Russia continues attacks on Ukrainian cities.
Economics Minister Habeck talks about sanctions.
The news ticker on the Ukraine war.
Russian-occupied areas
: Kiev calls on Ukrainians to flee
Delicate Russia plan
: New mercenary troops are to overthrow Prigozhin
Battle for Bachmut:
Wagner announces conquest – Kiev contradicts
Here you can read current developments from the Ukraine conflict.
The processed information on the losses of the armies involved in the Ukraine war comes partly from the warring parties from Russia or Ukraine.
They can therefore not be independently checked in part.
Update from April 4, 9.50 a.m .
: Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) is pushing for stricter enforcement of the economic punitive measures against Russia because of its war of aggression against Ukraine.
"We have very verifiable data that these sanctions are being circumvented," said Habeck, who had visited Ukraine in the past few days, on Deutschlandfunk on Wednesday.
He also advocated adding uranium deliveries from Russia to the sanctions list.
Habeck rejected representations that the sanctions against Russia would not work.
"The Russian economy is faltering," said the minister, particularly with regard to areas "where high technology is being used."
This will continue to intensify.
One problem, however, is that “goods that have already been sanctioned are exported via third countries and then get to Russia.
A stop must be put in place, ”demanded Habeck.
"It's not a trivial offense."
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Robert Habeck during his visit to Kiev.
© Christoph Soeder/dpa
Ukraine War: Drone crashed near Zaporizhia nuclear power plant
Update from April 4, 8:10 a.m .
: A Ukrainian drone crashed near the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, as the Russian news agency
RIA
reported on Wednesday, citing a Russian officer.
The incident happened while the head of the international nuclear regulatory agency was expected to hold talks on the safety of the facility in Russia.
Rafael Grossi was due to travel to Russia's Kaliningrad region on Wednesday, a week after visiting the Zaporizhia facility in southern Ukraine, which is controlled by Russian forces.
According to the Russian military officer quoted by
RIA
, a Polish-made drone weighing more than 2 kg had crashed near the facility.
Grossi has pushed for a demilitarized zone around Europe's largest nuclear facility, which has come under repeated fire for which Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other.
Ukraine war: Kiev urges Ukrainians to flee
Update from April 4, 5.40 a.m .
: The Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Wereshchuk has indirectly asked Ukrainians in Russian-occupied areas to flee in view of the upcoming Ukrainian offensive.
"I advise Ukrainians in the temporarily occupied territories to either go to third countries or to prepare," she wrote on Telegram on Tuesday without further details.
"You know what to do, take care of yourself and your children."
A Year of Ukraine War: The Origins of the Conflict with Russia
A Year of Ukraine War: The Origins of the Conflict with Russia
"Occupier officials still have some time to get out of there," Vereshchuk continued.
Some of them are already packing their things.
"It would be nice if they took their collaborators with them."
War in Ukraine: Child rights commissioner wants to send abducted children back to Ukraine
Update from April 4, 8:40 p.m
.: The Russian child rights officer Maria Lwowa-Belowa, against whom there is an international arrest warrant, has agreed to send children abducted from Ukraine back to their homeland if their parents ask for it.
"Write to me (...) to find your child again," Lwowa-Belowa said at a press conference on Tuesday.
According to the Ukrainian government, as of February this year, more than 16,000 children have been kidnapped from Ukraine to Russia or Russian-controlled areas.
In mid-March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lvova-Belowa for kidnapping the children.
Lvova-Belova said Tuesday she had not been contacted "by any Ukrainian officials" about the children.
According to a report released by their agency on Tuesday, 16 children from nine families have been reunited with their loved ones in Ukraine or elsewhere since late March.
Lvowa-Belowa again declined to publish a full list of the abducted Ukrainian children.
Ukraine War: Attacks on both sides
Update from April 4, 7:42 p.m
.: Russian and Ukrainian warplanes attacked positions of the opposite side in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday.
In addition, gunners from both sides fought fierce artillery duels, the Ukrainian general staff announced in the evening without giving exact locations.
According to Ukrainian sources, two Russian electronic warfare systems were destroyed.
The information could not be independently verified.
New Russian artillery attacks were reported from the small town of Avdiivka in the Donbass.
Although the remaining residents had recently been called on several times to leave the town, according to Mayor Vitali Barabasch, civilians were still in the city.
"There are still eight children in the city, but you would have to be a passionate spy to find them," he was quoted as saying by Ukrajinska Pravda.
Avdiivka is located almost 15 kilometers north of the Russian- and insurgent-controlled city of Donetsk.
Billions in aid for Ukraine: Biden increases support
Update from April 4, 6:30 p.m .:
The United States has pledged new military aid to Ukraine in the amount of 2.6 billion dollars (around 2.4 billion euros).
The armaments package includes missiles for the Patriot air defense system, ammunition for the Himar multiple rocket launcher and artillery ammunition, as the US Department of Defense announced on Tuesday.
Also to be delivered are 400 grenade launchers, anti-tank missiles and radars for air surveillance.
Update from April 4, 4:55 p.m .:
According to their own statements, the Ukrainian military is observing increasing problems with supplies from the Russian opponent.
"The enemy does not have sufficient logistics in the four sectors where he is attacking," said one of the army spokesman, Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi, on Ukrainian television on Tuesday.
On the front sections in the Zaporizhia region in southern Ukraine, the Russian units are said to be receiving neither ammunition nor fuel.
Therefore, the Russians would not attack in this area.
According to Dmytrashkivsky, the reason for the problems was successful strikes by the Ukrainian army on depots in the occupied port of Mariupol in the Donetsk region.
"This makes the logistical supply of ammunition, fuel and the repair of technology more difficult," he said.
The information provided by the warring parties cannot be independently verified.
War in Ukraine: UN Human Rights Council calls for help for Ukrainian children
Update from April 4, 3:35 p.m .:
The United Nations Human Rights Council has asked Russia to end the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.
In a resolution in Geneva on Tuesday, the panel also demanded that international human rights experts and humanitarian workers be granted access to deported children.
The same applies to deported adult civilians, the text said.
The deportations were described therein as "war crimes".
The Ukrainian government accuses Moscow of illegally deporting thousands of children from occupied Ukraine to Russia.
Moscow denies war crimes and stresses that the children were taken to safety before the war.
War in Ukraine: Russia confirms that Belarusian fighter jets have been equipped with nuclear weapons
Update from April 4, 12:50 p.m .:
Russia has confirmed the delivery of a nuclear-capable Iskander-M missile complex to the neighboring Republic of Belarus.
"Some of the Belarusian aircraft of the fighter squadrons have been given the opportunity to strike enemy objects with nuclear weapons," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in Moscow on Tuesday.
He also confirmed the start of training of Belarusian soldiers on Russian nuclear missiles.
According to Shoigu, Iskander-M missiles can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads.
The minister described the rearmament of the allied neighboring country as a reaction to western arms deliveries to Ukraine.
Under these circumstances, Moscow strengthens the security of the union state between Russia and Belarus.
Shoigu was convinced that Russia would win the war of aggression against Ukraine, which Moscow only calls military special operations.
Ukraine war: Secret service report on sensitive Russia plan
Update from April 4, 2023, 10:30 a.m.:
According to information from the British secret service, Russia is planning to build up more mercenary troops in the war against Ukraine.
This was announced by the Ministry of Defense in London on Tuesday.
The aim is to replace Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner group in its "significant" role and to build a private army that can be better controlled.
Although no other Russian private army can currently match Wagner's size or fighting power, the Russian military leadership wants to build a private army.
The British Ministry of Defense also reports that Russia sees the use of private mercenaries in Ukraine as useful because they pay better and are more efficient than the regular army.
In addition, society is probably more willing to tolerate losses of private troops than dead and wounded regular soldiers of the Russian army.
Ukraine War: New data on Russian losses
Update April 4, 9:45 am:
These are the preliminary estimates of April 4 Russian combat losses, according to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
After that, within a day, Russia lost another 530 soldiers in combat.
The information cannot be independently verified.
These are the indicative estimates of Russia's combat losses as of April 4, according to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
pic.twitter.com/vPEFl5ldvU
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 4, 2023
Ukraine War: Ukraine repels drone strikes
Update from April 4, 7:55 a.m .:
According to the air force in Kiev, Ukraine fended off a good dozen Russian drone attacks on Tuesday night.
A total of 17 attacks with Iranian "Kamikaze drones" of the type Shahed-136 were registered, the armed forces in Kiev said.
14 drones were shot down.
There were reports of explosions from the Black Sea port city of Odessa, where authorities reported destruction of infrastructure, including at a company.
According to Ukrainian military information, a total of almost 70 attacks from the Russian side were repelled, including rocket strikes and artillery attacks.
One of the focal points is still the Bakhmut region in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, according to Kiev.
The fight for the strategically important city of Bakhmut continues.
The head of the Russian private army Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had previously declared that the administrative center and thus the city had been "legally" taken.
The leadership in Kiev had rejected that.
However, after analyzing images, experts from the US Institute for War Studies (ISW) supported Prigozhin's claim.
According to them, the Wagner troops continue to advance with the support of the regular units of the Russian armed forces in the center of Bakhmut.
Ukraine War: Ukraine reports Russian drone attack on Odessa
Update from April 4, 5.40 a.m .:
According to Ukrainian information, Russian drones attacked the strategically important Ukrainian port city of Odessa on the Black Sea on Tuesday night.
"The enemy has just attacked Odessa and the Odessa region with attack drones," local authorities said Tuesday morning on the online network Facebook.
"Damage" was recorded, it said in the statement, in which no further details were initially given.
Citing the head of the military administration of the Odessa region, Yuriy Kruk, the statement said that the Ukrainian air defense forces were deployed and warned of a possible second wave of attacks.
Further details were not initially announced.
Wagner announces the conquest of Bakhmut – Kyiv contradicts
According to their own statements, the Russian mercenary group Wagner has conquered the fiercely contested town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine “in the legal sense”.
Kiev, on the other hand, said Ukrainian forces would continue to hold Bakhmut, and Moscow reported no progress by Russian troops in fighting for the city.
Meanwhile, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) made a surprise trip to Kiev.
Poland claims to have delivered the first MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine.
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A Ukrainian soldier of the 28th Brigade fires on the front line during a skirmish with Russian troops near Bakhmut.
© LIBKOS/dpa
"In the legal sense, Bachmut has been taken," said Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin on Monday in the online service Telegram.
According to him, the Ukrainian army was "concentrating on the western areas" and the city's administrative building was under Russian control.
First report:
Kiev – Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin has posthumously awarded a medal to the Russian military blogger who was killed in a bomb attack in St. Petersburg.
The authorities now classify the assassination as an act of terrorism and have leveled blame in the direction of Kiev, but also against the opposition in their own country.
There are already plans in the Russian parliament to tighten the legislation further.
Ukraine War: Order for Nationalist Bloggers
According to a decree published by President Putin on Monday, blogger Maxim Fomin, known by the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarski, will be awarded the Order of Bravery for the courage and boldness he has shown in the fulfillment of his professional duties.
The far-right blogger was killed in a bomb explosion at a café in downtown St. Petersburg on Sunday, and more than 30 people were injured.
In the café, Fomin, who himself had called for the "total annihilation of Ukraine," wanted to talk about his experiences as a war reporter in the combat zone in eastern Ukraine.
The authorities have now upgraded the original charge of an assassination to terrorism and arrested a suspect.
According to media reports, the young woman was transferred to Moscow.
According to the Russian leadership, Ukrainian forces and the liberal opposition in Russia led by the imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny are responsible for the attack.
However, they deny their partnership - and rather see inner-Russian power struggles behind the assassination.
War in Ukraine: Russian parliament wants to further tighten legislation
According to official information, the Russian parliament, the State Duma, is planning further tightening of the law against the background of the attack.
"In the near future we will propose changes that will tighten the penalties for terrorism," Vasily Piskarev, head of the parliamentary security committee, wrote on his Telegram channel on Monday.
The changes not only affect terrorist attacks themselves, but also aid and terrorism propaganda, announced the influential deputy of the Kremlin party United Russia.
This is necessary to protect Russia from the growing threat from Ukraine, Piskarev claimed.
No one who carries out, plans or even justifies an attack may avoid "the severest penalties".
Both the Ukrainian leadership and the accused camp of the imprisoned Kremlin critic Navalny reject the allegations and spoke of a false flag action in which the perpetrators intentionally laid the wrong tracks.
In addition to power struggles, the creation of an alibi to justify further repression against government critics was mentioned as a possible motive.
After launching its war of aggression against Ukraine, the Kremlin has tightened numerous laws to quell opposition to its policies.
Zelenskyj speaks of a difficult journey and the reconstruction of Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not comment on the allegations from Moscow.
Instead, after a trip to northern Ukraine, he promised to rebuild the country devastated by the Russian attack.
"Ukraine will never be a land of ruins, no matter how much the Kremlin dreams of it," Zelenskyy said in his daily video address on Monday evening.
During his visit to the Chernihiv region, the Ukrainian President was accompanied by Germany's Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck.
According to Zelenskyj, the old town of Chernihiv should be given UNESCO World Heritage status.
Zelenskyj also reported on a visit to the village of Jahidne, where a year ago Russian occupying forces crammed 300 residents into the basement of a school that had been converted into a command post as a "living shield".
For weeks, people, including the elderly and children, had to endure in the confinement.
It was "one of the most emotionally difficult journeys" for him, said Selenskyj.
Those responsible would certainly be punished for war crimes.
"The Kremlin will not be able to coincide with its seat on the UN Security Council, nor with its gas pipelines or anything," he said.
Ukraine War: Ukraine has five air brigade interceptors at its disposal
Meanwhile, military aircraft from the West are supposed to contribute to Ukraine's victory.
The military described the handover of Soviet MiG-29 fighter jets from Poland as a historic step.
"We now have five brigades of interceptors: two Su-27 brigades and three MiG-29 brigades," Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said on Ukrainian television on Monday.
Nevertheless, Kiev needs Western-type aircraft because the MiG jets are outdated.
According to Ihnat, Russia could deploy at least five times the Ukrainian number of aircraft around Ukraine.
Before Poland, Slovakia had also delivered several MiGs to the neighboring country.
The governments in Bratislava and Warsaw promised Ukraine more than a dozen MiG-29s.
(With agency material)
List of rubrics: © Christoph Soeder/dpa
