The amount of work to restore normal life is “really enormous,” Selenskyj said in his video message on Saturday night. According to him, 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
demining work
Ukrainian authorities continue to restore normal life in areas that are once again under Ukrainian control, Zelenskyy said. The scope of work in the 918 towns and cities of different sizes is enormous. Mining works are being carried out and the supply of electricity, water and gas to the sites is being restored. Police, post office and local authorities are also resuming their work. Rail links have been re-established in the Sumy region in the northeast of the country, or are about to resume with the northern city of Chernihiv.
Humanitarian teams have so far been established in 338 of these locations. Among other things, they provided emergency medical care, Selenskyj said. Schools and other educational institutions should also resume whenever possible. Russian troops had destroyed or damaged 1,018 educational institutions in the country as of Friday, Zelenskyy said. The information could not be independently verified.
Severe damage in Sieverodonetsk and Kharkiv
According to Ukrainian sources, the city of Sievjerodonetsk in the Luhansk region was also badly damaged by the Russian war of aggression. According to the head of the city’s military administration, Olexandr Strjuk, the city is about 70% destroyed. The most important roads were severely damaged and the water supply was also interrupted until repairs could be carried out, Strjuk told Ukrainian national television. Of the roughly 130,000 pre-war residents, only around 20,000 people are still there.
According to the government, a total of nine humanitarian evacuation corridors have been agreed for Saturday, including Mariupol and Luhansk. Civilians should be able to leave Mariupol in private cars on Saturday, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said. Five corridors are planned in the Luhansk region. According to local authorities, this is under heavy fire.
According to Ukrainian sources, at least ten people were killed when the industrial district of the Kharkiv metropolis in eastern Ukraine was bombed. A seven-month-old baby was among the victims, the Kharkiv region’s prosecutor’s office announced on Facebook late on Friday. Ukraine also reported a Russian air strike on an airfield in the town of Oleksandriya in the Kirovohrad region of central Ukraine. Rescue work was underway, Mayor Serhiy Kuzmenko wrote on Facebook. Initially there was no information about damage or casualties.
attacks in Kiev
According to official information, the Ukrainian capital Kiev was the target of a new Russian attack. There were several explosions in the Darnytsia district, Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced Saturday on the Telegram news channel. Initially, there was no information about possible victims. Klitschko appealed to the public not to ignore the authorities’ air warning. There are air alerts several times a day in the Ukrainian capital. As people who fled the attacks are now returning to Kiev, the mayor called for this to be stopped and for them to stay in safe places.
Moscow recently threatened attacks on command centers in Kiev after the Ukrainian military reportedly bombed Russian territory. According to unconfirmed reports in Ukraine, there were again explosions in the west of the country in the Lviv region.
Zelenskyj calls for new sanctions
Selenskyj again called for tougher sanctions against Moscow. “The next package of sanctions against Russia must include a waiver of Russian oil,” he said in his video speech that night. Selenskyj called the current punitive measures against Russia “serious” but not sufficient. “We demand stronger and more destructive ones.” The war could also be shortened if Kiev quickly received all the necessary weapons.
EU questionnaire almost ready
According to Zelenskyy, Ukraine is almost finished answering a questionnaire for EU membership. “The work is almost complete and we will soon make the answers available to the representatives of the European Union,” said Zelenskyy. Selenskyj received the questionnaire late last week during a visit by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. At the time, Zelenskyi had predicted that Kiev would respond very quickly – perhaps within a week.
Russia, meanwhile, has sent protest notes to several Western countries over arms sales to Ukraine. The United States was among them, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, according to Interfax news agency. According to the US newspaper Washington Post, Moscow warns in the letter that such deliveries could have “unforeseeable consequences”.