RAccording to Ukrainian sources, US troops have again attacked Dnipro airport and “completely destroyed” it. Both the airport and the surrounding infrastructure are in ruins, the governor responsible for the eastern Ukrainian city said on Telegram on Sunday. It is currently being checked whether there are fatalities.
“A new attack on Dnipro airport,” said Valentin Resnichenko. “There is nothing left.” According to the information, the attacks initially continued: “The rockets fly and fly,” wrote the governor on Telegram.
Dnipro is an industrial city with around one million inhabitants. It lies on the river of the same name (German: Dnepr), which forms an important natural barrier to the partly pro-Russian east of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly swapped command of the war of aggression against Ukraine. The US broadcaster CNN quotes two unnamed sources in the US and Europe, according to which General Alexander Dvornikov has been appointed supreme commander for the campaign against Ukraine. So far, there has apparently been no unified high command for what the Russians call the “special operation”.
The reorganization was a reaction to the failed capture of Kiev. “It speaks to a Russian admission that things are going extremely badly and they need to do something differently,” one of the sources told CNN. The report has not yet been confirmed or commented on by the Russian side.
Dvornikov was most recently commander in Russia’s southern military district. From September 2015 to June 2016, however, he led the deployment of Russian troops in Syria to support its dictator Bashar al-Assad. In 2016, President Putin awarded him the title “Hero of the Russian Federation” for his work there.
General Alexander Dwornikov in the Krasnodar Territory, which belongs to his previous command area, the southern military district of Russia
Source: pa/Vitaly Timkiv/TASS/dpa
The ruthless siege and bombardment of Aleppo, which caused great casualties among the civilian population, took place during the time of Dvornikov’s command in Syria. In December 2016, the city was taken by Syrian government forces.
Most recently, Russian troops had withdrawn from the region north of Kyiv, apparently to regroup and concentrate forces on the eastern regions. It should be Dvornikov’s task to direct the Russian attacks on these areas.
Source: Infographic WORLD
Military analysts and US officials familiar with intelligence believe that Dvornikov should achieve successes by May 9, the anniversary of Germany’s surrender to the Soviet Union in 1945. This anniversary is always celebrated with large parades in Moscow.
Former British ambassador to Russia Sir Roderic Lyne told Sky News on Saturday that Moscow had appointed a new general with a “pretty wild track record in Syria to try and win at least some territory in Donetsk that Putin presents as a victory could”.
Based on Dwornikov’s history, it is to be expected that there will be further atrocities like in Bucha and Borodjanka, or like the attack on a train station in Kramatorsk, according to Western circles. The brutal action in Mariupol could also serve as a model.
Rescue workers recover buried bodies from a block of flats in Borodyanka
Source: Getty Images/Alexey Furman
Women wait in front of a soup kitchen in Butscha
Source: AP/Rodrigo Abd
In fact, according to British intelligence, there is already evidence that non-combatants have been disproportionately targeted. There are mass graves, hostages were used as human shields and civilian infrastructure was mined, the British Ministry of Defense said on Twitter on Sunday night.
Russian forces continued to use IEDs to inflict casualties on Ukraine, lower morale and limit Ukrainian movement. In addition, the troops continued to attack infrastructure targets where the risk of harming the civilian population was high – such as the recent shelling of a nitric acid storage facility near Rubishne in the Donbass.
In fact, Russia is intensifying attacks on the civilian population of eastern Ukraine. According to Ukrainian sources, five civilians were killed in Russian attacks in the Donetsk region on Saturday. There are four fatalities in the city of Wuhledar, Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in the Messenger service Telegram. Another civilian was killed in the nearby village of Nowomykhailivka. According to the governor, five people were also injured in the attacks on the two locations south-east of Donetsk.
Further north, in the Kharkiv region, at least two people were killed in a Russian bombardment, according to authorities. One person was also injured in the attack in Slatyne, the mayor of the neighboring municipality of Dergatschi said on Facebook.
Kharkiv residents in their destroyed house
Source: dpa/Felipe Dana
In the Mykolayiv region in the south, the Ukrainian military counted seven rocket attacks by the Russian army, it said. Nobody was killed in the process. Ukrainian forces, for their part, killed 80 soldiers and destroyed three tanks and one plane and one helicopter in three attacks on Russian troops on Saturday. The information could not be independently verified.
More people evacuated
According to the Presidential Office in Kyiv, more than 4,500 civilians were able to flee the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhia on Saturday. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Wereshchuk accused Russia of not allowing buses for refugees to pass on certain routes, despite an agreement. “The buses have returned to Zaporizhia and will try again to reach the cities on Sunday to evacuate our citizens,” Vereshchuk said.
Meanwhile, Moscow said it had evacuated more than 700,000 people from the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and other parts of Ukraine to Russia since February 24. On Saturday alone, almost 27,000 people left the contested regions for Russia, said Colonel General Mikhail Mizinzew from the Russian Defense Ministry.
Ukrainian refugees on their way to Poland
Source: REUTERS
Misintsev said that 134,000 people had been rescued from the southern Ukrainian port of Mariupol, which had been fought over since the beginning of March. According to the TASS agency, he again accused the Kiev side of only allowing harassed civilians to flee to Ukrainian-controlled territory, not to Russia.
The Russian figures cannot be independently verified. However, Kyiv accuses the Moscow side of bringing refugees to Russia against their will. This is a violation of international law.
New exchange of prisoners
Meanwhile, according to Kiev, 26 Ukrainians have been released in a new exchange of prisoners with Russia. “Twelve of our soldiers, including one officer, are returning home,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told Telegram on Saturday. In addition, 14 Ukrainian civilians were released, including nine women. She did not say how many Russian prisoners were released in return.
Since the Russian invasion began on February 24, Ukraine and Russia have exchanged captured soldiers and civilians on numerous occasions. On April 1, according to Kiev, 86 Ukrainian soldiers were freed in a prisoner exchange.
Selenskyj wants to continue negotiations
Despite the atrocities and attacks on the civilian population, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants to continue talking to Russia about a peace solution. “No one wants to deal with a person or people who have tortured their nation. It’s all understandable,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with the AP news agency on Saturday. “But we don’t want to miss opportunities for a diplomatic solution when we have them.”
He was confident that the Ukrainians would ultimately accept a possible peace agreement, despite everything they had to endure since the Russian troops invaded. At the same time, he must realistically face the fact that the chances of a quick agreement are slim, Zelenskyj said.
Source: WELT/Isabell Bischoff infographic
After more than six weeks of war, Selenskyj was exhausted during the interview. Nonetheless, he was determined to continue defying Russia. “We have to fight, fight for our lives,” he said. “You can’t fight for dust when there’s nothing and no people left.” He spoke to the AP inside the presidential palace in Kyiv. Sandbags were piled up on the windows and in the hallways. Heavily armed soldiers stood guard.
When asked whether the western states had already supplied enough weapons and other equipment for Ukraine to gain the upper hand against Russia, Zelenskyy was visibly disappointed. “Not yet,” he said in English for added emphasis. “Of course it’s not enough.” At the same time, he acknowledged the growing support of Europe and the United States.