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A car drives past a burning gas pipe damaged in a Russian attack in Kharkiv
Photo: THOMAS PETER / REUTERS
Russia has announced that it will focus its military operations on the east of the country.
The government of Ukraine also assumes this and is therefore calling on the people there on the 42nd day of the war to leave the east of the country.
Despite this, Russia continues its airstrikes across the country - while the world condemns Moscow for the Bucha atrocities.
The West has decided on new sanctions against Russia.
Two daughters of Vladimir Putin are said to be affected by the measures from Washington and Brussels.
The developments at a glance:
military situation
Ukraine has asked residents in the east of the country to leave the region because of fears of a major Russian offensive.
The regional authorities "are calling on the population to leave these areas and are doing everything possible to ensure that the evacuations are organized," said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk on Telegram, according to the Ministry of Integration.
This had to happen "now", otherwise people risked dying.
The Ukrainian government is assuming an impending major attack in the south and east of the country.
Cities in eastern Ukraine continue to be heavily attacked.
According to the authorities, Kharkiv was the target of 27 attacks by the Russian armed forces during the night.
The city has been under almost constant fire since the war began on February 24.
Russian forces have confirmed they have continued airstrikes on targets in Ukraine.
In total, the Russian army hit 24 military targets in the neighboring country.
This information could not be independently verified.
However, Ukraine confirmed rocket hits in the Lviv, Vinnytsia and Dnipro regions.
A fuel depot is said to have been hit in the eastern Ukrainian region of Dnipro.
humanitarian situation
According to the United Nations, almost 35,000 more people fled Ukraine within 24 hours.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 4.2 million Ukrainians have already fled the Russian war of aggression.
According to estimates by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), another 7.1 million Ukrainians are fleeing in their own country.
The humanitarian situation in Ukraine remains catastrophic in some areas.
In the city of Mariupol, which was surrounded by Russian troops, the situation has deteriorated again, according to the British Ministry of Defence.
A tweet said there were still 160,000 residents in the hard-fought port city on the Sea of Azov.
A convoy of around 500 refugees from south-eastern Ukraine has arrived in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia.
The convoy included seven buses and around 40 private vehicles traveling under the protection of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), a reporter for the AFP news agency reported.
That says Kyiv
After the shock of the mass murder of dozens of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine, the focus is now on who is responsible for the atrocities.
In all likelihood, numerous acts were committed by Russian militants.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has published a list showing the names, ranks and dates of birth of hundreds of Russian soldiers.
They are said to have been directly involved in war crimes against the people of Ukraine and Bucha.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticized the Europeans' reluctance to impose energy sanctions on Russia.
"I cannot tolerate indecisiveness after what we have been through and what Russia has done to us," Zelenskyy said in a video-transmitted speech at the Irish Parliament in Dublin.
The "Russian military machine" should no longer be supplied with money from energy exports.
That's what the Kremlin says
Despite the atrocities of the Bucha, negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv are continuing, according to Russian sources.
The talks were "much slower," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, according to Russian agencies.
»I can only say that the work process continues.
But we still have a long way to go,” said Peskow.
"We would like to see more momentum from the Ukrainian side."
The Kremlin spokesman referred to statements by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, according to which "obstacles" always appear when there is reason to hope for progress.
Such a case is the situation in the Kiev suburb of Bucha, Peskov said.
"All these stagings" could bring the negotiations to failure.
Pope kisses Ukrainian flag
Pope Francis also commented on Bucha.
"The latest news about the war in Ukraine speaks of new atrocities like the Bucha massacre instead of conveying relief and hope," the pope said at his weekly general audience.
Then he rose and unfurled a blue and yellow flag which he said he had received from the "martyred city of Bucha".
He folded the flag back up and kissed it.
This is how the West reacts
The US imposes new sanctions on Russia in the face of the war in Ukraine and the atrocities in Bucha.
The punitive measures are aimed, among other things, at two large Russian banks – Sberbank and Alfa-Bank – as well as the adult children of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, as the White House in Washington announced.
The EU is also targeting Putin's daughters: Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova are to be included on the European Union's sanctions list.
This was confirmed by diplomats from the AFP news agency.
This threatens them with entry bans in the EU and the freezing of their assets in Europe.
NATO assumes further attacks by Russia in Ukraine and does not see any troop withdrawal around Kyiv.
»According to our knowledge, the Russian units are not retreating, but are repositioning themselves.
Russia is trying to regroup, get supplies and step up its offensive in the Donbass region," said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels.
You should read and watch this
No other EU country is as dependent on Russia's gas as Germany and Italy.
But unlike Berlin, Rome no longer wants to block an embargo.
Has Premier Draghi negotiated better with other suppliers?
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col/dpa/Reuters/AFP