According to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, the Russian leadership is not only aiming at conquering Ukraine. In Kyiv, the city administration has destroyed a monument to the Soviet Union. The developments in the live blog.
2:12 a.m
Lithuanian President: Germany should deliver tanks
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has called on the federal government to also equip Ukraine with tanks. “I’m not in the position of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. I can only say what I would do in his place: I would deliver tanks,” Nauseda told the Funke Mediengruppe newspapers and the French newspaper Ouest-France.
Germany should become clear more quickly about where it stands in this conflict. “Ukraine needs full military support – including from Germany.”
2:12 a.m
Kyiv destroys Soviet monument
Ukraine has dismantled a Soviet-era monument meant to symbolize historical ties between Ukraine and Russia. “We are removing the bronze sculpture of two workers erected in the center of the capital in 1982 to commemorate the reunification of Ukraine with Russia,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told Telegram.
Klitschko called it “symbolic” that when dismantling the sculpture, which shows a Russian and a Ukrainian worker, the head of one of the workers fell off. The two workers held a Soviet symbol that read “Friendship between peoples.”
Klitschko explained the decision to dismantle Moscow’s “barbaric desire” to destroy the Ukrainian state and Ukrainians. The administration is preparing plans to demolish about 60 Kiev monuments related to Russia and the Soviet Union. In addition, there are plans to rename 460 streets and other objects.
Workers dismantle the Soviet monument from 1982 in Kyiv.
Image: AFP
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Zelenskyj: Moscow’s goals go far beyond Ukraine
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Moscow’s goals go far beyond Ukraine. “The ultimate goal of the Russian leadership is not only the conquest of Ukraine, but the destruction of the entire center and eastern Europe,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video message, which was published on Telegram that night.
A “global strike against democracy” is also part of the goal. In the “free world” there is practically no one who has not understood that Russia’s war against Ukraine is only the beginning, said Zelenskyy.
The continued attacks on Ukraine, for example in the Odessa region in the south of the country or in the Donbass in the east, said Zelenskyj, would only bring Russia “new losses”. These would result in a new EU sanctions package or more trade restrictions. The majority of Russians will have to pay for the government’s aggressive policies with poverty.
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Tuesday’s live blog to read
Russia’s Defense Ministry has reported the capture of the entire Kherson region. More than 16,000 people have been reported missing in Ukraine. Tuesday’s live blog to read.