Day 434 since the beginning of the war: Russia kills 19 people in attacks on the Kherson region. Zelenskyy denies responsibility for the drone attack in Moscow. All information in the blog.
The most important things at a glance
Russian media: Drone attack on refinery near Crimea
3.05 a.m.: The Ilsky oil refinery (refinery) in the Krasnodar Territory apparently caught fire. According to the emergency services, the fire was caused by a crash of the drone. “Due to an attack by an unknown drone, the tank of the Ilsky oil refinery in the Ilsky urban settlement of the Seversky district is on fire,” the Russian news agency TASS said. Fire brigades are on site. On Friday night, a fuel depot caught fire in the same region near the village of Volna. According to the TASS, it was also caused by a drone.
Historian sees Ukraine as winner
1.50 p.m.: The Eastern Europe expert and historian Serhii Plokhy already sees Ukraine as the victor in the Russian war of aggression, regardless of the outcome of the planned major offensive. “From a historical point of view, Ukraine has already won because it survived the attack and is fighting for its existence,” said the director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University (HURI) of the German Press Agency. The historian is presenting his book “The Attack. Russia’s War Against Ukraine and Its Consequences for the World” (Hoffmann and Campe) in Berlin, which will be published this Thursday.
At the beginning of the war on February 24, 2022, when Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin expected the country to be conquered within a few days, it was not clear whether the country would survive, Plokhy said. However, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has faced the fight for democracy and independence. The 65-year-old expert believes it is possible that Ukraine, which is striving to join the EU and NATO, could end up being a divided country, like Germany after the Second World War.
Finnish newspaper bypasses Russian censorship with online game
10:09 p.m.: A Finnish newspaper has hidden information and reports on the war in Ukraine in the online game Counter-Strike, popular worldwide. As the newspaper “Helsingin Sanomat” announced on Wednesday, it had found a way to circumvent media censorship in Russia. Around four million people play the popular computer game in Russia.
“While Helsingin Sanomat and other foreign independent media outlets are blocked in Russia, online gaming is not banned for the time being,” said Antero Mukka, editor-in-chief of the AFP news agency newspaper. Players of the so-called first-person shooter game can create custom maps that anyone can download and use. “So we built a Slavic town called Wojna, which means war in Russian,” Mukka said.
In the basement of one of the city’s buildings, the technicians of “Helsingin Sanomat” hid a room where players can find reports in Russian made by the newspaper’s war correspondents in Ukraine. They covered the walls of the digital space with articles and photos documenting events such as the massacres in the Ukrainian cities of Bucha and Irpin. It is “information that is not available in the Russian state’s propaganda apparatus,” said Mukka. Since its release on Monday, the map has been downloaded more than two thousand times.
Selenskyj on the way to the Netherlands – speech planned in The Hague
9:35 p.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will deliver a speech in the city of The Hague on Thursday, the Dutch government has announced. An invitation from the State Department said the speech was titled “No Peace Without Justice for Ukraine.”
According to media reports, Selenskyj is already on his way to the Netherlands. The ANP news agency and the NOS TV station reported that he flew out of Helsinki on the Dutch government plane on Wednesday evening.
It is Zelenskyi’s first visit to the Netherlands and it was not previously announced. The Netherlands has so far provided Ukraine with military aid of around 1.2 billion euros for its defense against Russia’s war of aggression.
Nordic countries back Ukraine’s NATO entry
9:05 p.m.: For the goal of one day becoming a member of the EU and NATO, Ukraine is once again backed by the Nordic countries. The heads of state and government of Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland back this plan in a joint declaration with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. They also state: “The Nordic countries will continue their political, financial, humanitarian and military support as long as it is necessary.”
