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Ukrainian units near Kharkiv (on May 17)
Photo: VASILIY ZHLOBSKY / EPA
What has happened in the past few hours
According to
Ukrainian
Defense Minister
Oleksiy Reznikov, Russian forces are digging in
in the south and east
of his country.
"Russia is preparing for a longer-term military operation," he said.
Accordingly, the Russian troops are currently strengthening their positions in the areas they occupy in the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions in order to "switch to defensive mode if necessary".
Reznikov reiterated that Moscow wants to create "a
land corridor
between
Russia
and
Crimea
" and occupy "the entire south of Ukraine."
Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
The minister called on the western allies to coordinate arms deliveries to Kyiv "in order to liberate our territories as quickly as possible".
Currently, the Kremlin's main efforts are focused on "encircling and destroying" Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk
and
Luhansk
regions
in the east of the country, he continued.
There they continued their offensives "along the entire line of contact."
Russian authorities
in two regions on Tuesday reported
shelling
from
Ukrainian territory
.
One person in a village in the Belgorod
region
was slightly injured, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said, according to the TASS news agency.
A border post was shot at in the Kursk region.
According to the first findings, no one was injured, said the Governor of Kursk, Roman Starowoit.
The border post has been fired at for the fourth time since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
That says Kyiv
After tensions in the relationship between Kiev and Berlin, Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyj described
his phone call with Chancellor
Olaf Scholz
(SPD) as
"quite productive"
.
Among other things, military support for Ukraine was discussed, said Zelenskyj in a video speech on Wednesday night.
He informed Scholz about the current military situation and its possible future development, said the President.
Selenskyj chose slightly different words to describe his conversation with French President
Emmanuel Macron
.
That conversation was "substantial and long," he said.
Among other things, it was about the next round of European sanctions against Russia and Ukraine's plans for rapid accession to the European Union.
According to the Élysée Palace, Macron promised that
arms deliveries
from
France would continue
and
intensify
.
He also confirmed that Ukraine's accession to the EU should be discussed in June.
Zelenskyi
also gave a surprise speech at the opening ceremony of the
Cannes
Film
Festival
.
In his speech, which was broadcast into the hall via video, he called on the film industry to get politically involved against hatred and authoritarian rulers.
Zelenskyy alluded to Charlie Chaplin's classic film »The Great Dictator« and said: »In the end hatred will disappear and the dictators will die«.
Chaplin's work, which premiered in 1940, is still considered a particularly effective satire against Adolf Hitler.
"We need a new Chaplin to prove that the film world is not silent," Zelenskyy continued.
With a view to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, he asked: "Will the film world remain silent or will it speak out?" The audience acknowledged his speech with a standing ovation.
Moscow says so
Russia
shows determination
to tie the occupied territory of
Kherson
in southern Ukraine to itself
.
The region around the port city will take a "worthy place in our Russian family," said Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Marat Chusnullin during a visit to Cherson on Tuesday.
The Russian agency Ria Novosti quoted him as saying that they would live and work together in the future.
On May 1, Russia introduced the Russian ruble as official currency in the region.
humanitarian situation
After the military battle for the
Azov steelworks
in the port city of
Mariupol
, a struggle over the
future of the Ukrainian soldiers captured by Russia there
is now becoming apparent.
The Ukrainian military intelligence service announced on Tuesday that a
prisoner exchange
would be organized.
However, there were already calls from Moscow to treat the soldiers like
war criminals
.
The International Criminal Court announced that it would send the largest investigative team in its history to Ukraine.
According to Ukrainian and Russian information, after weeks of siege, more than 260 Ukrainian militants, 50 of them seriously injured, were taken out of the industrial complex on Tuesday night.
They had surrendered and are now in Russian captivity, the Defense Ministry said in Moscow.
According to the deputy head of government Iryna Wereshchuk, the planned exchange of prisoners is initially only about the “seriously injured soldiers”.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, Kyiv and Moscow have exchanged prisoners several times.
Moscow did not comment directly on this.
International Reactions
The
US State Department
has announced the formation of a new
unit
to
investigate Russian war crimes
in Ukraine.
The agency is tasked with "collecting, analyzing and making publicly available evidence of war crimes and other atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine," the ministry said on Tuesday.
The information should therefore come from public and commercially available sources such as Internet platforms and satellite images and be processed for civil and criminal proceedings.
The
observatory
will set up an
online
platform
to
help "refute Russia's disinformation efforts and expose grievances."
In addition to the ministry, universities and technology companies are also to be involved.
economic consequences
The
Italian energy giant Eni
is apparently bowing to the Russian
requirements
for
paying
for gas deliveries.
The company will open an account in euros and one in rubles
with Gazprombank "in the coming days ,"
Eni said on Tuesday.
In this way, the payment obligations in euros can be met, and the Russian bank will then convert them into rubles.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered gas deliveries to be paid for in rubles.
The Europeans see this as a subsequent change in the applicable treaties and reject this.
Companies complying with Russian demands risk being prosecuted for violating EU sanctions.
What is happening today
Today Sweden
and
Finland
will officially
apply to
NATO
to join the military alliance
.
The two Nordic countries want to submit the membership applications together.
On Tuesday, the Finnish parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of the country joining NATO.
Shortly before, Sweden's Foreign Minister Ann Linde had signed her country's application for membership.
At their meeting
in Bonn and Königswinter starting today, the finance ministers of the G7 countries want to discuss, among other things, short-term aid
worth
billions
to
stabilize
the
Ukrainian
state budget.
It is about a support requirement of around five billion euros per month for an initial three months, according to the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The
European Commission
presents its further plans for
the EU 's
independence from
Russian gas and oil
(commission meeting from 10.30 a.m.).
In addition to a greater focus on renewable energies, an expansion of relationships with other oil suppliers such as the Gulf States is expected.
jok/Reuters/dpa