The war in Ukraine can only end with means”diplomats“: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated this to a Ukrainian TV channel while negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv are at a standstill. The war “will be bloody, it will be fought, but it will definitely end with diplomacy,” he said Zelenskyy.
Azovstal fell. After 86 days of resistance, which shaped the fate and vision of the war, the steelworks became a symbol of defense Mariupol and Ukraine is no longer an impregnated bunker. The plant is “completely under the control of the Russian armed forces,” Moscow’s defense said in the evening after Minister Sergei Shoigu informed President Vladimir Putin “of the end of the operation and the complete liberation” of the foundry. In less than 100 hours after the evacuations began, a total of 2,439 Ukrainian fighters surrendered and surrendered to the enemy, as ordered by the Kyiv General Staff as it was “impossible” to resolve the standoff “by military means,” he told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“We’ll take her home. We have to do that with our partners, who have taken responsibility,” Zelensky said in an interview with his country’s television this morning, Ukrainska Pravda reports. “The boys – Zelenskyy said – were ordered by the military to come out and save their lives.”
Ukraine, the last group of soldiers leaves Azovstal Territory
The Russians “may have overestimated the number of Ukrainian defenders evacuated from the Azov Valley in order to maximize the number of Russian POWs who can be exchanged for Ukrainian soldiers or to avoid the embarrassment where they have to admit that they held a siege that lasted for months . against only ‘hundreds’ of Ukrainian soldiers,” according to the US military think tank American Institute for War Studies (ISW). American military experts also note that Russian soldiers “retook some positions occupied by the Ukrainian counter-offensive north of the city of Kharkiv.” Finally, they state: “Russian forces are likely preparing for a major Ukrainian counteroffensive and a protracted conflict on the southern axis”.
FINLAND AND GAS
Meanwhile, the Russian supply of natural gas to the Finland was halted today, Finnish state-owned energy company Gasum said after the Nordic country refused to pay supplier Gazprom in rubles. “Natural gas supplies to Finland under the Gasum supply agreement have been suspended,” the Finnish company said in a statement, adding that the gas is now supplied from other sources via the Balticconnector pipeline, which connects Finland with Finland and Estonia.
ANSA agency
The Straight from the Cities (ANSA)
THE CONFLICT
The number of civilians killed in the fighting since yesterday in Lugansk has risen to 6. The head of the Lugansk regional military administration, Sergiy Gaidai, reports on Telegram. “Six people have died and fighting is ongoing on the outskirts of Severodonetsk,” Gaidai said, explaining that in yesterday’s attack on a school in Severodonetsk, “two people died instantly, another 3 are in hospital,” all “members of the same family”. Also, in the evening, a man and a woman died near their home in Severodonetsk Two women were killed by Russian bombing in Lysychansk and Privilege.”
The Russians continue to “conduct offensive operations in the Eastern Operational Zone in order to gain full control over the territory of the Donetsk and Lugansk Oblasts and maintain the land corridor with the temporarily occupied Crimea,” the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in The latest update that was published on Facebook, adding that “in the near future it is expected that the troop formation in the direction of Kharkiv will be reinforced by units of the 1st Tank Army of the Western Military District”. “The bombing continues along the entire line of contact,” the General Staff continues, explaining that in the direction of Volyn and Polessky in northern Ukraine “the situation in general has not undergone any significant changes. There is a reinforcement of the security system. electronic reconnaissance and electronic warfare in the areas bordering Ukraine. The threat of missile and air strikes on Ukrainian targets from the territory of Belarus remains “.
A coal mine caught fire as a result of Russian bombing in south-eastern Ukraine, and there are casualties and injuries in Lysychansk, according to the report by the Lugansk regional military administration quoted by UNIAN.