Ukraine war: Explosions in Kiev – Zelenskyj organizes resistance

After several explosions were reported from Kiev during the night, the Kiev city administration announced that that a house in one of the residential areas had been hit by a rocket. Three people were injured, one of whom is in serious condition. A video posted on Telegram is said to show the destroyed house, but this has not yet been independently verified.

The state Ukrainian border guard service reports further rocket attacks by Russian troops: “At 4:25 a.m., the enemy launched a preliminary missile attack on the Primorsky Posad border unit in the Zaporozhye region,” the agency said on its Facebook page. The Interfax-Ukraine agency, citing the service, reported that there were deaths among border guards and wounded.This information cannot be verified independently.

Canada and Japan have also imposed further sanctions on Moscow. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced punitive measures against 31 Russian individuals and 27 companies and a halt to Canadian exports to Russia, mainly in the aerospace, information technology and mining sectors. Ottawa also wants to provide 3,400 soldiers, aircraft and warships for possible NATO operations in Europe.

According to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Japan plans to “freeze assets and suspend the issuing of visas to Russian individuals and organizations” and freeze the assets of “Russian financial institutions”. It would also sanction exports to Russian military organizations and exports of general purpose goods such as semiconductors and goods that are on a list based on international agreements.

French President Emmanuel Macron was the first Western politician to make direct contact with Putin after the war began. Macron called his conversation with the Russian President in the morning “open, direct and short”. At the request of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, he called on Putin to end the fighting in Ukraine as quickly as possible and to discuss it with Zelenskyy. After all, Selenskyj himself did not reach Putin.
Referring to the current situation, Macron admitted: “It had no effect, you can see that very clearly at the moment because the Russian President has chosen war.”

The US government fears Russian sabotage in Ukraine. Washington has been warning for weeks that Russian saboteurs were in UkraineUS State Department spokesman Ned Price told US broadcaster CNN.

Good morning, dear readers.
It’s day 2 of the war in Ukraine. Kiev has not yet fallen, but it did at night several explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital. Among other things, a multi-storey apartment building on the east bank of the Dnipro River was hit, where fire broke out, according to the Unian agency. A reporter from the AFP news agency also reports two loud explosions in the center of the city.
The President of Ukraine In his own words, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is organizing the resistance against the attack by Russian troops from Kiev. “I’ll stay in the capital, stay with my people.” But he was not allowed to say exactly where he was, the 44-year-old said in a video message at night.

An overview of the situation after the first day of the war:

– President Zelenskyj has ordered general mobilization.
– Men between the ages of 18 and 60 are not allowed to leave the country.
– At least 137 Ukrainians were killed during the first day of fighting, according to the President.
– It is feared that Kiev could fall to Russian troops during the night.
– Nothing is known about fights at the moment.
– The airspace over Ukraine is completely under Russian control, they say.
– The EU passed more severe sanctions against Russia.
– An exclusion from the international payment association Swift was not among them.

The colleagues on the early shift will keep you up to date here from 5 a.m.
Good night!

The CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen is surprised that the exclusion of Russia from the Swift association is not decidedalthough this is constantly announced.
https://twitter.com/n_roettgen/status/1496980487784513549

The Central Bank of Russia has guaranteed banks affected by Western sanctions all their transactions in rubles as in foreign currencies. The central bank and the government pledged all support to the banks in a statement Thursday evening in Moscow. All banking transactions with customers in rubles would continue as usual. The payment of credit balances in foreign currencies is also guaranteed. The US and EU have imposed sanctions on seven major Russian banks over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The US Holocaust Museum has condemned Russian President Putin’s announcement of a “denazification” of Ukraine. The museum condemns the misuse of the term. “Valdimir Putin misrepresented and misrepresented the history of the Holocaust by falsely claiming that democratic Ukraine must be ‘denazified,'” the statement said.

US government sees Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “prime target for Russian aggression”. “President Zelenskyy embodies in many ways the democratic aspirations and ambitions of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price told CNN on Thursday evening. Therefore, he remains a prime target for the Russians. In this context, Price also pointed out that the US government had been warning for weeks that Russian saboteurs were already in Ukraine.

In view of the threat from Russia, SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil is pushing for greater military deterrence. “I am firmly convinced that we must also spend more money on the Bundeswehr,” said Klingbeil on Thursday evening on the ZDF program “Maybrit Illner Spezial”. This was also laid out in the coalition agreement. “If military conflicts take place two hours from Berlin, we will look at the value of security very differently,” stressed Klingbeil. “It will now be a matter of strengthening the Bundeswehr, strengthening NATO, strengthening the security policy debate.” The SPD leader acknowledged that Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to win the war against Ukraine. “But I think he made a big mistake in the medium or long term,” said Klingbeil. “NATO is stronger than it has been for a long time. The security policy debate will change fundamentally in Germany.“

https://twitter.com/eucopresident/status/1496950779332096000?s=20&t=JuJrMjIfJTZm5S7_tRHUEw

The Munich historian Michael Wolffsohn does not believe in a large-scale expansion of the war of aggression against Ukraine launched by Russia. “The Ukraine war will not become a world war”, he told the “Bild” newspaper. Such a move would be “the end of the world” – and the presidents of Russia, the USA and China would know that. “But Ukraine will perish as a state. Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz and their parties are also to blame for this, because they fed the monster Putin,” said Wolffsohn. “Our traffic light coalition approved 5,000 helmets and a 300 million loan as a burial gift for Ukraine. Pure cynicism.” From 1981 to 2012, the scientist was a professor of modern history at the Bundeswehr University in Munich.

The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, accused the German government of “coldness and indifference” after the Russian attack on his country. “Every request to help us now was simply rejected. That’s very sad. I can’t understand: how can you remain so cold-hearted and stubborn,” said Melnyk on the ZDF program “Markus Lanz”. He was received “by some ministers” on Thursday and called for military equipment and fuel for the army. “The answer was: In our estimation, you, the Ukrainians, have maybe a few hours. It doesn’t make any sense to help you at all now,” said Melnyk. “This policy, this hesitation, leaves us as sacrificial lambs to be slaughtered.”