“They are massing troops for an offensive, and shelling has increased over the past few days,” Luhansk Governor Serhiy Hajday said in a TV address on Saturday. 30 percent of the residents in towns and villages in Luhansk are still staying, although evacuation has already been called for. According to Russian information, 27,000 people left the contested regions for Russia on Saturday – the numbers cannot be independently verified.
After the withdrawal of Russian soldiers from the areas near the capital Kyiv, the region in eastern Ukraine seems to have become the focus of Russian attacks. “It will be a tough battle,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj on Saturday at a press conference with Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP). “We believe in this fight and our victory. We stand ready to fight simultaneously and look for diplomatic avenues to end this war.”
Attack in the east of the country
Air raid alarms sounded in numerous cities in eastern Ukraine. Russian troops are focused on taking over the towns of Rubishne, Nizhne, Popasna and Novobakhmutivka and gaining control of the city of Mariupol, UNIAN agency reported.
Apparently a nitric acid store near Rubischne was damaged by shelling. Hajdaj called for windows and doors to be kept closed. He spoke of Russian shelling. The pro-Russian separatists in Luhansk, on the other hand, blamed Ukrainian forces. Information on fighting and attacks by both sides cannot be independently verified.
Ukraine demands guns
At least 52 people were killed in the attack on Kramatorsk train station on Friday, according to Ukrainian sources. As a result, it was mainly women, children and the elderly who were fleeing the expected Russian offensive in the east.
Zelenskyy condemned the attack as another war crime. “Any delay in the delivery of arms to Ukraine, any refusal can only mean that the politicians concerned want to help the Russian leadership more than us.”
According to regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko, the station was hit by a Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile. They contained cluster munitions. This contains many smaller bombs and thus unfolds a very large radius of action. It is particularly dangerous because no distinction is made between civilian and military targets. Cluster munitions are banned under a 2008 convention. Russia has not signed this convention and has denied that such weapons are used in Ukraine.
Nehammer, Johnson and von der Leyen in Kyiv
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said on Saturday that arms deliveries are currently more important than a gas embargo once morest Russia. “Sanctions are important, but sanctions will not solve the problem of the battle in the Donbas.” It is clear: “The war will be decided in the battle for the Donbas.” During an unannounced visit to Kyiv, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised further arms deliveries.
Chancellor Nehammer in Ukraine
Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) met President Selenskyj on Saturday morning as part of a solidarity visit to Ukraine and then drove to the suburb of Bucha, where massacres of the civilian population are said to have taken place. The war is unacceptable, Nehammer assured Ukraine of help.
With Johnson, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Borrell and Chancellor Nehammer, four top Western politicians traveled to Kyiv within a few days. Von der Leyen met Selenskyj in Kyiv on Friday and got an idea of the situation in Bucha, where investigations into war crimes by the Russian army are currently underway. A day later, Nehammer and Johnson were also in Kyiv to speak with the Ukrainian president.
In a joint press conference with Zelenskyy, Nehammer said that the war that Russia had unleashed was “completely unacceptable” for Austria: “We are militarily neutral, but not when it comes to naming crimes and when it comes to going there, where injustice actually happens.”
