live blog
Odessa and Kherson were again targets of Russian combat drones. According to a newspaper report, the European Union is preparing an aid program worth up to 20 billion euros. All developments in the live blog.
Russia’s Supreme Court has confirmed a ban on former journalist and war opponent Yekaterina Duntsova from running in the presidential election in March, as she herself announced. Her candidacy was rejected by the Central Election Commission on Saturday, citing “numerous violations” in her documents. Critics of incumbent Vladimir Putin said this showed that the outcome of the election was actually already certain. According to the presidential office, Putin, on the other hand, enjoys broad support among the population. Surveys put his popularity at 80 percent.
The federal government approved arms exports worth at least 11.71 billion euros this year, setting a new record. More than a third of the approved exports, amounting to 4.15 billion euros, went to Ukraine for the defense against the Russian invaders.
So far, more than a dozen clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOK) have died in Ukraine as a result of the Russian war of aggression. As the church, which formerly belonged to the Moscow Patriarchate, announced in Kiev in the evening, 14 of its clerics have been killed and 20 injured since the beginning of the “all-out Russian aggression” in February 2022. Another five clergy are therefore considered missing.
According to the information, 117 UOK churches and prayer rooms were destroyed and 329 were damaged. 11 monasteries and hermitages were also destroyed by fighting. At the same time, the church complained about the criminal prosecution of four of its metropolitans by the Ukrainian justice system. The evidence presented to the courts by investigative authorities in the four cases is “questionable,” said the church’s highest governing body, the Holy Synod. The public prosecutor’s office accuses the bishops, among other things, of collaborating with war enemy Russia.
After the recent Russian threat attacks on Ukraine that left one dead, more details have emerged. According to authorities, the dead man was a 35-year-old man. He died when debris from a downed drone fell on his home in the Odessa region. Four other people, including a six-year-old child, were injured.
Despite all the current repressions, the well-known Russian human rights activist Oleg Orlov believes opposition and civil society engagement is important as preparation for a time after the current Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin. “As long as he is at the top, I don’t think we can hope for any changes,” said Orlov, who faces several years in prison for his criticism of Putin’s war against Ukraine, in an interview with the dpa news agency in Moscow. “But his departure will inevitably lead to change and a splitting of the elites,” the 70-year-old added. “And the opposition and the remnants of civil society will have a huge role to play at this moment so that these changes are not purely cosmetic.”
Orlov, who formerly headed the Memorial organization, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and is now banned in Russia, also said: “When that will happen and whether Putin will go the natural or unnatural way, we don’t know.”
According to initial information from Ukraine, a drone that was shot down crashed into a garden house in a suburb of the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa during the night. The military command for southern Ukraine said one person was killed and three were injured. In Kherson, a shopping center and an apartment building were hit.
Conflict parties as a source
In the current situation, information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian parties to the conflict cannot be directly verified by an independent body.
Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) believes it is possible that if there is a ceasefire, Ukraine would not initially regain control over certain areas occupied by Russia. “It may be that in the event of a ceasefire, Ukraine will first have to accept that certain territories are temporarily inaccessible to Ukraine,” Kretschmer told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
When asked whether Ukraine should cede territory to end the war, he emphasized that the principle must be: “Not a square meter of Ukrainian territory – including Crimea – has become Russian.” But “as in other major conflicts, it will take time for a final solution.”
According to Kherson Mayor Roman Mrochko, Iranian-made Shahed drones were used in the drone attack on the city. Mrochko called on the population to go to protective facilities.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia has launched 46 drones. It was said that 32 had been shot down. The Air Force wrote on Telegram that most of the drones that were not destroyed hit the Kherson region – especially frontline areas in the east and west of Ukraine.
According to the defense company Rostec, Russia will soon use its most modern artillery systems in the war against Ukraine. The tests of the new self-propelled howitzers have been completed and mass production has already begun, Rostec boss Sergei Chemezov told the state news agency RIA. The first series production will be delivered by the end of 2023. “I think that they will soon be used, because howitzers of this class are necessary to surpass Western artillery models in range.”
Editor’s note: We have subsequently corrected this blog entry. According to Rostec, the howitzers will not be stationed on the border with Finland – as previously reported by the Reuters news agency – but will be used in the war against Ukraine.
The southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa and Kherson were again targets of Russian combat drones. Explosions were heard during the night after anti-aircraft defenses opened fire. The Russian military had the drones fly over the Black Sea.
Conflict parties as a source
In the current situation, information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian parties to the conflict cannot be directly verified by an independent body.
According to a newspaper report, the European Union is preparing an aid program of up to 20 billion euros for Ukraine. The debt-financed plan would bypass Hungary to quickly release the money to the government in Kiev, the Financial Times newspaper reports.
Hungary prevented joint financial aid for Ukraine at the EU summit.
Ukrainian troops have largely withdrawn from the destroyed small town of Maryinka. According to the Russian Defense Minister, the Ukrainian counteroffensive was repelled. Tuesday’s live blog for reading.