southern Ukraine was also destroyed by a rocket hit.
Mützenich can imagine China as a mediator
According to the SPD parliamentary group leader, the Chinese government could possibly act as a mediator in the Ukraine war. In principle, states that are acceptable to both sides are possible, such as those that have held back in condemning Russia in the UN General Assembly, said Mützenich t-online. “For example India, the People’s Republic of China, but also South Africa.”
This is how the Handelsblatt reports on the consequences of the Ukraine war:
China let Russia have its way, but did not advocate aggressive war either, said Mützenich. He himself would wish that the United Nations could play that role. “But I doubt that Russia wants that.” Germany will hardly be able to mediate because of its clear support for Ukraine.
Blade ax for contribution from war profiteers
SPD leader Lars Klingbeil wants to tax “crisis and war winners” more heavily. He has his sights set primarily on the mineral oil companies. It cannot be that these “fill their pockets even more in the crisis,” he told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
He deals intensively with the question of how to deal with those who have profited from crises and wars and who have benefited greatly from the current situation. In the conversation, Klingbeil was open to an excess profit tax to siphon off extreme crisis profits: “A tax on war and crisis profits is an instrument that is on the table and that I think is very worth considering,” he said.
More: You can read all current developments on the Ukraine war in our news blog.