Ukraine war in Newsblog | Russian bomb accidentally hits own border town

Day 421 since the beginning of the war: The US supplies more rocket launchers and ammunition. Ukraine is training border troops to fight at the front. All information in the blog.

2.55 a.m.: According to a media report, the Bundeswehr wants to end its missions with the Patriot air defense system to protect the NATO partner states Poland and Slovakia this year.

“The missions must be constantly questioned and evaluated,” said the chair of the defense committee in the Bundestag, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), the newspapers of the Funke media group, according to a preliminary report. “If the situation allows it, it makes sense to change the situation. We need the flexibility because we don’t have infinite equipment.”

According to the preliminary report, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense said that the mission in Poland should end in June and the mission in Slovakia at the end of the year. The partner countries have been informed about the plans.

12:10 a.m.: Defense Minister Boris Pistorius assumes that a decision on Ukraine’s entry into NATO will only be made after Russia’s war of aggression has ended. “The door is open a crack, but this is not the time to decide now,” said the SPD politician on Thursday evening on the ZDF program “Maybrit Illner”. To do this, you have to “first fend off this conflict, this attack, and then in the new era you have to weigh up this step carefully”. It’s not a question “that you just meet out of solidarity” because the step has an effect. “You have to decide with a cool head and a warm heart and not the other way around.”

During a surprise visit to Kiev, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg promised Ukraine further support in its efforts to join the military alliance. So far, there is no precise timeline for Ukraine’s accession. At the beginning of April, Stoltenberg had indirectly ruled out joining in times of war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on NATO on Thursday evening to clear the way for his country’s admission to the western military alliance at its summit in July.

10:55 p.m.: A heavy explosion apparently accidentally triggered by a Russian fighter jet has shaken the city of Belgorod, not far from the border with Ukraine. “A huge crater with a radius of 20 meters has formed at the intersection of one of the main roads,” said the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, on Thursday evening. Two women were injured. The Defense Ministry in Moscow later admitted that a Russian fighter plane was the cause.

“On April 20, 2023, at around 10:15 p.m. Moscow time (9:15 p.m. CET), an air force Su-34 aircraft was unplannedly shot down over the city of Belgorod,” said a statement Authority. Investigations are therefore ongoing. Later there was talk of an “abnormal disposal of Luftwaffe ammunition”.

In the surrounding blocks of flats, windows were broken by the explosion, it said. According to Gladkow, residents were accommodated at the hotel for the night. It will be checked whether load-bearing walls in the buildings have been damaged. Several cars were badly damaged and power poles were cut.

Belgorod is close to Ukraine, against which Russia has been waging a war of aggression for the past 14 months. Attacks against Ukrainian territory are also launched from Belgorod. At the same time, the region itself has become increasingly the target of shelling in recent months.

5.45 p.m.: The CDU defense politician Roderich Kiesewetter has called on the countries that support Ukraine to change their strategy towards more arms deliveries. “So far, the arms delivery strategy has been suffering from the fact that too little and too slowly is being delivered,” he told the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND) on Thursday. Although Ukraine can defend itself, larger areas of liberation are not possible. The country is being “forced into a protracted war of attrition”.