France wants to start a humanitarian action with Turkey and Greece in order to save people from the hard-won Mariupol port in eastern Ukraine in a short time. This was announced by President Emmanuel Macron after the EU summit in Brussels.
New sanctions against people and businesses in Russia come from the UK. And US President Joe Biden wants to give a speech on the war in Ukraine during his visit to Warsaw on Saturday.
France is planning an evacuation in Mariupol
When planning an international rescue operation for the residents of Mariupol, there are already specific talks with the mayor and coordination with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, Macron informed in Brussels. Now an agreement is also needed with Russia, whose troops have been besieging the city for weeks. Selenskyj described the situation in Mariupol as “utterly tragic”. The Russian army did not allow the inhabitants to receive humanitarian aid. “They use the inhabitants of Mariupol as their propagandists at best,” he said in a video speech. So far this week, just over 26,000 civilians have been recovered from the highly threatened city.
The Prime Minister of Ukraine asks for help
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Schmyhal asked all mayors around the world for humanitarian aid for his country. At the same time, on Friday evening he called on all international partners to support the subsequent reconstruction of his country. “Right now, Russia is destroying our towns and villages, as the Nazis did 80 years ago,” said Schmyhal. “Support Ukrainian cities with humanitarian aid and reconstruction funds.”
Schmyhal estimated the losses caused to the Ukrainian economy by the war in mid-March at almost EUR 515 billion. According to official Ukrainian calculations, the damage to infrastructure alone amounted to approximately EUR 108 billion. The numbers initially could not be checked independently.
Zelenskiy: Russia has powerful propaganda
According to Ukrainian President Zelensky, the Russian leadership has spent tens of billions of dollars on propaganda. “You all know very well what a huge system of state propaganda Russia has built,” Zelenskiy said in the video. “Probably no one in the world has ever spent such huge sums on lies.” However, Moscow did not take into account that this did not guarantee the result.
Great Britain imposes further sanctions
The British government has fined another 65 people and companies in Russia in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to an update by the British Ministry of Defense, the Russian arms concern Kronstadt is among them the producer of the armed drone Orion and other unmanned aerial vehicles.
Hard fight for the city of Kherson
Ukrainian forces are fighting to recapture the important southern city of Kherson from the Russians, according to a US Defense Department official. The Russian military no longer has such strong control over the city as before, so Kherson is again to be assessed as a “contested area”.
Kherson, at the beginning of the Dnieper estuary, is a strategically important port city, the official said. If the Ukrainians managed to retake the city, it would complicate the Russian attack on the nearby Nikolayev, engulfed in fighting. It would also significantly hinder a possible land offensive towards the port city of Odessa.
Ukraine: possible Russian attack on Kyiv
The Ukrainian military still believes that a large-scale attack by Russian troops on Kyiv is possible. To this end, the enemy continues to gather strong forces, said the Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Army, Olexander Grusewitsch. In addition, special units are being prepared for this mission, according to the findings of the reconnaissance in the Caucasian Republic of Dagestan. This information could not be independently verified. Recently, the Ukrainian troops managed to recapture several positions and cities in the Kiev region.
The command of the Ukrainian Air Force struck
The command of the Ukrainian Air Force in Vinnitsa in the west of the country was fired upon by several Russian cruise missiles. Some of the six rockets were shot down as they approached, the rest hit the building, Air Force leadership reported on its Facebook page. The infrastructure has been “severely damaged”. No information was given about the possible victims of the attack.
Kyiv warns: the enemy is listening
The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine warned against hasty and uncontrolled reports of arms deliveries or military actions in the Russian war of aggression. This would only help the Russian side and would help it “fine-tune its actions,” said Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maljar. It has happened before that “good intentions or grateful reports” about the purchases or deliveries of weapons led to the termination of contracts or the prohibition of deliveries. “And so today, under conditions of war, we try to prevent any information about the aid we receive from leaking out,” she said.
It will be important today
On the second day of his visit to Poland, US President Biden will deliver a speech on Saturday in Warsaw on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. According to the US Embassy in the capital, his arrival at the Royal Castle in Warsaw is scheduled for late afternoon between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. Demonstrations against the war are scheduled across Germany on Saturday.