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war in Ukraine
“Intense street fighting” in Donbass – US suspects Russia of grain theft
A Russian soldier in Ukraine (archive image)
© Uncredited / DPA
Scholz visits NATO’s eastern flank +++ Selenskyj insists on Ukraine’s status as a candidate for EU membership +++ USA suspects Russia of stealing Ukrainian grain +++ Developments in star-Ticker.
Day 104 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine: The bitter fighting in the east of the country continues. According to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, both sides have suffered heavy losses. The Russian military, supported by separatists, says it is on the verge of completely capturing the city of Svyatohirsk.
Today, for the first time since the beginning of the war, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is visiting Lithuania, a NATO country that borders Russia and feels particularly threatened by the nuclear power. In addition to Nauseda, he will meet the heads of government of all three Baltic states in the capital, Vilnius.
8.59 a.m .: Roth sees a threat to Ukraine’s cultural identity
Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth sees the country’s cultural identity threatened by the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. “This war is also a war against culture, against the culture of democracy,” said the Green politician during a visit to the port city of Odessa on the Black Sea. After more than three months of war, 375 cultural institutions have been destroyed or damaged. 137 churches are also affected. “It becomes clear that it’s about attacking Ukraine’s cultural identity.”
Roth promises the country support. “We are now trying to send an international signal by supporting the nomination of Odessa’s old town as a World Heritage City,” she says on ZDF’s “Morgenmagazin”. The international community must take responsibility accordingly. This may also be an additional protective shield against attacks.
7.42 a.m .: Ukraine reports its own airstrikes in the south of the country
While the situation in eastern Ukraine is largely unchanged, the Ukrainian military says it has carried out several airstrikes on Russian positions in the south of the country. “Ukrainian helicopters struck against accumulations of enemy troops in the Kherson region – and planes against ammunition depots in the Mykolayiv region,” the General Staff said. Ukraine has so far only used its own air force sparingly in the war due to Russian air superiority.
5:26 a.m .: Ukrainian authorities report “intense” fighting for Sievjerodonetsk
In the battle for the strategically important city of Sievjerodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, the situation of the Ukrainian forces appears increasingly difficult. The city’s mayor, Oleksandr Striuk, said on Monday that the situation was changing “every hour”. There is “intense street fighting,” and Russian troops are also using “airstrikes and heavy artillery.” The attackers “are about to destroy the city” after “failing to take it in a day or two”.
Sieverodonetsk is the last major city in the Luhansk region that Russia has not yet conquered. According to the Ukrainian army, the current focus of the Russian offensive in the east of the country is on completely capturing the industrial city. According to their own statements, the soldiers retained “control” and only fought in the eastern part.
3.40 a.m .: Lithuania is pushing for a stronger NATO presence in the Baltic States
Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda is pushing for a stronger NATO presence in the Baltic States in view of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. “The NATO summit in Madrid must be the summit of decisions,” Nauseda told the German Press Agency ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s one-day visit to Vilnius. “We hope to agree at the summit: on a transition from deterrence to forward defense, from a battalion to a brigade, from air surveillance to air defense.”
At the NATO summit in Madrid at the end of the month, the question will be whether the troops on the eastern flank of the western defense alliance will be increased again. A good three weeks before the top meeting, Scholz is traveling to Lithuania for a short visit.
1.06 a.m .: Special envoy Selenskyjs promotes EU candidate status in Berlin
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sent a special envoy to Berlin to hold talks with the German government about his country’s prospects for EU membership. The Minister for Regional Development, Oleksij Tschernyschow, wants today and tomorrow, among others, Chancellor Wolfgang Schmidt (SPD), Development Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD), Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir (Greens) and, in the absence of Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens), their Minister of State Tobias Lindner ( Green) meet.
Ukraine hopes that the heads of state and government of the European Union will meet them at the summit on 23-24. declare a candidate for EU accession. “The European Union should embrace Ukraine,” Chernyshev demands before his talks in Berlin. But he also emphasized that his country did not want to be given preferential treatment.
12:12 a.m.: US suspects Russia of grain theft
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has raised suspicions that Russia is stealing Ukrainian grain for its own profit. Reports that Russia is confiscating Ukrainian grain in order to sell it itself were called “credible” by Blinken in Washington on Monday. He has also accused Moscow of trying to “blackmail” the world by blocking Ukrainian grain exports.
The Russian naval blockade of the southern Ukrainian port of Odessa is preventing grain from being shipped from there to its “normal destinations”, Blinken said at a virtual conference held by his ministry on the risks to food security arising from the Ukraine war. Around 20 million tons of wheat are “trapped” in silos near Odessa. Blinken emphasizes that this is a strategy pursued by Putin, who wants to force the rest of the world to “give in” and lift its sanctions against Russia. “In other words, very simply put, it’s blackmail.”