The situation – Russia reports destruction of important targets

Dusseldorf Hardened fronts on the ground, violent attacks from the air: According to both sides, Russia hit strategically important targets with rockets and cruise missiles in the Ukraine war.

Russia itself reported on Saturday the destruction of a Ukrainian weapons arsenal west of the capital Kyiv. Ukraine confirmed shelling of an airbase.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced in Moscow that weapons and military technology had been destroyed in a missile attack. Four Caliber rockets were fired from a warship in the Black Sea and hit the depot near the city of Zhytomyr. A total of 117 military objects were destroyed within 24 hours, the ministry said.

Ukraine had previously confirmed that several Russian cruise missiles fired at the Ukrainian Air Force headquarters in Vinnytsia in the west of the country on Friday. This resulted in “considerable damage” to the infrastructure.

A good month after the attack on the neighboring country, Russian troops have parts of Ukraine in the north, east and south of the country under control. However, Ukrainian armed forces are putting up resistance and are probably driving back some Russian troops.

Information from the warring parties in the combat zones can hardly be verified. However, there are US reports that Ukrainian forces are fighting to recapture the strategically important city of Cherson in the south. The Ukraine had recently regained control of positions and towns around Kyiv.

However, Ukrainian Army Chief of Staff Olexander Grusewitsch warned that a Russian attack on the capital was still possible, as Russia was massing strong forces there.

Curfew in Kyiv again

Mayor Vitali Klitschko ordered another curfew for Kyiv from Saturday evening. This applies from Saturday evening and until Monday morning. People are only allowed to leave their homes during this time to seek shelter from air and artillery attacks.

According to the British Ministry of Defence, Russia is not letting up its attacks on large Ukrainian cities such as Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol. In doing so, Russia is “relying on the indiscriminate use of air and artillery bombardments to try to demoralize the defense forces,” the British ministry said on Twitter.

According to Ukrainian information, ten humanitarian corridors were set up for Saturday to enable civilians to flee from particularly hard-fought regions. The corridors are in the outskirts of Kiev and in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk. However, there is no centralized evacuation by bus from the badly damaged port city of Mariupol, said Deputy Prime Minister Irina Wereshchuk, according to the Union agency.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday evening a humanitarian action with Turkey and Greece to save people from Mariupol at short notice. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky describes the situation there as “absolutely tragic”. So far it has been possible to get a little more than 26,000 civilians out of the city this week.

Energy embargo – will Germany buckle?

At a summit meeting in Brussels, NATO and the European Union tried to find a unified response to Russia’s war of aggression. However, the EU was unable to reach agreement on an immediate ban on imports of gas, oil or coal from Russia on Friday – also because of resistance from the federal government, which fears dramatic economic damage in its own country. Germany and the other EU countries have to pay hundreds of millions of euros to Russia every day for energy supplies.

Former Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) put pressure on the “Welt am Sonntag” to stop imports of Russian gas and oil. The CDU foreign politician Norbert Röttgen also expects that the federal government will soon give in.

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At the summit on Friday evening in Brussels, the EU states initially only agreed to buy gas on the world market with joint market power in order to gradually become independent of Russia. In addition, Western states rely on individual actions to help Ukraine. Great Britain imposed new sanctions on people and companies in Russia.

Demonstrations against the war are planned for Saturday in Germany.

Ukrainian Prime Minister asks for help

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Schmyhal asked all mayors worldwide for humanitarian aid. At the same time, on Friday evening he appealed to all international partners to support the later reconstruction of his country. Schmyhal had already estimated the damage to the Ukrainian economy from the war at almost 515 billion euros in mid-March. Again, these figures cannot be independently verified.

Meanwhile, President Zelensky has called on the Gulf States to increase oil production. They should compensate for the decline in oil supplies from Russia, demanded Zelensky, who joined the video on Saturday at the Doha Forum in Qatar. Because of the Russian war in Ukraine, many countries are reducing their oil imports from Russia or want to boycott them entirely.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan also attended the conference. The country is the world’s largest oil exporter and has so far said it will stick to the production levels agreed with Russia and other oil-producing countries.

More than two million refugees have arrived in Poland

Since the Russian attack began around a month ago, the federal police have registered 259,980 refugees from Ukraine in Germany. The Federal Ministry of the Interior announced this on Twitter on Saturday. The actual number of refugees is unknown because there are no comprehensive border controls – it is likely to be significantly higher. It is also not recorded how many people travel from Germany to other countries.

According to the border guards, 2.27 million refugees from the neighboring country have arrived in Poland since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression. The agency announced this on Twitter on Saturday. On Friday alone there were around 30,500 people. This is a decrease of 6.4 percent compared to the previous day.

That’s going to be important today

On the second day of his visit to Poland, US President Biden will give a speech in Warsaw on Saturday. The appearance at the Warsaw Royal Castle is planned for the late afternoon between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., according to the US Embassy in the Polish capital. Demonstrations against the war are planned across Germany on Saturday.

With agency material.

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