Vitali Klitschko accuses Russia of lying - Russian sees Putin "in a deep mess"

Created: 03/19/2022, 04:53

By: Kathrin Reikowski, Cindy Boden, Anna-Katharina Ahnefeld

The attacks in the Ukraine war continue.

According to reports from the embattled country, Russia has almost completely used up its missile stocks.

News ticker.

• Escalated Ukraine conflict*:

  Has Russia almost completely used up its missile stocks?

  Such a message comes from Ukraine

  (see update from March 18, 1:40 p.m.).

• According to Volodymyr Zelenskyj*, "hundreds" of people are still under the rubble of the theater in Mariupol

  (see update from March 18, 3:32 p.m.).

• Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko accuses Russia of lying

  (see update from March 18, 11:02 p.m.).

• This news ticker

  on the military battles in the Ukraine war

   is updated regularly.

  Here you will find the background to the Ukraine conflict*.

Update from March 18, 11:02 p.m

.: According to the Ukrainian government, 9,145 people were evacuated from embattled cities via escape corridors on Friday.

Almost 5,000 of them escaped from Mariupol.

According to reports, only 3,810 people managed to escape from besieged cities on Thursday.

Long queues of cars from Mariupol could be seen on satellite images.

Ukraine war: Vitali Klitschko accuses Russia of lying

At the same time, the former world boxing champion and current mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, accused Russia of lying on Friday evening.

"It is a lie by the Russian Federation to claim that they only attack military targets," Klitschko told

.

"Cities like Irpin, Bucha or Borodjanka no longer exist." From Klitschko's point of view, the aim of the Russian military is now to kill as many civilians as possible.

“After such attacks, one can only call Russians fascists because they kill women, children and civilians.

The pictures speak for themselves."

The citizens of Kiev are ready to defend their capital.

The majority of the men stayed in the city because it was their home where their relatives and families lived.

Her motivation: "We will defend our city, our family and our future." Once again on Friday, Selenskyj had demanded more weapons from the West.

Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko in front of a destroyed building.

© IMAGO/Sergei Chuzavkov

Ukraine War: Apparently no fatalities in Mariupol's theater that was shelled

Update from March 18, 7:32 p.m

.: Good news in the Ukraine war: According to the city administration, there were apparently no fatalities in the attack on the theater in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol.

The theater had been used as a shelter.

Hundreds of people were still trapped under the rubble on Friday, according to President Zelenskyy.

But, there were no deaths, the city administration said on Friday in the Internet service Telegram.

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According to initial information, only one person was seriously injured.

Because of Russia's siege of Mariupol, the information cannot be independently verified.

The shelling of the theater sparked international outrage.

China, which has not yet condemned Russia's war against Ukraine, also opposed the shelling.

Ukraine war: According to information from Kyiv on Friday, Russia is not gaining any territory

Update from March 18, 4:59 p.m .:

According to Ukraine, the Russian army has not gained any ground today.

Ukrainian troops prevented them from doing so, says Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maljar on television, as reported by

.

The Russian units struggled with logistical difficulties with fuel and food, as well as communication problems.

The information cannot be independently verified.

Update from March 18, 4:02 p.m.:

Since Russian troops invaded Ukraine, nuclear power plants have played a role again and again.

We show where Ukrainian nuclear power plants are located and why they are relevant in the war.

Ukraine War: Zelenskyy - Hundreds trapped under rubble in Mariupol

Update from March 18, 3:32 p.m .:

Two days after the bombing of a theater in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “hundreds” of people are still trapped under the rubble.

More than 130 people could have been saved, said Zelenskyj on Friday.

The theater had served as a refuge for civilians.

Russia denies being responsible for the bombing of the building.

"Hundreds of residents of Mariupol are still under the rubble," said Zelenskyy in a video message on the online network Facebook.

He announced that the salvage work in the destroyed theater building should continue despite the continued Russian shelling of the city.

According to Ukrainian estimates, about a thousand people had taken shelter in the theater.

The theater's bomb shelter survived the bombardment, according to Lyudmila Denisova, the Ukrainian parliament's human rights commissioner.

Ukraine News: UN concerned about situation in Mariupol - 'The last reserves of food and water are running out'

Update from March 18, 2:55 p.m .:

The United Nations is extremely concerned about the situation in the embattled city of Mariupol in Ukraine.

A spokesman for the World Food Program (WFP) said on Friday in Geneva: "The last reserves of food and water are running out." In addition, supplies and medicines were missing, which could have devastating consequences, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

Still no aid convoys could reach the city.

Otherwise, the supply chain would no longer be guaranteed.

Truck drivers hesitated to get behind the wheel for fear of being shot.

Ukraine war: Russia's missile stocks almost completely depleted?

Update from March 18, 1:40 p.m .:

It is reported from Ukraine that Russia has almost completely used up its missile stocks.

With this information, the

quoted the Ukrainian general staff on Twitter.

According to the information, the Russian military sector is working around the clock to replenish its stocks.

The information could not be independently verified.

Update from March 18, 1:30 p.m .:

According to Russian state television, Putin wants to give a speech to the people of Russia today.

You can read more about this in our diplomatic ticker on the Ukraine war.

A view of a destroyed Russian Army Multiple Rocket Launcher on the outskirts of Kharkiv March 16, 2022 amid the ongoing Ukraine war.

© Sergey Bobok/AFP

Ukraine News: Reports of allegedly detained general

Update from March 18, 12:20 p.m .:

According to reports, Russia’s ruler Vladimir Putin has one of his highest-ranking generals arrested.

“Three independent sources report that the deputy chief of Russia's Rosgvardia (a unit of the RU's internal army that has suffered huge casualties in Ukraine), General Roman Gavrilov, has been detained by the FSB.

Gavrilov also previously worked in the FSO, Putin's security service," tweeted Bulgarian investigative journalist and Bellingcat Russia expert Hristo Grotsev.

In his speech on Wednesday, Putin spoke of "traitors" in the Ukraine war.

There is no official confirmation of the arrest yet.

There are currently different explanations for the alleged arrest.

Grotsev wrote on Twitter that it was circulating that Roman Gavrilov had passed on military information.

"Two other sources say he 'wasted fuel,'" according to Grozew, is the other theory.

One thing is clear: "There is no doubt that Putin recognizes the deep mess this operation is in," Grozew continued.

"It's so bad that he changes horses in the middle of a race - a big taboo in war."

Ukraine-Russia War: Russian troops attack kindergartens and schools in Kyiv

Update from March 18, 10:50 a.m.:

According to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, one person was killed and 19 injured in an attack on a residential area in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

Four children were among the wounded in the Podil district, Klitschko said on Friday in a video that he published on Telegram.

Russian troops fired on houses, kindergartens and a school.

This information could not initially be verified independently.

A man removes a destroyed curtain at a school that was damaged alongside other residential buildings.

According to Mayor Klitschko, one person was killed and 19 injured in an attack on a residential area in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

© Rodrigo Abd/dpa

Russia is now allegedly fighting in the middle of the stricken Mariupol - Ukrainians are hoping for new escape corridors

First report from March 18, 10:50 a.m.:

Kiev – The Ukraine war continues with undiminished severity.

On Friday, a violent explosion near the airport was reported from the city of Lviv near the Polish border, which has so far been largely spared.

But the situation in the Ukrainian port of Mariupol in particular remains catastrophic in the Ukraine war*.

According to its own statements, Russia's* army and its separatist allies have advanced into the city center where fighting raged on Friday.

"In Mariupol, the units of the Donetsk People's Republic, with the support of Russian forces, are tightening their siege and fighting the nationalists in the center of the city," said Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov.

The spokesman also assured that the Russian armed forces and pro-Russian separatists now controlled 90 percent of the territory of the Luhansk region, which, like Donetsk, was recognized by Moscow as an independent "people's republic".

Ukraine war: Russia wants to have conquered 90 percent of the Ukrainian Luhansk region

The Russian army has reported further gains in territory in the eastern Ukrainian administrative region of Luhansk.

90 percent have been brought under control, said Major General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Defense Ministry, on Friday in Moscow.

The forces of the Luhansk People's Republic had advanced "with fire support from the Russian armed forces".

The self-proclaimed "People's Republics" of Luhansk and Donetsk have been supported and equipped by Russia since 2014.

The territory they controlled before the February 24 Russian attack included only part of Ukraine's Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

The Separatists claim these larger areas - their conquest is one of Moscow's war aims.

Konashenkov also spoke of territorial gains by the forces of the Donetsk People's Republic.

With Russian support, these forces tightened the ring around the port city of Mariupol.

Ukrainian troops were being fought in the city center - the Russian general spoke of "nationalists".

Civilians follow a humanitarian corridor out of the embattled city of Mariupol.

© IMAGO/Mikhail Tereshchenko

According to the Russian army, since February 24, 183 drones, 1,406 tanks and armored vehicles, 138 rocket artillery carriages, 535 artillery pieces and 1,200 vehicles belonging to the Ukrainian armed forces have been destroyed.

The information could not be independently verified.

Latest Ukraine news: Announcement of nine escape corridors for civilians

According to Ukrainian information, nine escape corridors are planned across the country for Friday, through which civilians from contested areas are to be brought to safety.

People should be able to flee from the port city of Mariupol, which is besieged by Russia, to Zaporizhia in the northwest, said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Wereshchuk in a video message in the morning.

There are said to be other so-called corridors in the north-eastern Sumy region, for example, which lead from various cities to Poltava in central Ukraine.

According to Wereshchuk, a tanker truck with fuel for private cars is still on the way to Mariupol, where the situation is particularly dramatic.

In the past few days, thousands of civilians had managed to escape from Mariupol in their own vehicles.

But many are still stuck in the city on the Azov Sea, where there has been no electricity, water or heating for days.

According to information from Kyiv*, aid convoys cannot get through to the people there.