Ukraine war in Newsblog | Fuel depot in Crimea on fire

Day 429 since the beginning of the war: Ukraine asks for German weapons for the planned counter-offensive. An agreement has been reached in the EU dispute over Ukrainian grain. All information in the blog.

12:22 p.m.: According to British intelligence services, behind the recent Russian missile attacks against Ukraine lies a new strategy. It is unlikely that Russia wanted to destroy infrastructure with the wave of attacks on Friday morning, in which at least 25 people were killed, as previously announced by the Ministry of Defense in London on Saturday.

There is a realistic possibility that Russia tried to attack Ukrainian reserve units as well as military supplies recently delivered to Ukraine. Russia is pursuing an “inefficient targeting process” and accepting civilian casualties in favor of an assumed military necessity.

The April 28 attack was the largest use of cruise missiles since early March, it said. “The attacks indicate a shift away from Russia’s use of long-range strikes.” The Ministry of Defense in London has been publishing daily information on the course of the war since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, citing intelligence information. Moscow accuses London of a disinformation campaign.

11.07 a.m.: Moscow citizens laid flowers at a memorial after the Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Uman that killed at least 25 civilians. “Police officers appeared at the Lesya Ukrainka monument in Moscow, where flowers were brought to commemorate the dead Ukrainians,” reported the independent Internet portal Astra. The police officers later cleared the flowers and asked the mourners to “get away to Ukraine,” the portal reported, citing eyewitnesses.

In the fall, after the rocket attack on a residential building in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, which killed more than 40 people, the monument to the Ukrainian poet Lesja Ukrainka in Moscow became a memorial to the victims of the war. In the end, the police patrolled there to prevent the laying of flowers and wreaths.

According to Astra, there were also spontaneous expressions of mourning in the provincial town of Yoshkar-Ola on the Volga. There, flowers appeared at the monument to the victims of political repression. The current trigger was a Russian rocket attack on the city of Uman on Friday night.

9.07 a.m: At least 26 people were killed in the first major wave of Russian attacks in Ukraine in weeks. In his video speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj again demanded more weapons from the West in order to be better able to protect against Russian attacks. In addition, Selenskyj criticized the EU neighbors. The blockade of Ukrainian agricultural products by neighboring European countries sends a dangerous signal of crumbling solidarity. You can read more about the current situation and what happened that night here.

5.21 am: A fuel tank caught fire in the port city of Sevastopol on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia – presumably as a result of a drone attack. Governor Mikhail Rasvozhayev wrote this on Telegram on Saturday, according to the Russian state news agency Tass. It burns an area of ​​1,000 square meters. Civil institutions are not threatened. There was initially no information about injuries.

18 fire engines are currently in use. Because of the size of the fire, it could take many hours to contain the fire, Rasvoschajew later wrote. “The fire does not affect the fuel supply of Sevastopol. These reserves were not used for deliveries to the gas stations.” Rasvozhayev’s statement suggests that it is a fuel depot used by the military.

Ukraine has announced several times that it will free Crimea, which was annexed in 2014, from Russian occupation. In various parts of the peninsula, in the course of Russia’s war of aggression against the neighboring country, there are incidents with drones, some with serious damage, injuries and deaths. Russia feels compelled to significantly increase the military effort to defend Crimea.