Status: 01/10/2023 5:02 p.m
Foreign Minister Baerbock paid a visit to Ukraine – and ventured comparatively close to the current combat zone. She was in Kharkiv with her colleague Kuleba and was shown the destruction caused by Russian attacks.
For security reasons, the visit was kept secret until the departure: Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock took the train from Poland to Ukraine during the night. In the morning she was received in Kyiv. From there she traveled on to the east, as the first member of the federal cabinet since the Russian attack on Ukraine almost a year ago.
In Kharkiv, near the Russian border, the country’s second largest city, she visited various destroyed or damaged sites, including a power substation and a children’s hospital. She was accompanied by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Oleksii Makeiev. Kharkiv is one of the most heavily bombed cities since the beginning of the war. A third of the approximately 1.5 million residents, many of whom speak Russian, have fled.
Dark green: Russian army advancing. Hatched: areas annexed by Russia.
Image: ISW/09.01.2023
Baerbock assures further help
Baerbock said Germany wanted to continue helping. People should know “that they can count on our solidarity and our support”. This includes winter aid with generators, fuel and blankets, but “also further deliveries of weapons that Ukraine needs to free its fellow citizens who are still suffering from the terror of the Russian occupation”. She visited the country just a few days after the German government’s decision to supply German “Marder” infantry fighting vehicles, which Ukraine had repeatedly requested.
It is important to her “that we do not lose sight of Ukraine’s place in our European family even in this winter of war.” Ukrainians see their future in the EU. The federal government wants to make concrete offers so that the country can make progress in strengthening the rule of law, independent institutions, fighting corruption and aligning with EU standards.
Among other things, the minister visited a children’s hospital – she brought crayons and power banks as gifts because the electricity often goes out.
Image: dpa
Currently fighting for Soledar and Bachmut
The fighting in Ukraine is currently concentrated in the cities of Soledar and Bakhmut, south-east of Kharkiv. They are of strategic importance: both are part of the Ukrainian defensive wall in front of the conurbation between Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. From the Russian point of view, taking the territory would be a significant step towards conquering the entire Donbass – one of the Kremlin’s war aims.
conflicting parties as a source
Information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body in the current situation.
The daily British intelligence briefing said regular Russian troops and units of the Wagner mercenary group had been making tactical advances towards Soledar for the past four days and probably controlled most of the town.
The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj also described the situation near Soledar as very difficult in his nightly video address. However, he highlighted the resistance of the soldiers. This buys the Ukrainian army time: “The battle for the Donbass continues.”
Topic overview
war in Ukraine