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In front of the rubble of a house: a man and a dog in Mariupol
Photo: ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO / REUTERS
This article will be continuously updated.
Zelenskyj considers Russia's strategic defeat obvious
6 a.m.:
Almost two and a half months after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, the strategic defeat of Russia is "obvious" according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Moscow's defeat was "obvious to everyone in the world and also to those who still communicate with them (the Russians)," said Zelenskyy in his daily video message on Thursday evening.
Only Russia does not have the courage to admit defeat.
"They are cowards trying to hide this truth behind new rocket, air and artillery attacks."
The Ukrainian leader has criticized the recent Russian attacks, which hit a school in Chernihiv in the north of the country.
"Of course, the Russian state is in a state where any education only hinders it," Zelenskyj said.
Russian commanders who gave such orders to shell educational institutions were "simply sick - incurable."
In addition, 570 health facilities in Ukraine have been destroyed by Russian attacks since the beginning of the war, including 101 hospitals.
"What's the point?" Zelenskyy asked.
"That's nonsense, that's barbarism." For him, this is a sign of the self-destruction of Russia, which the world once viewed as a cultural nation.
Satellite images show hit Russian supply ship
5:45 a.m .:
Satellite images from the US company Maxar show a Russian Serna-class supply ship in the Black Sea that was probably hit by a Ukrainian missile attack.
According to the company, the damaged landing ship is not far from Snake Island near Ukraine's sea border with Romania.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian armed forces for the Odessa military district had already announced that the Russian ship "Vsevolod Bobrov" had been hit and set on fire by Ukrainian forces.
The information could not initially be confirmed by an independent party.
Britain touts to expand aid to Ukraine at G7 meeting
5.30 a.m .:
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss spoke out in favor of additional efforts to support Ukraine at the G7 meeting on the Baltic Sea coast.
"In order to help Ukraine, we must go even further and faster," she said on Thursday evening at the deliberations of the group of leading democratic industrialized nations.
This also means that Ukraine must be shown a clear path to procuring NATO-standard military equipment.
So far, the country attacked by Russia has mainly used equipment that was developed in the former Soviet Union.
This also makes it difficult for the West to provide supplies of weapons and ammunition.
During talks in Berlin on Thursday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called for the delivery of Western fighter jets and missile defense systems to defend his country against Russia.
At the invitation of Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens), Kuleba is to take part in the G7 meeting on the Baltic Sea this Friday - as will Moldova's Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu.
Popescu is there because there are fears that Ukraine's small neighboring republic could be the next target of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The United States assumes that tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been abducted into Russian territory
5:04 a.m .:
The United States assumes that Russia has forcibly abducted tens of thousands of Ukrainians since the beginning of its war of aggression.
From the besieged port city of Mariupol alone, thousands were taken to Russia or Russian-controlled areas, said US Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Michael Carpenter, on Thursday in Vienna.
The Ukrainian government estimates the number of kidnapped Ukrainians at almost 1.2 million.
According to the ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova, at least 200,000 children are among them.
According to Kiev, Moscow also operates so-called filtration camps in which arrested Ukrainians are interrogated.
Eyewitnesses reported "brutal interrogations" in those camps, Carpenter said.
This and the forced deportations would amount to war crimes.
"We must not allow this evil," he said.
The UN Human Rights Council voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to launch an investigation into alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
Heil warns of economic crisis
3:15 a.m.:
Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) warns of a new economic crisis and stagflation in Germany due to a possible gas embargo.
"A unilateral gas embargo by Germany against Russia, for example, would plunge us into a double crisis, then we would be in stagflation, i.e. in an economic crisis and prices rising even more," Heil told the "Rheinische Post" according to a preliminary report.
At the moment you can rely on economic growth and the stable job market, but if the situation escalates, you will act decisively.
In the event of persistently high inflation, a relief package worth 30 billion euros should help to cushion social hardship, according to the minister.
The state cannot compensate for all losses, but rather it is about
To support people with normal and low incomes.
"Top earners will not receive any state support," emphasized the Minister of Labor.
Relatives fight to save soldiers
02.20 a.m .:
The relatives of the Ukrainian fighters in the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol continue to ask the government in Kiev to save the soldiers.
"We have started a new round of negotiations on a timetable for an evacuation operation and we will start with the seriously injured," Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told the 1+1 television channel.
We work closely with the Red Cross and the United Nations.
"We want a document to be signed that will specify how an evacuation from Azovstal will take place," she says, adding that Turkey has offered to act as a mediator in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
Booby trap discovered in piano in Bucha
1:01 a.m .:
With a lot of luck, a ten-year-old girl in the Kiev suburb of Bucha survived a deadly legacy left by Russian occupying forces, according to media reports.
A rifle grenade hidden in her piano "miraculously didn't work," reported Anton Gerashchenko, a consultant in the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior, on Thursday evening.
The Russian occupiers had hidden the grenade in the hammer mechanism of the piano in an apartment.
When the family returned from Bucha after the Russians had withdrawn, the deadly explosive device was discovered.
"Thanks to the mother's attention, no one was harmed, the grenade was defused by specialists."
Bucha was the scene of a series of atrocities attributed to Russian troops.
Dozens of residents had been killed there, and many of the corpses still had their hands tied behind their backs.
Mines and hidden explosive devices are often used to secure the retreat of your own troops and to prevent the enemy from advancing quickly.
jok/mfh/AFP/dpa/Reuters