Ukraine war: Zelenskyj warns of unexploded mines - Russian warship "heavily damaged"

Created: 04/14/2022, 07:10

By: Felix Durach

The air raids on the heavily contested port city of Mariupol continue.

Russian troops are stepping up activities in southern and eastern Ukraine.

The news ticker on the Ukraine war.

• According to President Selenskyj, Ukrainian soldiers

  are said to have left tens of thousands of unexploded shells in the north of the country.

• No escape corridors

  for

  civilians

  on Wednesday: Due to ongoing

  Russian attacks

  , the Ukrainian government does not want to build escape corridors from the east of the country.

  The venture is too dangerous.

• Shells and mines

  : Zelenskyj warns of unexploded Russian explosive devices.

• This news ticker about the military situation in the Ukraine war* is constantly updated.

Update from April 14, 6:39 a.m .:

According to Ukrainian information, Russian troops are said to have left large amounts of unexploded explosive devices in the north of the country.

In his video message on Thursday night, President Zelenskyj reported tens of thousands of unexploded shells or mines in the area.

Mine clearance continues.

Residents returning there must be extremely vigilant and careful, Zelenskyy warns.

Ukraine war: Russians leave behind thousands of grenades – Selenskyj warns population

According to Zelenskyj, the military situation is currently not significantly different from that of the past few days.

Russian troops increased their activities in the east and south.

They try to make up for their losses, bombing and artillery attacks continued.

Residents of the areas in the south of the country held by Russian troops are probably trying to recruit the soldiers for their forces.

The information could not be independently verified.

President Zeleksy warns Ukrainians: Russian soldiers have left thousands of unexploded mines in parts of the country.

© Uncredited/Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/AP/dpa

Ukraine conflict: Russian warship Moskva "heavily damaged"

Russian state media have now also commented on the warship "Moskva", which is said to have been hit by a Ukrainian anti-ship missile.

According to state media reports, the ship was "seriously damaged" in a munitions explosion.

"As a result of a fire, ammunition detonated on the missile cruiser 'Moskva'."

"The ship was badly damaged," the Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday, according to the Tass and Ria Novosti news agencies.

An investigation into the cause of the fire has been launched, the agencies said in a statement from the Department of Defense.

The crew of the ship had been brought to safety.

Update from April 13, 10:24 p.m .:

According to information from Kiev, the Russian missile cruiser “Moskva” (“Moscow”) was hit by a Ukrainian anti-ship missile in the Ukraine war in the Black Sea.

"The cruiser Moskva was met with some surprise - it burns badly," Presidential Advisor Oleksiy Arestovych said in an interview on Wednesday.

The warship has a crew of more than 500 sailors.

There was initially no confirmation from the Russian side.

Among other things, the "Moskva" is said to have been involved in the conquest of the Ukrainian Snake Island at the beginning of the war almost seven weeks ago.

Advisor to Ukraine's Interior Minister Anton Herashchenko, in a social media post, suggested that the warship was hit by a Neptun missile.

The Ukrainian in-house development has an operational range of 280 kilometers.

Ukraine War: Russia claims control of Mariupol port

Update, April 13, 9:25 p.m .:

In the Ukraine war, the Russian army claims to have completely taken control of the port of the heavily contested Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

The commercial port was "liberated" by Ukrainian Azov militants, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday.

The remaining Ukrainian troops are "blocked and deprived of the opportunity to escape from the encirclement".

There was initially no confirmation from the Ukrainian side.

Ukraine war: Russia now threatens to attack 'decision centers' in Kyiv

Update from April 13, 7:58 p.m .:

In the Ukraine war, Russia threatened new attacks on the Ukrainian capital Kiev – in the event that Ukraine continued to attack Russian territory.

"We see attempts at sabotage and attacks by Ukrainian troops on objects on the territory of the Russian Federation," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday evening.

"If such cases continue, the Russian Federation's armed forces will attack decision-making centers, including in Kyiv, which the Russian army has so far refrained from doing."

In the past few weeks, Moscow has repeatedly complained about alleged attacks by Ukrainian troops on Russian areas near the border.

Around the beginning of April there was an air raid on an oil storage facility in the city of Belgorod.

At the time, there was neither confirmation nor denial from Ukraine.

Ukraine War: According to Deputy Mayor, bodies of 1500 Russian soldiers in Dnipro

Update from April 13, 6:59 p.m .:

According to Ukrainian information, the bodies of more than 1,500 Russian soldiers were recovered in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro in the Ukraine war.

They were taken to a total of four different morgues, said the deputy mayor of the industrial city, Mykhailo Lysenko, to the US-financed television station Nastoyashcheye Vremya on Wednesday.

He called on Russian mothers to pick up their dead sons.

"I don't want to bury them in mass graves.

I don't want to cremate them," Lysenko said.

"We are not brutes."

The information could not be verified at first.

According to the Ukrainian army, almost 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the Russian war of aggression began almost seven weeks ago.

Moscow, on the other hand, cites significantly lower losses and most recently named 1,351 dead soldiers in its own ranks.

Ukraine war: problems in nuclear ruins - Chernobyl monitoring still not restored

Update from April 13, 6:22 p.m .:

According to their own statements, the Ukrainian authorities are still unable to restore the monitoring of radioactive radiation in the restricted area around the Chernobyl nuclear ruins.

Two weeks after the withdrawal of the Russian occupying forces, the surveillance system is still not working, Yevgen Kramarenko, head of the authority responsible for the exclusion zone, said in a video conference on Wednesday.

The servers that processed all the information about the radiation have "disappeared" and the power supply is uncertain, Kramarenko said.

In addition, the facility's teams have not yet received permission from the military to visit the various radiation checkpoints.

It is therefore currently not possible to assess the damage caused by the crew.

Ukraine war: Russia before Donbass major offensive?

Military insiders expect massive casualties

Update from April 13, 3:26 p.m .:

A major Russian offensive is imminent in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow's planned conquest of eastern Ukraine, and particularly the two Donbass provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, could entail house-to-house fighting and a long, bloody guerrilla war.

According to the AFP news agency, Moscow's troops are now concentrating on the region east of the Dnieper River, which divides Ukraine in two.

Western experts suspect that the river is currently the target of Russian ambitions.

Russia, meanwhile, is continuing its attacks on the cities of Rubishne, Popasna and Severodonetsk to the east.

But the military actions are not limited to the Donbass region.

The port city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine continues to be bombed.

In addition, the Russians are apparently interested in the entire area east of the city of Dnipro*.

Western military circles say that Russia will "pay dearly" if it invades cities in the Donbass.

According to the source, about 60,000 Russian soldiers have been transferred from northern Ukraine to the east.

Around 40,000 battle-hardened, trained and equipped Ukrainian soldiers are stationed there.

Those involved were preparing for “something very long”.

The question, however, is how long the Ukrainian troops can resist.

"If they lose men in the cauldron, the Ukrainians will no longer be able to resist in the long term."

According to James Dobbins of the US institute Rand Corporation, the Ukrainian military leadership has already started "building a resistance movement to fight behind enemy lines".

There is even a website that provides "advice for ordinary citizens who want to get involved in the resistance".

Experience has shown that such warfare can drag on for decades, emphasizes Dobbins.

In this case, outside help together with sanctions is essential for the success of the resistance.

However, Germany is still struggling for the delivery of heavy weapons.

Experts also see considerable dangers* in this.

Ukrainian military reports plane down - weather slows down Russian air force

Update from April 13, 1:05 p.m .:

The Ukrainian military apparently managed to shoot down a Russian Su-25 ground attack aircraft on Wednesday.

This was announced by the Ukrainian general staff on Facebook.

However, as expected, the activities of the Russian Air Forces have declined.

The developments can be attributed to the poor weather conditions in eastern Ukraine, where continuous heavy rain has been forecast for the coming days.

The weather could not only prevent the Russian fighter jets from doing their missions, but also delay the major offensive by Russia* expected in the coming days.

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Tuesday of the inclement weather front: "Even the weather is for us."*

Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol are said to have surrendered: Russia reported over 1,000 prisoners of war

Update from April 13, 11:25 a.m .:

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers laid down their arms in the contested port city of Mariupol and surrendered to the Russian troops.

The spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, said in Moscow on Wednesday that there were 1,026 members of the 36th Marines Brigade.

The affected soldiers are now in Russian captivity.

According to Russian information, 162 officers and 47 women are among them.

The fighters are said to have surrendered to Russian troops and the pro-Russian separatists in battles for a large metalworking company.

The reports have not yet been confirmed or denied by the Ukrainian leadership.

The situation in the strategically important port city of Mariupol had become increasingly critical in recent weeks.

Recently, it was reported that the Ukrainian defenders were running out of ammunition and food supplies.

However, the current reports on the fighting in Mariupol cannot be independently verified.

Airstrikes on Mariupol continue: Russian military bombs entrenched Ukrainian soldiers

First report from April 13, 10:00 a.m.:

The battles for the already badly damaged port city of Mariupol on the Azov Sea continue into the night from Tuesday to Wednesday.

As reported by the Ukrainian military, the Russian air force again carried out massive air raids during the night.

The target of the attacks is said to have been the strategically important port and the Azowstal steelworks, where Ukrainian troops were entrenched.

According to current reports, the strategically important port city is about to fall*.

Artillery shelling was also reported from the city of Kharkiv, near the northern border with Russia, during the night.

The information on the combat operations cannot currently be independently verified.

Ukrainian civilians cross a street next to a Russian soldier in the devastated downtown of Mariupol on the Azov Sea.

© Alexander NEMENOV/AFP

No escape corridors from Mariupol: ceasefire not observed - Ukrainian government blames Russian military

For the time being, there will be no way for the civilians still trapped in the contested cities to leave the cities.

According to the government, there will be no escape corridors set up in the west of the country on Wednesday.

The government in Kyiv justified this with the ongoing resistance of the Russian troops.

Russian troops blocked the evacuation buses in the Zaporizhia region, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram.

The ceasefire is not being observed in the Luhansk region.

It was too dangerous to set up escape corridors, Wereshchuk continued.

Large numbers of civilians have managed to flee the embattled towns in eastern Ukraine in recent days.

According to Wereshchuk, on Tuesday alone 2,671 fled from the particularly hard-fought port city of Mariupol, the Zaporizhia region and the Luhansk region.

According to the Donetsk Oblast regional administration, the number of victims in Mariupol alone is estimated at over 20,000.

However, this information is an estimate and cannot be independently verified.

Major offensive by Russian troops is imminent: Putin reaffirms claims to ownership of eastern Ukraine

The Ukrainian leadership and various Western military experts are expecting a major offensive by the Russian military in the coming weeks, which will primarily affect eastern Ukraine.

In a speech on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin* reaffirmed his claims to ownership of large parts of Ukraine.

Russia, Belarus and Ukraine would form a "triune nation" and the war in Ukraine was also directed against the further fight against National Socialism.

Putin also describes the Western sanctions against Russia as an “economic blitzkrieg”.