Of . – 01/07/2022 20:42 (act 01/07/2022 20:42)
Fighting continued in eastern Ukraine. ©REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino (image of symbol)
Fighting continued in the east of the country during the war in Ukraine. The focus of the Russian advance on Friday was Lysychansk – a city with a unique outlet in the Luhansk region.
Because Lysychansk is the last big place that Ukrainian troops still hold in the Luhansk region. The death toll in Russian rocket attacks on a home and recreational facilities near Odessa has risen to at least 21.
Ukrainian information: Dozens of places under fire
Dozens of places in the Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions were bombed by Russian artillery on Friday, according to the Ukrainian General Staff report posted on Facebook. There were also isolated attacks by planes and helicopters. Ukrainian units repelled a Russian attack on a gelatin factory near the industrial city of Lysychansk in the Luhansk region. Kiev did not provide details of what was happening in the last city in the area under Ukrainian control.
The Lysychansk oil refinery is now under Russian and pro-Russian control, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Friday. The conquest of all of Luhansk is one of Moscow’s declared objectives in the war that has lasted more than four months. Last week, the Ukrainian military had to give up the city of Severodonetsk, which is across the river from Lysychansk.
Ukraine celebrates the reconquest of Serpent Island
As Russia continues to exert its military superiority in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv can celebrate the reconquest of the symbolic Serpent Island in the Black Sea. After the Russian army announced its withdrawal on Thursday, soldiers left the tiny island, according to Ukrainian sources. According to Ukrainian military information, Serpent Island in the Black Sea allows control of parts of Ukraine’s coast and shipping lanes.
The death toll in Russian rocket attacks near Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, in southern Ukraine, near the city of Odessa, has risen to at least 21. The information was released by the Civil Defense on Friday. Initially, there was talk of ten deaths. At least 39 people continued to be treated in hospitals. According to the military administration, a total of three Russian missiles were hit. An apartment building and a recreation center were hit.
Claim in Ukraine
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called on Ukraine to make more efforts on its way to the European Union, for example in the fight against corruption and the influence of oligarchs. The country has already made great strides, the German politician said in a video speech in front of parliament in Kyiv on Friday. Many of the necessary laws and institutions already exist. Now is the time to translate those steps into “positive, lasting change.”
Last week, the EU officially admitted Ukraine to the list of candidate countries, but made this conditional on further reforms. “There is a long way to go, but Europe will be on your side,” said von der Leyen.
Russia Bulgaria
After the announced expulsion of 70 Russian diplomats from Bulgaria, Moscow is considering completely severing diplomatic relations. Russia’s request to Bulgaria to revoke the country’s biggest diplomatic expulsion from the EU was ignored, criticized Russia’s ambassador to Sofia, Eleonora Mitrofanova, according to Interfax news agency on Friday. That is why the closing of the entire Russian representation is now being discussed. Bulgaria would be the first EU country where Russia would close its embassy. That, in turn, would “inevitably” mean the end of the Bulgarian embassy’s work in Moscow, Mitrofanova said.
Poland criticizes statements by Ukrainian ambassador in Berlin
Meanwhile, Poland criticized the statements of the Ukrainian ambassador in Berlin, Andriy Melnyk, about the former nationalist leader Stepan Bandera (1909-1959). “Such an opinion and such words are absolutely unacceptable,” Deputy Chancellor Marcin Przydacz told the internet platform Wirtualna Polska on Friday. Nationalist partisans of western Ukraine were responsible for ethnically motivated expulsions in 1943, in which tens of thousands of Polish civilians were murdered.
In an interview with journalist Tilo Jung, Melnyk defended Bandera and said: “Bandera was not a mass murderer of Jews and Poles.” There is no evidence for this. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stated on its website that this was Melnyk’s personal position and not that of the ministry he reports to. Melnyk is also known in Germany for his criticism of the federal government’s policy towards Ukraine. On Thursday, the diplomat described several German celebrities who called for a ceasefire in the Ukraine war as a “bunch of pseudo-intellectual losers”.