The sunken Russian missile cruiser “Moskva” continues to make the headlines. Moscow attacks targets near Kyiv and announces further retaliatory actions. While in Germany the debate about arms deliveries to Ukraine is being continued with all severity, the federal government is creating facts. Meanwhile, the United Nations warn of food shortages in the war zone. The 51st day of the war at a glance.
Russia reacts to “Moskva” destruction
The day after the sinking of the prestigious Russian warship Moskva, Russian forces intensified their attacks in Ukraine. According to eyewitnesses, an armaments factory near Kyiv was partially destroyed. Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had late Thursday attacked a “military” factory outside of Kiev with long-range sea-launched Kalibr missiles in response to “terrorist” attacks by Ukraine.
The factory produced rockets of the “Neptune” type. According to their own statements, the Ukrainian armed forces had used these same ships to damage the “Moskva” until it finally sank. The US government supported this information during the course of today, Friday. “We can confirm that the Russian ship Moskva was hit by two Ukrainian Neptun missiles,” said a senior Defense Department official in Washington. The Russian side, on the other hand, only announced that ammunition on board had exploded. While the “Moskva” was then towed in the direction of a port, she lost her “balance” and went under in heavy seas. However, meteorologists doubt that there were actually difficult weather conditions on the Black Sea at the time in question.
A spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Southern Armed Forces said: “We are aware that attacks against us will increase and that the enemy will take revenge.” She referred to attacks on the southern Ukrainian cities of Odessa and Mykolaiv. “The number and scale of rocket attacks on targets in Kyiv will increase in response to terrorist attacks or acts of sabotage by the nationalist Kiev regime on Russian territory,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. On Thursday, Moscow accused the government in Kyiv of attacking Russian border towns. Kyiv denied this and instead accused Russia of staging the incidents to foment “anti-Ukrainian hysteria”.
Escaping civilians killed
At least seven civilians were killed in a Russian attack on buses that were taking civilians from the war zone in eastern Ukraine to safer areas, according to Ukrainian sources. According to initial information, 27 other people were injured in the incident in the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office said on Telegram. In Kharkiv itself, according to Ukrainian sources, seven people, including a child, died when a residential area was shelled. According to the authorities, 34 other people were injured.
According to Ukrainian sources, more than 2,800 people have been taken out of particularly hard-fought areas in the east of the country. Around 2,500 refugees arrived in the southern city of Zaporizhia during the course of the day, including 363 from the hard-hit port city of Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Wereshchuk wrote on Telegram.
The number of people fleeing Ukraine has now passed the five million mark. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said 4,796,245 million Ukrainians have fled their country. In addition, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), almost 215,000 nationals of other countries who lived in Ukraine have now also fled the country.
Supersonic bombers in action near Mariupol?
According to the Ukrainian government, Russia is also said to have deployed supersonic bombers. Defense Ministry spokesman Olexander Motusyanyk said bombs had been dropped from long-range Tu-22M3 bombers on the particularly hard-fought port city of Mariupol. He stressed that Mariupol had not been fully taken by Russian troops. There is fierce fighting, including in the port area and around the Ilyich steelworks. For days, Russia has claimed complete control of the port.
According to information from Moscow, the Russian troops now have the steelworks under control. “In the city of Mariupol, as a result of attacks by Russian forces and units of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the ‘Ilyich’ steel plant was completely liberated by Ukrainian nationalists,” said Defense Ministry spokesman in Moscow Igor Konashenkov. There was no confirmation of this from the Ukrainian side.
However, the commander of the Ukrainian 36th Marine Brigade, Serhiy Volyna, described the situation in the city as “critical” in the newspaper “Ukrainskaya Pravda”. Mariupol can only be saved by a quick military operation to end the Russian blockade or by a political solution, he said. It is known that most of the Ukrainian forces, led by the nationalist Azov regiment, are holed up in the Azov-Stahl steelworks. Mariupol has been surrounded by Russian troops and pro-Russian separatist fighters for weeks. The city has been largely destroyed and the situation of the remaining residents is catastrophic.
UN aid workers: Ukrainians face starvation
According to the World Food Program (WFP), people in war-torn Ukraine are at risk of starvation. “It’s one thing when people suffer the ravages of war,” WFP chief David Beasley said after visiting the country. “It’s another matter when they’re left to starve.” WFP estimates that a third of people in the country as a whole and 60 percent of internally displaced people are concerned about not being able to find enough food for their families.
Beasley did not name Russia as a warmongering party. “We appeal to everyone to give us the access we need to reach people in cities under siege,” he said. 100,000 people are expected to remain in Mariupol, and the last supplies of food and water will soon be gone. The WFP is also concerned about the situation in cities in the east of the country. To date, WFP has provided food to around 1.4 million people in Ukraine.
Moscow declares EU diplomats ‘undesirables’
Away from the battlefield, there was also little good news. Russia expels 18 members of the EU representation in Moscow from the country. They had been declared “undesirable persons” and would have to leave Russia “in the near future,” the Foreign Ministry said in Moscow, once again causing diplomatic tensions. The EU called the expulsions “unjustified”. At the beginning of April, Brussels declared 19 members of the Russian mission to the European Union to be “undesirable persons”.
Federal government increases arms aid to two billion euros
As a reaction to the war, the federal government wants to increase its armaments aid for partner countries to two billion euros this year. “The funds will largely benefit Ukraine,” Finance Minister Christian Lindner said on Twitter in the evening. “The Federal Chancellor had requested this at an early stage.” The sum is to be made available via the supplementary budget. A government spokeswoman said that the departments involved had already agreed in principle two weeks ago to substantially increase the funds for the so-called upgrading initiative. Last week, the sum was set at a total of two billion euros.
The ARD capital city studio reported that “well over a billion” of the two billion euros should go to Ukraine. The Ukrainians could use it to “buy the weapons they want.” The federal government launched the upgrading initiative in 2016 to support partner countries in crisis regions in ensuring security themselves. The funds made available for this were used to support the armed forces, but also the police and civil protection.
Criticism of Scholz does not stop
“It’s possible,” tweeted Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann when announcing the additional billions in military aid for Ukraine. The FDP defense politician, along with other traffic light colleagues, had criticized Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the past few days. The Greens politician Anton Hofreiter repeated this in an interview with the “Spiegel”: “The chancellor is the problem – not only in Ukraine politics, but also in other questions of European cooperation,” said the European politician. “Germany has to take responsibility in Europe – and that’s where the chancellor is most important,” said Hofreiter. “Regardless of which European countries I’m traveling to at the moment, I’m always faced with the question: Where is Germany?”.
CDU leader Friedrich Merz also felt compelled to take a broadside against the SPD chancellor: Scholz’s behavior endangered “the cohesion of the entire international community towards Russia,” Merz told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. As examples, he cited the chancellor’s hesitation in supplying arms, but also his previous refusal to travel to Kyiv.
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