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Zelensky announced that he will suspend gas and coal exports

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Tuesday in a recorded message that the country will suspend gas and coal exports to go through “the most difficult winter of all the years of independence”.

“In the current situation, due to Russia’s aggression, this will undoubtedly be the most difficult winter of all the years of independence. But, everything is fine. We must overcome it so that our people feel the normal work of the State,” said the president. -. Right now, we will not sell our gas and coal abroad. All national production will be used for the internal needs of our citizens“.

The decision, Zelenski added, was made following a meeting with members of the government in which representatives of state energy companies and regulators also participated.

In parallel, the head of state stressed that the government is doing “everything” to increase electricity export capacities. In this regard, he stressed that the incorporation of Ukraine into the European energy network not only ensures the additional flow of foreign exchange earnings, but also contributes to the stabilization of the energy situation in neighboring countries that have decided to reduce the consumption of Russian supplies.

Russia promised to ensure the safety of Ukrainian ships exporting grain

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov assured that Russia is “ready” to guarantee, in cooperation with Turkey, the safety of grain ships leaving Ukrainian ports..

“We are ready to ensure the safety of ships departing from Ukrainian ports… in cooperation with our Turkish colleagues,” Lavrov told a news conference with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.

Lavrov arrived in Ankara on Tuesday night to discuss the creation of maritime corridors to facilitate the export of grain.

At the request of the UN, Turkey offered its help to escort the ships. For Cavusoglu “the UN plan is reasonable and feasible.” “Ukraine and Russia should accept it,” he estimated.

Ukraine is the world’s fourth largest exporter of maize and was on the verge of becoming, before the war, the world’s third largest exporter of wheat: each month it exported 12 percent of the wheat, 15 percent of the maize and 50 percent of the world sunflower oil

The conflict that began on February 24 has triggered prices and has put several countries, especially in Africa and the Middle East, on the brink of famine.

The Turkish minister also said it would be “legitimate” to lift sanctions once morest Russian agricultural exports.. “If we are to open the Ukrainian international market, we think it is legitimate to lift obstacles to Russian exports,” Cavusoglu said.

The Russian Church changes its head of Foreign Affairs

The Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, the Church close to President Vladimir Putin commanded by Patriarch Kiril (or Cyril), changed its head of Foreign Affairs in a gesture read in the Vatican as a hardening of religious support for the war in Ukraine.

Through a formal statement, the Russian Church announced last night that the “chancellor”, Metropolitan Hilarion, will be replaced by Metropolitan Antonio de Korsun37, and Kiril’s former personal secretary.

Hilarionwho since the beginning of the war, he maintained a distant positionwill act as administrator of the Hungarian Orthodox diocese of Budapest, in the midst of the rapprochement of the prime minister of that European country, Viktor Orban, to the Russian positions.

Hilarion, 55, who had already held the leadership of the Hungarian diocese between 2003 and 2009, appears as the top candidate to succeed Kiril, 75, at the head of the Patriarchate.

Antonio de Korsun, meanwhile, is a highly trusted religious of Kiril, to the point that at the age of 24 he had already been appointed his private secretary.

The change in the Patriarchate’s foreign relations comes just days following Orban achieved Kirill’s removal from the list of people sanctioned by the European Union.

Since the beginning of the war, Kirill has justified the conflict and received criticism from Pope Francis himself, who decided to postpone a meeting scheduled for June 14 in Jerusalem with the Orthodox leader.

Francis and Kirill spoke in mid-March, in the midst of the war, in a conversation that found the papal rejection of any justification for the conflict.

“At one time there was also talk in our Churches of holy war or just war. Today we cannot talk like that. Christian awareness of the importance of peace has developed,” the Pope said at the time.

Zelensky claimed that “more than 31,000 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine”

Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky said that “more than 31,000 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine” since the beginning of the invasion, on February 24.

“Russia pays for this completely senseless war almost 300 lives of its soldiers every day. But there will be a day when, even for Russia, the number of losses will be unacceptable,” Zelensky said, citing his own balance sheet.

The Russian Ministry of DefenseMeanwhile, he announced that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have suffered significant losses in Donbass.

“The Ukrainian military suffers significant losses in troops, weapons and military equipment in Donbass,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said.

“The losses of the Ukrainian troops amounted to more than 300 nationalistssix tanks, 15 armored fighting vehicles, 36 field artillery pieces and mortars, four Grad multiple rocket launcher systems and more than 20 units of military vehicles in just three days of fighting in Sviatogorsk in the Donetsk People’s Republic,” the spokesman affirmed and claimed the independence of that pro-Russian province.

Ukrainian troops would withdraw from Severodonetsk

Ukrainian troops may soon have to withdraw from Severodonetska strategic city in the east of the country that is the center of the Russian offensive to secure the eastern fringe of Ukraine.

Russia claimed yesterday that it had full control of the residential areas of Severodonetsk while Ukraine continued to hold the industrial zone and the outskirts..

Sergei Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk region, on which Severodonetsk depends, said Ukrainian forces may have to withdraw from the town.

“It may be necessary to withdraw to more fortified positions”declared in an interview on the 1+1 network, although he assured that the withdrawal would not imply the handing over of the city to the Russian authorities.

On Tuesday night, President Volodimir Zelensky said that the “heroic defense of the Donbass continues”.

Severodonetsk and the twin city of Lisichansk are the last major kyiv-controlled urban core in Luhansk.

They are currently the main battleground because their seizure would clear Russia’s path to Kramatorsk, the de facto administrative capital of Donbass.