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A Russian soldier controls the entrance to the Ilyich Steelworks in Mariupol
Photo: SERGEI ILNITSKY / EPA
What has happened in the past few hours
According to Kiev sources, Russian troops
fired on the
north-eastern Ukrainian regions
of Sumy and Chernihiv
from Russian territory
.
The Ukrainian Border Guard reported seven
attacks using heavy machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, tube and rocket artillery
.
The village of Shostka near the border in the Sumy region was shelled with mortars for more than an hour.
But there were no victims.
The reports are not yet independently verifiable.
That's what Ukraine says
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
has pledged special
state aid
to all
victims of the Russian occupation
in his country
.
He signed a law to that effect, he said in his evening video address.
He did not give details.
The aid also applies to "all prisoners of the Kremlin," as he put it, in Crimea or in the Russian-occupied part of the Donbass.
Zelenskyj recalled May 18, 1944, an important day of remembrance in Ukraine.
At that time, the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin had the Crimean Tatars deported because of alleged collaboration with the German occupation.
When Russia annexed it in 2014, a second wave had “everything free on the Crimean peninsula”.
At the same time Zelenskyi prepared the population for a
longer war
.
But he also gave the people in the
Russian-occupied areas
in the south hope that Ukraine would
liberate
them.
"Kherson, Melitopol, Berdyansk, Enerhodar, Mariupol and all our cities and towns that are under occupation, under temporary occupation, should know that Ukraine will return," he said.
How long this will take depends on the situation on the battlefield.
'We'll try as soon as possible.
We are obliged to expel the occupiers and to guarantee real security to Ukraine,” he said in Kyiv.
In this context he also put the announced
extension of martial law
and general mobilization by a further 90 days until August 23.
"Our army and everyone defending the state must have all the legal means to act calmly."
Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Oleksiy Arestovych has justified the planned extension of martial law.
The war that Russia started will last until the fall, Arestovych said on Ukrainian television on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian population is only being given false hope if martial law is only ever extended by 30 days, as has been the case up to now.
Honest communication
with society is necessary
in war .
The
Ukrainian Ambassador Andriy Melnyk
believes that his country could
join NATO
just as quickly as that of Finland and Sweden.
“One thing is clear: we want to join NATO quickly.
This can happen just as quickly as in the case of Sweden or Finland.
It would only take a purely political decision to quickly integrate Ukraine into the alliance," Melnyk told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
“If Ukraine were in the alliance, the risk of a nuclear war would decrease.
Then Putin would know: If Ukraine were attacked with nuclear weapons, he would have to reckon with a nuclear retaliation.
That would stop him."
International reactions
Justin Trudeau
has condemned the Russian government's order to
close the Moscow offices of Canadian broadcaster CBC
.
Canada's Prime Minister wrote on Twitter that Putin's decision to expel Canadian media from Moscow was
"unacceptable"
.
Journalists must be able to work “free from censorship, intimidation and interference”.
The Russian Foreign Ministry had previously announced the closure of the Moscow offices of the Canadian broadcaster CBC.
The ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was a "retaliatory measure in connection with Canada's actions," referring to the broadcast ban imposed on the Russian state broadcaster RT in Canada in March.
After the
US
announced plans to reopen its embassy in Kiev, the Senate confirmed career diplomat
Bridget Brink
as
ambassador to Ukraine
.
The Chamber of Congress approved the personnel in Washington.
The State Department had previously announced that the US embassy in the Ukrainian capital, which was closed due to the Russian war of aggression, will resume operations.
The US diplomats left their embassy in Kyiv two weeks before the war broke out.
They went to Poland, sometimes with a stop in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
food crisis
Federal Foreign Minister
Annalena Baerbock (Greens)
has warned of an unprecedented global
hunger crisis
as a result of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
Russia is not only waging a "brutal war" with bombs, missiles and tanks, but also a "silent attack" against grain silos and fields in Ukraine, the politician said on Wednesday before an international meeting on global food security in New York.
In addition, Russia is blocking important grain deliveries in Ukrainian ports.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres
has increased the pressure on Russia in this context.
"Russia must allow the safe
export of grain stored in Ukrainian ports
," he said at a US-hosted foreign ministers' meeting at the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.
It is necessary to bring the extremely important grain producer Ukraine back to the world market - as well as food and fertilizers produced by Russia and Belarus.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
has called for a global effort in view of the looming hunger crisis.
"It's a crisis that requires a
global response
," Blinken said at a US-hosted meeting of foreign ministers at the United Nations.
If you want to save lives, everyone has to be willing to take additional risks.
"We believe that we must help poor and vulnerable populations endure the colossal effects of this crisis." A major problem is the lack of fertilizers, according to Blinken.
Incentives would have to be created for countries to produce more of it.
What is happening today
The
finance ministers and central bank governors
of the seven leading industrial nations (
G7
) will discuss
Ukraine's financing
on Thursday and Friday in Bonn and Koenigswinter .
The state attacked by Russia needs around 15 billion euros to remain liquid over the next three months.
The US is expected to contribute around half of the total.
Chancellor
Olaf Scholz
travels to
The Hague
.
It is his
first visit
to the neighboring country.
Among other things, it should be about support for Ukraine.
Germany and the Netherlands want to jointly send
heavy artillery pieces
of the Panzerhaubitze 2000 type to the country.
US President
Joe Biden
receives the
Swedish Prime Minister
and the
Finnish President
in Washington .
Topic are the
NATO applications
of the two countries.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
meets
Denmark
's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
Stoltenberg also wants to meet Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod and Defense Minister Morten Bødskov during his visit to Copenhagen.
Among other things, the talks will deal with NATO's reaction to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
The
government statement by Chancellor Olaf Scholz
(SPD) on the upcoming EU summit begins at 9 a.m. in the Bundestag.
Also voted on numerous laws, including
enforcement of sanctions against Russia.
bbr/dpa/Reuters/AFP
