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Vladimir Putin at a briefing on the oil and gas situation
Photo: IMAGO/Mikhail Klimentyev / IMAGO/SNA
50 days after the start of the Ukraine war, Russia issued dire warnings to the West on Thursday.
Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin predicted negative consequences of an energy embargo against Russia.
His predecessor, Dmitry Medvedev, threatened to station nuclear weapons in the Baltic region if Finland and Sweden joined NATO.
In the war zone, the fighting was concentrated in eastern Ukraine.
In Germany, the pressure is growing on Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to force himself to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine.
The overview:
military situation
In the war zone, Russian troops clamped down even harder on the southern Ukrainian port of Mariupol, which had been under siege for weeks.
The Defense Ministry in Moscow said Russian troops had complete control of the port.
In addition, 1,160 Ukrainian soldiers have now surrendered.
Mariupol's mayor Wadym Boychenko dismissed this as "fake news" and said he was confident of victory.
"Mariupol was, is and will remain a Ukrainian city," he said on ARD.
There were similarly contradictory accounts of a fire on the Russian flagship Moskva in the Black Sea.
While the Ukraine declared that the ship had been hit with rockets and sunk, the Russian Ministry of Defense spoke only of damage and assured that the "Moskva" was still seaworthy.
It is probable, however, that the ship will initially be canceled for the war.
The Russian ministry also reported that a fighter plane and other aircraft had been destroyed at an airfield in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
In addition, two arms depots in the Odessa and Donetsk regions were attacked.
The information provided by the warring parties cannot usually be verified independently.
humanitarian situation
According to the governor of the region of the same name, Oleh Synyegubov, four civilians were killed when the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine was shelled.
Ten other people were injured.
Russia has accused Ukraine of attacking two towns near the border, one of them with helicopters.
Two military helicopters carried out at least six airstrikes on residential buildings in the Klimovo settlement in the Bryansk region, the Russian investigative committee said on Thursday.
Seven people were injured.
The President of the German Conference of Ministers of Education, Karin Prien (CDU), referred to estimates that up to 400,000 schoolchildren would come from Ukraine.
The German school system must do justice to this.
Around 24,000 teachers would be needed.
Poland is making an even greater effort: border guards there counted 2.73 million refugees as of Thursday.
According to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the Ukraine war will trigger a multitude of food, energy and financial crises worldwide.
"The effects of the war are global and systemic," Guterres said in New York.
Up to 1.7 billion people worldwide are extremely exposed to this "perfect storm".
That says Kyiv
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, more and more Russian military convoys are making their way to southeastern Ukraine.
Rocket, bomb and artillery attacks would be continued by the attackers, Zelenskyj said in his evening video address.
In addition, the Russians apparently tried to mobilize Ukrainian residents in the temporarily occupied areas in districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
"They are trying to bring in residents of the southern regions of our country," the president said.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tried to calm things down after Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was uninvited.
"We are not interested in tightening bilateral relations," Kuleba said in Kyiv on Thursday, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
Consider the institution of the Federal President.
Nevertheless, according to Kuleba, Kyiv is expecting a new German Ukraine policy.
Germany must finally correct the mistakes of the past through action, Kuleba demands in a guest article for SPIEGEL.
Ukraine and Europe need the German leadership initiative now - not just in a few years.
That's what the Kremlin says
Because of the Ukraine war, Finland and Sweden are now seriously considering joining the western defense alliance NATO.
Russia's ex-president Medvedev reacted angrily to this.
"In this case, there can no longer be any talk of a nuclear-weapon-free status for the Baltic States," wrote Putin's confidante on Telegram.
Specifically, he threatened to station "Iskander" missiles, hypersonic weapons and warships with nuclear weapons.
A little later, Putin himself made accusations against Western states that purchase gas from Russia: "The banks from these extremely unfriendly states are holding back the transfer of payments," said the president.
Putin made a clear statement on the increasing calls for an embargo on Russian gas and oil in the EU: "The consequences of such a step can be very painful - especially for the initiators of such a policy." Strategically, Russia wants to direct its energy flows eastwards .
To do this, Russia should start building the appropriate infrastructure, Putin said at a televised government meeting.
This is how the West reacts
British military intelligence anticipates major Russian attacks on the eastern Ukrainian cities of Kramatorsk and Kostyantynivka.
Widespread missile and artillery attacks and efforts to concentrate troops for an offensive also indicated a return to traditional Russian military doctrine, the British Ministry of Defense said in its updated situation assessment.
As the London Foreign Ministry announced, Great Britain freezes the assets of two other Russian oligarchs.
David Davidowitsch and Eugene Tenenbaum are close business friends of the already sanctioned multi-billionaire Roman Abramowitsch.
Tenenbaum is the director of the English football club Chelsea, which Abramovich previously owned.
In Germany, the Greens and FDP in the traffic light coalition in particular are pushing for further aid for Kyiv, including in the form of heavy weapons.
You should read and listen to this
As Minister, Annalena Baerbock took on a
feminist foreign policy
.
In the Ukraine war, she is now demanding heavy weapons for Ukraine.
How does that fit together?
Answers in the new episode of the SPIEGEL podcast »Stimmenfang«.
Russians in the Baltic States
: Tens of thousands of Russians have fled abroad since the start of the Ukraine war.
Those who were well qualified seemed to find a job quickly in Estonia.
But now the country is tightening sanctions.
A report from Tallinn.
In his guest article, historian Johannes Spohr traces the history of a toxic relationship between Germany and
Ukraine
.
And read more about the missile cruiser "Moskva" that has now failed and the reconnaissance drones from Turkey that the Ukrainian troops are using so efficiently.
feb/dpa/AFP/Reuters