The refugee aid organization Pro Asyl denounces the kidnappings of Ukrainians to Russia. “If you prevent people who want to flee from fleeing and bring them to another country, then that is kidnapping and therefore a blatant violation of human rights,” says its managing director Günter Burkhardt of the editorial network Germany (RND). “This is part of a chain of criminal acts committed by the Putin regime. However, other states’ options for action in an escalating war are limited.” At the same time, Burkhardt complains that the government in Kyiv has ordered men of military age not to leave the Ukraine. “It is also a human right not to want to take part in a war,” he told RND.
+++ 04:08 According to Kiev, Russia is transporting 400,000 tons of grain +++
According to Kiev sources, Russia has had 400,000 tons of grain transported away from the occupied areas of Ukraine. That is regarding a third of the grain stocks in the Cherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Taras Vysotskyi said on Ukrainian television. Before the war, around 1.3 million grains were stored there for daily supply, but also for sowing. “There were no strategic reserves there,” says Wyssozkyj. If grain stocks are further reduced, there is a risk of famine in these areas.
+++ 03:33 Nobel Prize winner Muratov considers the use of nuclear weapons by the Kremlin possible +++
Russian journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov warns once morest taking Russian propaganda regarding the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine lightly. “I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of nuclear weapons being used,” Muratov told journalists at an event marking International Press Freedom Day in Geneva. The goal of the Kremlin’s current propaganda is to make the use of nuclear weapons more acceptable to the Russian public, the editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” warns. “We’ve been hearing from our television stations for two weeks that the nuclear silos should be opened,” he says. “And we also hear that if arms shipments to Ukraine continue, these terrible weapons should be used.”
+++ 02:54 Ukrainian military equipment is to be repaired in Slovakia +++
Damaged Ukrainian military equipment is to be repaired in Slovakia in the future. According to a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defense in Bratislava, the state-owned company Konstrukta-Defence has signed a contract with Ukraine to repair and modernize Ukrainian military technology. The first delivery involves dozens of BRDM-2 armored vehicles. Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad and Prime Minister Eduard Heger already declared their willingness to help Ukraine repair damaged military equipment earlier this month.
+++ 02:18 EU Commission proposes oil embargo +++
Companies from Germany and the other EU countries should no longer be allowed to import Russian oil in the future. This is what the EU Commission and the European External Action Service propose for a new package of sanctions once morest Russia. In order to give the countries time for the changeover, there should be transitional periods. Specifically, according to the information, it is planned that following a phase-out phase of six months an import ban for crude oil will apply and following a phase-out phase of eight months there will also be an import ban for oil products. It should also play a role whether deliveries are made by pipeline or by ship.
+++ 01:49 Ukraine is preparing another rescue operation for Mariupol +++
Ukraine is preparing for another evacuation of civilians from the port city of Mariupol, which has been almost entirely captured by Russia, on Wednesday. The Zaporizhia regional administration named a large shopping center in the west of Mariupol as the meeting point for the transport at night. However, it is several kilometers away from the Azovstal Steel Plant, where the last Ukrainian defenders of the city and still numerous civilians are hiding. “The evacuation is taking place with the support of the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross,” Governor Oleksandr Staruch said on Telegram. On Tuesday, 156 refugees from Mariupol and the surrounding area arrived in Zaporizhia. Before the Russian war of aggression, Mariupol had regarding 400,000 inhabitants. According to estimates, 100,000 people are still holding out in the largely destroyed city.
+++ 01:15 Kyiv sees destruction of Western weapons as reason for rocket fire +++
According to the Kiev leadership, Russia wants to stop the supply of western weapons with massive rocket attacks on Ukrainian railway systems. This is what the head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, writes on Telegram. Previously, many parts of the country had been shaken by explosions. But it will not be possible to stop the supply of armaments, said Yermak. “It all matters.” Politically, President Volodymyr Zelenskyj interprets the attacks as a sign of Moscow’s impotence. “Obviously the Russian military reacted extremely nervously to our successes today,” said Zelenskyj in his evening video address in Kyiv. He reports on rocket attacks on Lviv, Vinnytsia, Odessa, the Kiev region and the Dnipro region.
+++ 00:36 Social medicine: Pregnant women are exposed to great dangers in Ukraine +++
The social medicine doctor and left-wing candidate in the federal presidential election in February, Gerhard Trabert, is campaigning for more help for pregnant women and newborns in Ukraine. “Pregnant women are never the focus of war. The number of premature births and miscarriages is much higher in war than in peacetime due to flight and fear of death,” says the Mainz social doctor to the editorial network Germany (RND). Together with the left-wing politician Gregor Gysi, he will get an idea of the situation on site during his five-day trip to hospitals, aid organizations and so-called poor kitchens from Lviv to Kyiv, Bucha and Irpin. After his return, he will look for cooperation partners in Germany to organize incubators and send them to Ukraine.
+++ 23:59 Latvia supports citizens in taking in refugees +++
Latvia wants to financially support its citizens in accommodating war refugees from Ukraine. The Baltic EU and NATO country will pay 100 euros a month to households that take in a Ukrainian refugee. The government in Riga decides that there should be 50 euros for each additional person admitted. The compensation should be granted for a maximum of 90 days and up to a sum of 300 euros per month. Parliament still has to approve the regulation.
+++ 23:25 Russia attacks several cities +++
Cities in several regions of Ukraine became the target of Russian rocket attacks on Tuesday evening. According to media reports, parts of the city of Lviv in the west of the country were without electricity following three power plants were damaged by rockets, according to Mayor Andrij Sadowyj. As a result, according to him, there were also problems with the water supply because the pumps failed due to a lack of electricity. Rocket attacks are also reported from Vinnytsia in the center, Odessa in the south-west and Kirovograd in the center of the country. For the first time since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression on February 24, the Transcarpathia region near the border with Hungary was also attacked with a rocket, as regional governor Viktor Mikita reports in the online service Telegram.
+++ 22:58 Biden on arms deliveries: “Fighting will not be cheap” +++
US President Joe Biden has defended US support for Ukraine with arms once morest Russia. “Because history has shown us that dictators will always come back if you don’t oppose them,” Biden said while visiting an arms factory in Troy, Alabama. Your thirst for power keeps growing. “Either we support the Ukrainian people in defending their country, or we stand by as Russia continues its atrocities and aggression,” Biden said. Since the beginning of the war at the end of February, the United States has promised or delivered weapons and ammunition worth more than 3.7 billion US dollars (around 3.5 billion euros) to the former Soviet republic. Biden has also asked Congress for billions more in military aid and humanitarian assistance. “Like I said from the start, this fight will not come cheap,” Biden said.
+++ 22:21 Ukraine: 21 dead civilians following attacks in Donbass +++
At least 21 civilians have been killed in a Russian attack in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, according to Ukrainian sources. Another 27 were injured, the area administration announced in its Telegram channel. The main civilian casualties were in the embattled cities of Avdiivka, Lyman and Wuhledar. According to governor Serhiy Hajday, the heaviest fighting took place in the neighboring Luhansk region around the town of Popasna.
+++ 22:07 Russian attacks on several cities – Lviv partly without electricity +++
Cities in several regions of Ukraine became the target of Russian rocket attacks in the evening. According to media reports, parts of the city of Lviv in the west of the country were without electricity following three power plants were damaged by rockets, according to Mayor Andrij Sadowyj. As a result, according to him, there were also problems with the water supply because the pumps failed due to a lack of electricity. Rocket attacks are also reported from Vinnytsia in the center, Odessa in the south-west and Kirovograd in the center of the country. For the first time since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression, the Transcarpathia region near the border with Hungary was also attacked with a rocket, as regional governor Viktor Mikita reports on Telegram.
+++ 21:45 Russia: Escape corridors open daily in Mariupol +++
The Russian military has denied allegations of barring civilians from entering Ukrainian-controlled territory. Every day since March 4, Russian forces in Mariupol have opened “escape corridors without any restrictions for the evacuation of civilians, primarily women, children and the elderly, in any direction they choose,” Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev of the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. The Russian military leadership was thus responding to a request by French President Emmanuel Macron, who had previously called for the evacuees to be given free choice of destination in accordance with international law in a telephone call to Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.
Previous Developments in the Ukraine Conflict you can read here.