new York During the Russia-Ukraine war, artillery shells fell on the suburbs of Kyiv and Kharkiv in the evening and night hours. In Kharkiv, a police station was destroyed, four people were killed and 15 injured, said Serhiy Bolvinov from the local prosecutor’s office on Facebook.
Since the Russian invasion began two weeks ago, 282 Kharkiv residents have been killed, including six children. The Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr west of Kyiv has been bombed by Russian fighter jets, according to Mayor Serhiy Sukhomlyn.
According to the Ukrainian army, its own armed forces are currently repelling and holding back the offensive of the Russian troops. This was announced by the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army on Thursday night on Facebook. In some areas of operation, the Russian units had lost their combat effectiveness and introduced reserves.
The US government warned of a possible Russian use of chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine overnight. By spreading false information, Moscow wants to pave the way for further escalating the unjustified war of aggression in Ukraine, US President Joe Biden’s spokeswoman Jen Psaki warned on Twitter on Wednesday.
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Russia follows a clear pattern of behavior – either to use weapons of mass destruction itself, or to fake an attack by the Ukrainians in order to construct a justification for continuing the war, Psaki wrote.
Psaki’s statement came after allegations by Russia that Ukraine is developing nuclear or biological weapons. Only on Monday did the Russian Ministry of Defense claim that there was a network of biological laboratories in Ukraine working on behalf of the US Department of Defense. However, international fact-checkers have long since invalidated this claim.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Wednesday that the “Russian misinformation is complete nonsense.” The US did not operate any biological or chemical weapons laboratories in Ukraine and fully respected international chemical and biological weapons treaties. The United Nations had previously stated that it had no knowledge of weapons of mass destruction allegedly produced in Ukraine.
Meeting between Ukraine and Russia
The Russian-Ukrainian foreign ministers’ meeting, which is scheduled to begin in the morning, is eagerly awaited today. To this end, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba arrived in Antalya, Turkey, where he intends to explore options for ending the war with his Russian colleague Sergey Lavrov on Thursday morning. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu wants to mediate. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, wants to address the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities in Antalya.
As a condition for a cessation of fighting, Russia is demanding that Ukraine declare itself neutral in its constitution. In addition, Kyiv must recognize the annexed Black Sea peninsula of Crimea as Russian and the separatist areas as independent. So far, Ukraine has largely rejected this. However, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has indicated a certain willingness to compromise.
On Thursday evening, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the other EU heads of state and government will meet at a summit in Versailles near Paris to discuss the situation.
Pentagon rejects delivery of fighter jets in Ukraine as too risky
The US government refuses to supply MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine because of the risk of escalating the conflict with Russia. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday that the secret services had come to the conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin could misinterpret the deployment of fighter jets as an escalation step. The United States also rejected a proposal by Poland to hand over MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine with a stopover at a US base in Germany.
The Pentagon has refused to deliver the planes to Ukraine.
(Photo: AP)
The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday evening that the government was ready to move all MiG-29 combat aircraft to the US Ramstein Air Force Base in Rhineland-Palatinate immediately and to make the machines available to the United States.
The proposal was greeted with surprise and skepticism in the USA – Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejected it outright. Warsaw had previously repeatedly ruled out direct delivery of the aircraft to the neighboring country, which Russia could interpret as direct intervention in the war.
Kirby said of the possible deployment of the fighter jets: “We do not support the delivery of more fighter jets to the Ukrainian Air Force at this time,” he said. Poland’s proposal was problematic simply because the fighter jets were to fly from a US or NATO base into contested Ukrainian airspace. “We believe that the deployment of additional fighter jets provides little additional capability at high risk,” Kirby said. At the same time, he made it clear: “We’re not drawing a red line here.”
Fighting also broke out in several cities in Ukraine on Wednesday night.
(Photo: AP)
The move could “lead to a significant Russian response that could increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO,” Kirby warned. The potential for an escalation should not be increased – also “in view of the fact that Mr. Putin has other abilities”. Russia is a nuclear power. The US Department of Defense also stressed that the Poles had not discussed their proposal beforehand.
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More refugee corridors – more than a million refugee children
Since the Russian invasion, more than a million children have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries. This is reported by the UN children’s fund Unicef. At least 37 children were reportedly killed and 50 injured. According to a Ukrainian official, three escape corridors to evacuate people from the Sumy region in the north-east of the country are planned for Thursday.
These led from the cities of Trostjanets, Krasnopillja and Sumy in the direction of the central Ukrainian city of Poltava, said the head of the Sumy regional administration, Dmitro Schyvytskyj, on Thursday night on the Telegram news channel. The start of the ceasefire for the routes concerned is scheduled for 8:00 a.m. CET.
The destroyed infrastructure also makes it difficult for the refugees to make progress.
(Photo: dpa)
According to Schywytskyi, other places in the region have been submitted for escape corridors, but these have not yet been confirmed. Escape corridors are routes that civilians can use to escape to safety. According to the British Ministry of Defence, the large city of Sumy is surrounded. According to Zhyvytskyi, almost 50,000 people left Sumy on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday alone, around 10,000 private cars and 85 buses left the city, a total of around 44,000 people.
Russian planes bombed the Sumy area, Zhyvytskyi also wrote on Telegram. Residential areas were again shelled in the town of Ochtyrka south of Sumy. There is also information that a gas line had also been hit there.
A children’s hospital in the port city of Mariupol was attacked yesterday, Wednesday, during the agreed ceasefire to evacuate civilians, Ukrainian sources said.
Selenski had declared on Wednesday evening that six escape corridors were planned for Thursday. It was initially unclear whether the three in the Sumy region would join these six or whether they were already included.
People flee Irpin via escape corridor
Germany can do without Russian energy – but not immediately
According to Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck, Germany can quickly free itself from Russian energy imports. “We will quickly free ourselves from the bracket of Russian imports, but we are not there yet.” That said the Green politician on Wednesday evening in the ZDF “heute journal”. “You can change it in weeks and months, but not in hours.”
Habeck explained that these weeks and months were necessary. It is about preventing hundreds of thousands of unemployed and price increases that people can no longer afford. The aim is to avert damage that would bind Germany for years and also paralyze it politically.
According to the Federal Minister of Economics, Germany can quickly free itself from Russian energy imports.
(Photo: dpa)
“We know from the Covid pandemic that the failure of just a few primary products can damage the entire supply chain. And of course that also applies to primary products that come from natural gas, coal or oil,” said Habeck. Lignite isn’t the answer either, he explained. It is the most climate-damaging energy source, but it is now available in Germany. However, it is only used as a reserve.
He urgently warns of the dramatic economic repercussions that Germany could expect if it immediately renounced Russian oil and gas. “We can only adopt measures that I know will not lead to serious economic damage in Germany and that would be the case if we stopped letting oil, coal and gas into this country immediately.”
With agency material
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