Reports come from the southern city of Melitopol of a grenade attack on Russian officers and the derailment of a train full of Russian soldiers. Those would have been the work of the Ukrainian resistance, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s entourage. The claims could not be independently verified.
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A spokesman for Zelensky last night corrected a claim by Ukrainian partisans who reported placing a bomb under a car of an armored train carrying Russian troops at Melitopol. According to Oleksiy Arestovich, it was not the train that had blown up, but the rails in front of it. The Russian soldiers were “slightly off,” the spokesman said. Behind the front, the Russian armed forces would experience more damage and burden from troop movements. The Russian Defense Ministry is not reporting the incident.
See also: Ukraine fills ‘death train’ with corpses of Russian soldiers
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We are obliged to expel the occupiers and guarantee real security to Ukraine
In his video address on Wednesday evening, President Zelensky promised the liberation of the Russian-occupied territories. “Kherson, Melitopol, Berdyansk, Enerhodar, Mariupol and all our cities and towns that are temporarily occupied should know that Ukraine will return,” he said. How long this will take depends on the situation on the battlefield. “We are trying to do as soon as possible. We are obliged to expel the occupiers and guarantee real security to Ukraine.” In connection with this, Zelensky also confirmed the announced extension of martial law and general mobilization for another 90 days, until August 23. “Our military and anyone defending the state must have all legal means to act calmly.”
All Ukrainian victims of the Russian occupation receive special aid from the state. According to the president, the aid is also intended for “all prisoners of the Kremlin, in Crimea or in the Russian-occupied part of the Donbas,” Zelensky said. He commemorated May 18, 1944, an important day of remembrance in Ukraine. At the time, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin had the Crimean Tartars deported for allegedly collaborating with the Germans. When Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014, the president said a “second wave of destruction devastated all that was free in Crimea.”
Laser weapon
Russia has announced it will deploy a new laser weapon against drones. The Russian army has lost many tanks to Ukrainian drone strikes, most notably with the Turkish-manufactured Bayraktar TB2. According to the Russian state news agency Tass, the laser weapon was successfully tested on a drone that “burnt within five seconds”. No images of the new weapon were shown. A Russian government spokesman also praised another laser weapon, Pereswet, which could “dazzle” enemy military observation satellites (read: the Americans).
Meanwhile, shelling with, among other things, automatic mortars was carried out yesterday near the city of Sumy, in the east, close to the Russian border. The Russian Defense Ministry has confirmed that northern Ukraine is also being bombed. According to the Russian authorities, 700 soldiers from the Azovstal steel factory in Mariupol have ‘surrendered’.
That term is fraught and is not accepted by Ukraine, which speaks of an ‘evacuation’. Reportedly, several hundred defenders are still entrenched in the Azovstal complex. This includes the military leaders of the Azov battalion. It is unknown if they will also come out.
NATO member
Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andri Melnyk, thinks his country can join NATO just as quickly as Finland and Sweden. “It would only take a purely political decision to quickly integrate Ukraine into the alliance,” Melnyk said in an interview with German newspapers today. “If Ukraine were in the alliance, the risk of nuclear war would decrease. Then Putin would know: if Ukraine were attacked with nuclear weapons, he would have to reckon with nuclear retaliation. That would stop him.”
According to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Russia is using hunger as a weapon of war by blocking grain exports from Ukraine. “Russia is waging this war with another terrible and powerful weapon: hunger and deprivation. By blocking Ukrainian ports, by destroying silos, streets and railways, Russia has unleashed a grain war and fueled a global food crisis,” Baerbock told the United Nations. in New York City.
She points out that the Russians are deploying the weapon at a time when millions of people, especially in the Middle East and Africa, are already threatened by hunger “from the devastating effects of the climate crisis, the corona pandemic and conflicts raging in their own regions.” ‘. According to the German government, Russia is blocking the export of 25 million tons of grain from Ukraine, especially in Odessa. Ukraine is one of the world’s largest grain producers.
Despite an ‘extremely positive’ talk with the United States, Turkey continues to block Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu made this clear after his meeting with his American counterpart Antony Blinken.
According to the Turkish minister, his counterpart in Washington showed understanding for the Turkish position. Cavusoglu again accused Finland and Sweden of supporting Kurdish organizations that the Turkish government in Ankara considers terrorist.
Despite Turkey’s current blockade, US President Joe Biden is optimistic that Finland and Sweden will eventually join NATO. The White House said it was confident the two countries would have an efficient accession process that could address Turkey’s concerns.
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