Ukraine war: Putin fails to negotiate humanitarian corridor from Azov steel mill

Created: 04/29/2022, 07:08

By: Helena Gries, Andreas Schmid, Marvin Ziegele, Lucas Maier

The situation in Ukraine is getting worse, both militarily and diplomatically.

Sanctions should help decide the Ukraine war.

The news ticker.

• Prisoner exchange:

  Kiev reports prisoner exchange with Russia in the Ukraine conflict.

• Sanctions do not end with a ceasefire:

  Olaf Scholz describes the sanctions as "very effective".

• All diplomatic events in the Ukraine war in our news ticker.

Update from Friday, April 29, 7:07 a.m .:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj welcomed the new financial support from the USA in the war against Russia as an "important step".

In his daily video message, Zelenskyy thanked both US President Joe Biden and the American people for the help that Congress will "hopefully quickly" support.

Biden previously announced in Washington that he would ask Congress to approve an additional $33 billion (€31.4 billion) for Ukraine.

20 billion of that should be used for military aid, about 8.5 billion for economic aid.

"We have to do this," Biden said at the White House.

Ukraine war: Putin fails to negotiate humanitarian corridor from Azov steel mill

+++ 10:25 p.m .:

Russia has rejected the call for negotiations about a corridor for all those trapped in the steelworks.

"President (Vladimir Putin) has said it very clearly: civilians can go in any direction, the military must come out and lay down their arms," ​​Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the state news agency TASS on Thursday.

They are guaranteed life and medical care.

But nothing more.

Moscow does not want to grant them a free withdrawal.  

Ukraine war: Guterres criticizes Selenskyj the UN - "War not prevented"

+++ 10:00 p.m .:

Overshadowed by suspected rocket attacks on Kiev, UN Secretary-General António Guterres met President Volodymyr Zelenskyj in the Ukrainian capital.

After his visit to Moscow, Guterres discussed with the head of government the formation of a refugee corridor for the port city of Mariupol, which had been badly damaged after weeks of fighting.

"Mariupol is a crisis within a crisis, thousands of civilians need life-saving assistance," Guterres said at a news conference after the meeting in Kyiv on Thursday.

At the press conference with Zelensky, Guterres also criticized the UN Security Council for not doing everything in its power to prevent the war.

"This is a source of great disappointment, frustration and anger," he said.

But the UN staff would do anything to help the people in Ukraine.

Ukraine war: Guterres criticizes UN Security Council

Selenskyj was optimistic after the conversation.

According to the Ukrainian news agency Unian, he now believes that the siege of the Azovstal steelworks can be ended and a "successful result" can be achieved in Mariupol.

"We expect a humane attitude towards these people from the Russian Federation."

The Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol is besieged by the Russian army.

© dpa/Planet Labs PBC

Ukraine war: Selenskyj wants to negotiate with Russia about trapped Azov factory

+++ 8.35 p.m .:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj has agreed to immediately negotiate the evacuation of the people trapped in the Mariupol steelworks and to implement the results of the negotiations just as quickly.

"We expect a humane attitude towards these people from the Russian Federation," he said after a meeting with UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday.

According to Ukrainian sources, up to 1,000 civilians are locked up in the Azovstal steelworks in addition to soldiers and fighters from the nationalist Azov regiment. 

+++ 19:05:

According to information from Kiev, 45 Ukrainians were released in the course of a prisoner exchange with Russia.

13 officers, 20 soldiers and 12 civilians who were released from Russian captivity, said Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Vereshchuk on the Telegram Internet service on Thursday.

Five of the soldiers were injured.

Since the start of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24, both sides have exchanged prisoners several times.

Ukraine war: Biden wants to support Ukraine against Russia with 33 billion

+++ 5.25 p.m .:

US President Joe Biden has requested 33 billion dollars (around 31 billion euros) from Congress to further support Ukraine in the war against Russia.

Of that, $20 billion is earmarked for military and security aid to Ukraine, a US official said in Washington on Thursday.

"That means arms and ammunition going to the Ukrainian people."

According to the government representative, 8.5 billion dollars in economic aid are also planned for the government in Kyiv.

Three billion dollars are to be made available for humanitarian aid.

Some of the funds are also to be used to cushion the economic impact of the Ukraine war on the United States and other countries.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a press conference in Kyiv.

© GENYA SAVILOV/AFP

Ukraine war: Germany probably wants sanctions against Sberbank

+++ 5 p.m .:

As the news portal Bloomberg reports, Germany is “ready to consider” including Sberbank in the next package of EU sanctions.

Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg writes that Germany was “(earlier) concerned that sanctioning Sberbank would disrupt energy-related transactions.”

This attitude seems to be under discussion.

Ukraine war: Putin sees peace talks in "dead end" - Guterres visits Butscha

+++ 2 p.m .:

During his trip to Japan, Chancellor Olaf Scholz underpinned the effectiveness of the sanctions imposed on Russia: “They are very effective,” he said at the start of a conversation with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo.

Russia realizes that this means considerable damage to its own development opportunities.

Scholz linked the lifting of sanctions to a withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.

The sanctions will be used to end the war and withdraw Russian troops "so that Ukraine can develop its own sovereignty again".

Scholz is suggesting that Western sanctions will not end if Russia offers a ceasefire based on territorial gains.

+++ 1:00 p.m .:

After his visit to the destroyed Borodjanka, UN Secretary-General Guterres arrived in Butscha near the capital Kiev.

There, too, Russia is accused of war crimes by Ukraine.

"I imagine my family in one of these houses that are now destroyed and black," Guterres said in Borodyanka.

"And I see my granddaughters running away in a panic." War is unacceptable in the 21st century, he added.

A meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is planned for the afternoon.

Antonio Guterres (M), Secretary-General of the United Nations, during his visit to Borodyanka, near Kyiv, amid the Ukraine war.

© Efrem Lukatsky/AP/dpa

Ukraine war: Putin calls Bucha's photos fake

+++ 10.30 a.m .:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that the peace talks with Ukraine have reached a “dead end”.

Putin has once again described the images of the massacre of Ukrainian civilians in the Kiev suburb of Bucha, which have sparked international outrage, as "fake," several media outlets have unanimously reported.

Ukraine war: Britain wants to oust Russia 'from all of Ukraine'

Meanwhile, Britain wants to drive Russian troops out of Ukraine entirely.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: "We will act faster and go further to oust Russia from all of Ukraine".

According to commentators, this not only refers to the regions attacked since the end of February, but also to the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014 and parts of the long-fought Donbass region.

Truss has also called on the West to step up its efforts and speak out clearly in favor of continued deliveries of heavy weapons, including aircraft.

A victory for Ukraine in this war is a "strategic imperative" for the West.

Ukraine war: Russia directs allegations at the USA

Update from Thursday, April 28, 6:21 a.m .:

Russia has protested against the transfer of Russian-made helicopters to Ukraine by the United States.

The 2011 contract stipulates that the helicopters are intended for Afghanistan and can only be passed on to other countries with Russian approval, said the FSWTS authority, which is responsible for military-technical cooperation.

A delivery to the Ukraine is illegal and a gross breach of contract.

Before the start of the Russian war of aggression at the end of February, the United States had given Ukraine five of the Mi-17 helicopters originally intended for Afghanistan.

In mid-April, Washington announced that it would send eleven more helicopters to Kyiv.

The USA had initially purchased the Russian-built machines for the Afghan armed forces, but the Taliban took over power and did not hand them over.

Ukraine war: António Guterres wants to speak to Volodymyr Zelenskyj

+++ 6.30 p.m

.: UN Secretary General António Guterres has arrived in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, according to the United Nations.

There he will meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday (April 28, 2022).

A visit to an as yet unknown location outside of the capital is also planned.

As in the previous visit to Moscow, one of the main topics is likely to be the situation in the southeastern Ukrainian port of Mariupol, where Ukrainian troops and civilians are surrounded by the Russian army.

The UN Secretary-General had visited Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Russia and then traveled by train from Poland to Kyiv.

+++ 4.15 p.m .:

In response to criticism of German support for Ukraine, Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) gave the Bundestag details of the weapons delivered so far.

In the government questioning in the plenum on Wednesday, Baerbock read out a list of armaments material that had already arrived in Ukraine from Germany.

According to Baerbock, the following deliveries from Germany have already arrived in the Ukraine: several thousand Panzerfausts, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Strela rocket launchers, ammunition in the tens of millions, bunker grenades, machine guns, anti-tank mines, hand grenades in six figures and explosive charges.

War in Ukraine: Steinmeier describes the gas stop as blackmail

+++ 3.45 p.m .:

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier now also describes the Russian stop on gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria as an “attempt at blackmail”.

"You have to defend yourself against this process," Steinmeier said in a press conference with Slovakian President Zuzana Caputova on Wednesday.

"I'm quite sure that German politicians and the companies involved will raise this in the appropriate form in Russia," Steinmeier continued.

Ukraine-News: Prisoner exchange between Russia and USA

+++ 3.15 p.m .:

The USA and Russia exchanged two prisoners in the middle of the Ukraine war.

Russia released former US soldier Trevor Reed, who was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2019 for attacking police officers, US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday.

In return, the Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for drug smuggling, will be released, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

"We welcome Trevor Reed back home and celebrate his return to his family who have missed him dearly," Biden said.

At the same time, the US President emphasized: "The negotiations that allowed us to bring Trevor home required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly."

War in Ukraine: Russia imposes sanctions on 287 British MPs

+++ 2.30 p.m

.: Russia has banned entry for 287 British MPs because of their support for Ukraine.

This is the reaction to British punitive measures against 386 Russian parliamentarians, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow announced on Wednesday.

Of the affected MPs in London's House of Commons, 213 belong to the ruling Conservatives, 74 are Labor MPs.

Other parties were not affected.

+++ 1.45 p.m .:

After Russian gas deliveries to Bulgaria and Poland were stopped, the heads of government of both countries accused Moscow of “blackmail”.

The move by Russian energy giant Gazprom "is a gross violation of the treaty and blackmail," said Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov.

His Polish colleague Mateusz Morawiecki said that his country would not give in to "this blackmail" thanks to its sufficient gas reserves.

Poland "will not need any Russian gas at all from the autumn," he said.

A delivery stop is not only “a direct attack” on Poland, but also an attack on “the energy security of all of Europe”.

Ukraine-News: Steinmeier visits NATO's eastern flank in Slovakia

+++ 12.00 p.m .:

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has arrived in Slovakia for a one-day visit.

He was welcomed by Slovak President Zuzana Caputova in the city of Kosice in the east of the country on Wednesday afternoon.

The focus of their talks is the Ukraine war.

Slovakia shares a nearly 100-kilometer border with Ukraine and fears for its own security.

With the trip, Steinmeier is continuing his visits to NATO's eastern flank.

In the past few weeks he has already been to Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

He is planning a visit to Romania next week.

The Federal President wants to signal to the eastern NATO partners, who are in close proximity to Ukraine and Russia, that they can rely on Germany as an ally, the Office of the Federal President said.

Update from Wednesday, April 27, 6:33 a.m .:

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier travels to Slovakia on Wednesday for a one-day visit.

According to the Office of the Federal President, the focus is on the Ukraine war.

A meeting with Slovakian President Zuzana Caputova is planned in the eastern city of Kosice, followed by a press conference (around 1:30 p.m.).

The two heads of state then want to exchange views with representatives of humanitarian aid organizations on the reception of Ukrainian refugees in Slovakia.

(Helena Gries with dpa)

Meanwhile, Russia continues to suffer heavy casualties in the Ukraine war.

Again the defenders succeed in killing two generals from Russia.