Today I addressed the parliament of Germany, one of the most influential countries in the world, in Europe, one of the natural leaders on the European continent.
I spoke not only as the president but as a Ukrainian, as a citizen, as a European, as someone who has felt for many years that the German state is as if behind a wall from us, an invisible but a strong wall.
We saw how, for decades, Germany fought for its economy, for new Russian gas pipelines and old European dreams. Dreams of some cooperation that Russia doesn’t take seriously for a long time.”
The Ukrainian president said he believed the views of Germans are changing.
We see that Germany is looking for a new way. We see how sincerely the majority of Germans support the review of the old policy. We see that Chancellor Olaf Scholz has a big chance and a big mission to grant Germany renewed leadership. Grant Europe peace. Long-lasting and, most importantly, an honest one.”
Zelenskiy said he felt Ukraine is now “understood better” after speaking with French President Emmanuel Macron, US President Joe Biden and the German parliament.
I feel that we are being understood better. In Europe, in the world, in different countries. And it gives us more and more support. The one we have been asking for.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr said he felt Ukraine is now “understood better” after speaking with French President Emmanuel Macron, US President Joe Biden and the German parliament Photograph: Telegram | Zelenskiy Offical
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has delivered another emphatic late-night national address, speaking to Russians directly and confirming that Ukraine continues to hold all the key areas under Russian attack.
Referring to claims Russia has recruited foreign fighters to aid in its invasion of Ukraine, Zelenskiy said:
We’ve got information that the Russian military is recruiting mercenaries from other countries and trying to deceive as many young people as possible into military service.”
He added:
More Russian conscripts have been taken prisoner of war. Among them, there are those who refuse to return to Russia. There are many who are not even talked about in Russia, who are not being taken back. Families of some soldiers have received death notices, although they are in captivity and alive.”
Issuing a warning to those who may join Russian troops, Zelenskiy said: “It will be the worst decision of your life. Long life is better than the money that they offer for a short one.”
Addressing Russian directly, Zelenskiy added:
Every mother who knows that her son was sent to war against Ukraine has to check where her son is. Particularly, those who can’t get in touch with their children, who were told their children died but didn’t receive their bodies. There are phone numbers on the internet that you can call and find out what is happening with your children. We didn’t plan to take thousands of captives. We don’t need 13,000 or more dead Russian soldiers. We didn’t want this war. We only want peace. And we want you to love your children more than you are afraid of your government.”
The exodus of refugees fleeing Ukraine continues, with most seeking refuge in neighbouring Poland. According to UN estimates, more than 3 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February.
While tens of thousands of people continue to flee the country each day, a small but growing number are heading in the other direction. At first they were foreign volunteers, Ukrainian expatriate men heading to fight and people delivering aid. But increasingly, women are also heading back.
A small but growing number of women are heading back to Ukraine Photograph: EyePress News/REX/Shutterstock
A woman waits to board a train leaving for Lviv in Ukraine at the train station in Przemysl, Poland, Thursday Photograph: EyePress News/REX/Shutterstock
Russia has said it will not ask the UN security council to vote on Friday on its draft resolution on humanitarian relief for Ukraine, the Associated Press reports.
It will instead use the scheduled council session to again raise allegations that the United States has biological warfare laboratories in Ukraine, claims that Washington says are disinformation and part of a potential “false-flag operation” by Moscow.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, made the announcement at a security council meeting on Thursday afternoon that was called by six western countries, including the United States.
He said Russia is not withdrawing the resolution but decided not to seek a vote at this time because of what he called “unprecedented pressure” from western nations, especially the United States and Albania, on UN member states to oppose the measure.
Russia beset by logistical problems, British intelligence says
Russia is being forced to divert “large numbers” of troops to defend its supply lines rather than continuing its attacks in Ukraine, British defence intelligence analysts believe.
The UK ministry of defence recently released its latest intelligence report, saying that logistical problems continue to beset Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine.
UK defence attache AVM Mick Smeath said:
Logistical problems continue to beset Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine.
Reluctance to manoeuvre cross-country, lack of control of the air and limited bridging capabilities are preventing Russia from effectively resupplying their forward troops with even basic essentials such as food and fuel.
Incessant Ukrainian counterattacks are forcing Russia to divert large number of troops to defend their own supply lines. This is severely limiting Russia’s offensive potential.”
Hello it’s Samantha Lock with you back on the blog.
Some intriguing news is being reported by the BBC’s world affairs editor, John Simpson.
According to Simpson, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss negotiations with Ukraine.
Putin’s demands include an acceptance by Ukraine that it should be neutral in future, and that it shouldn’t become a member of the western military alliance, Nato.
Other demands Putin is making include a “denazification clause” and undertakings to protect the Russian language, according to Erdogan’s chief adviser Ibrahim Kalin.
However, Putin is also demanding parts of eastern Ukraine and acceptance from Zelenskiy that Crimea be a permanent part of Russia.
According to Putin, this can only be sorted out face-to-face with his Ukrainian opponent.
About 130 people have been rescued so far from the basement of a theatre hit by a Russian airstrike in the besieged southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, officials said. Hundreds of people were hiding beneath the theatre, which was designated as a shelter for displaced civilians, when it was struck on Wednesday. Serhiy Taruta, a former governor of the Donetsk region, said rescue efforts had been hindered by the complete breakdown of social services and fear of future Russian attacks in the city.
About 30,000 civilians have fled Mariupol city so far, local authorities said. Mariupol’s city hall said “80% of residential housing was destroyed” and about 350,000 residents were hiding in shelters and basements in Mariupol. In addition to the bombing of its theatre, the city hall said a swimming pool sheltering civilians, “mostly women, children and the elderly”, had also been shelled.
More than 20 people were killed and 25 injured when a Russian airstrike destroyed a school and community centre in Merefa, close to the north-east Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, local officials said. The attack took place at 3.30am local time (1.30am GMT) on Thursday morning, the Kharkiv prosecutor’s office said. Ten people were in critical condition, it said.
The US state department confirmed that a US citizen died in Ukraine today, after local reports that an American was killed during Russian shelling in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv. Earlier today, Chernihiv regional police said authorities were “documenting the aftermath of enemy shelling of civilians in central Chernihiv” that left more than 50 people dead.
The US has anecdotal signs of flagging Russian troop morale in some units in Ukraine, a senior US defence official said, without citing evidence. The US has also observed that the Russian military is are moving some forces “from the rear to join their advancing elements” and “some of those capabilities are artillery, long-range artillery”, suggesting they “continue to want to conduct a siege of Kyiv”.
The mayor of the besieged Ukrainian city of Melitopol, who was allegedly abducted by Russian forces, was freed in exchange for nine captured Russian conscripts, according to the head of Ukraine’s presidential office. Ukraine had accused Russia of kidnapping Ivan Fedorov last Friday, with surveillance footage appearing to show him being marched across a square in the city centre, apparently surrounded by Russian soldiers.
Lawyers are drafting a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow but a breakthrough depends on the Kremlin accepting a ceasefire, Ukraine’s defence minister has said. Oleksii Reznikov, who has been leading the Ukrainian delegation in the negotiations, said technical work was progressing but that Russia had to stop its shelling for any compromise to be possible.
The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said “we have stronger hopes for a ceasefire” after meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, in Lviv. The meeting follows Çavuşoğlu’s visit to Moscow yesterday, where he declared: “We have not lost our belief in diplomacy.”
But western officials have warned there remains a “very big gap” between Ukraine and Russia in peace talks between the two countries. Reuters quotes an unnamed official as saying that both sides are taking peace talks seriously but that there was little sign of an imminent breakthrough.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy invoked the fall of the Berlin Wall in an attempt to persuade German MPs to do everything possible to halt Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Speaking to the German parliament via video, the Ukrainian president upbraided Germany for having persisted in the past in its insistence that the gas pipelines Nord Stream 1 and 2 and other business projects with Russia were “purely economic” and not political.
The US president, Joe Biden, will speak with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, on Friday to discuss Russia’s war against Ukraine “and other issues of mutual concern”, the White House said. Earlier, a Chinese official criticised the Nato secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, for his comments that China had an obligation as a member of the UN security council to help bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
A Russian court has extended the arrest of the US basketball star Brittney Griner for at least two more months, according to the Russian state news agency Tass. Griner, a two-time Olympic champion, has been detained by Russian customs authorities, who claim they discovered vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow.
Uzbekistan’s foreign minister has called for a diplomatic resolution of the conflict in Ukraine and said it would not recognise Moscow-backed separatists in the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk, Reuters reports. Abdulaziz Kamilov’s remarks signalled the strongest anti-war statement to come from Russia’s former Soviet allies so far.
“Protracted occupation of parts of Ukrainian territory threatens to sap Russian military manpower and reduce their modernized weapons arsenal, while consequent economic sanctions will probably throw Russia into prolonged economic depression and diplomatic isolation,” Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in its new 67-page summary of worldwide threats.
The combination of Ukraine’s defiance and economic sanctions will threaten Russia’s “ability to produce modern precision-guided munitions,” Berrier said in testimony submitted to the House Armed Services Committee for a hearing on Thursday.
The UN Security Council will no longer vote on Friday on a Russian-drafted call for aid access and civilian protection in Ukraine as Russia’s UN envoy accused Western countries of a campaign of “unprecedented pressure” against the measure.
Diplomats said the Russian move would have failed with most of the 15-member council likely to abstain from a vote on the draft resolution because it did not address accountability or acknowledge Russia’s invasion of its neighbor nor did it push for an end to the fighting or a withdrawal of Russian troops.
“Many colleagues from many delegations tell us about unprecedented pressure by Western partners, that their arms are being twisted, including blackmail and threats,” Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said on Thursday.
Speaking at a council meeting on Ukraine’s humanitarian situation, requested by Western council members, Nebenzia said: “We do understand how difficult it is for those countries to withstand this kind of onslaught.”
US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told Reuters after the meeting: “The only people who do arm-twisting around here are the Russians and they have to if they want to get anybody to support them.”
Nebenzia said that Russia had instead requested the council meet on Friday - when the vote had been scheduled - to discuss “US bio-laboratories in Ukraine using the new documents we obtained in the course of the special military operation.”
