That happened in the past few hours

According to the government in Kiev , Ukrainian troops have liberated the city of Irpin from Russian troops . “But it’s still dangerous to be there,” Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky said on TV Monday night. The armed troops and the police had advanced to the outskirts of the capital Kiev and “the streets were immediately swept completely empty.”

The city’s mayor, Oleksandr Markushin, previously told Telegram that the Russian soldiers had been driven out of the city. The main checkpoint on the Kyiv-Irpin road was open again on Monday. He was blocked from the media two weeks ago after the death of a US journalist.

According to local AFP journalists, however, fighting continued near Irpin . Around 20 loud grenade explosions were heard in a forest along the six-kilometer road.

According to their own statements, the Ukrainian armed forces are trying to ward off attacks by Russian units in several places . The Russian advance on the city of Sloviansk in the Donetsk region in the south-east of the country and on the small town of Barvinkove in the Kharkiv region, about an hour’s drive away, is said to be in the process of being stopped, according to the situation report of the Ukrainian General Staff, which was published on Tuesday night on Facebook became.

In the Luhansk region in the east of the country, attempts are being made to contain Russian attacks around the cities of Rubishne with 60,000, Lysychansk with 100,000 and Popasna with 20,000 inhabitants. Ukraine reported regular fighting from the vicinity of all three cities .

At the same time, the Ukrainian side is maintaining all-round defense of the embattled and besieged port city of Mariupol . In the Chernihiv region in the north of the country, efforts are also being made to stem the Russian advance.

According to local authorities, Russia has attacked another fuel depot in north-west Ukraine with rockets . The attack took place in the Rivne region, the governor of the region, Vitaly Koval, told Telegram. Due to the air alarm that is still in force, the citizens should remain in the protective cellars.

After Dubno, Lutsk, Lviv, Mykolayiv and several camps near the capital Kyiv, around a dozen fuel depots were at least severely damaged.

According to British intelligence services, the Russian Wagner mercenary group has been sent to eastern Ukraine. According to the Ministry of Defense in London , more than a thousand mercenaries are expected to be used in combat . The European Union has imposed sanctions on the Wagner Group. President Vladimir Putin has stated that she and similar organizations are neither paid by the Russian state nor do they represent Russia.

That says Kyiv

Despite some military successes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj continues to assess the situation in his country as tense . He said that in a video speech that was published on Telegram on Tuesday night. Fighting continued in many parts of the country .

Russian troops controlled the north of Kiev region and had resources and forces, Zelenskyy said. They tried to rebuild shattered units. The situation also remains “very difficult” in the Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donbass and southern Ukraine regions.

Selenskyj again called for tougher sanctions against Russia . Europe should not wait with a possible embargo on Russian oil supplies until Moscow uses chemical weapons: “Just think how far it has come. Waiting for chemical weapons,’ he said. Numerous countries, including Germany , are still reluctant to stop deliveries of Russian energy, citing the feared economic impact.

Moscow says so

In the face of renewed speculation about the possible use of nuclear weapons by Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has vigorously opposed these thoughts. “No one in Russia is thinking about using or even the idea of ​​using nuclear weapons,” Peskov said in an interview with the American broadcaster PBS.

Moscow assumes that all tasks of the “special military operation”, as Russia calls the invasion of Ukraine, will be fulfilled. But whatever the outcome of this action, this will not be a reason for the use of nuclear weapons , said Peskow. He reiterated that Russia would only use its nuclear arsenal if there was a “threat to Russia’s existence.” The state existence of Russia and the events in Ukraine have “nothing to do with each other”.

The Russian Defense Ministry has warned of the danger of Ukrainian sea mines floating freely in the Black Sea . The mines had become detached from their moorings and would be drifting off the coasts of the neighboring countries, Major General Mikhail Mizintsev said in Moscow on Monday evening. The Turkish Ministry of Defense announced on Monday morning that it had discovered another sea mine in its own waters .

A sea mine was discovered and rendered harmless on the Bosporus, which connects the Black Sea with the Mediterranean Sea , on Saturday . The authorities also banned night fishing off Turkey’s north-western Black Sea coast. Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of mining the Black Sea.

humanitarian situation

The human rights organization Amnesty International has denounced “war crimes” in Ukraine . “What is happening in Ukraine is a repeat of what we saw in Syria ,” Secretary General Agnes Callamard told AFP on Tuesday at the presentation of the organization’s annual report. Russia is “specifically” attacking civilian facilities and turning escape routes into “death traps.”

Eastern Europe Director Marie Struthers said Amnesty researchers had documented “the same tactics used in Syria and Chechnya” during an on-site visit to Ukraine. Accordingly, Russia is also using weapons that are prohibited under international law.

Callamard compared the besieged city of Mariupol to the Syrian city of Aleppo . This was completely destroyed by the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with the help of the Russian air force. Amnesty observed a “multiplication of war crimes” in Ukraine.

But there are also movements in the opposite direction: according to the Ukrainian border police, around 510,000 people have returned from abroad since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression . In the past week alone there were 110,000 people, spokesman for the Ukrainian border police, Andriy Demchenko, told the daily newspaper “Welt”. Eight out of ten travelers are men. Most come from Poland .

According to Polish border guards, around 352,000 Ukrainians have left for their home country since the beginning of the war, the authorities announced on Monday.

International Reactions

US President Joe Biden caused a stir over the weekend with his statement that Russian President Putin could not remain in office . Numerous countries, including Germany, then declared that they were not pursuing a regime change in Russia.

Biden said: “I did not announce a policy change then and I do not do so now. I have expressed the moral outrage I felt, and I make no apologies.” The Russian leader, Biden said, “will do what he will do.”

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has warned of a “sell-out of Ukraine” with a view to the negotiations between Moscow and Kiev . “We must ensure that future talks do not end in a sell-out on Ukraine,” Truss said in front of Parliament in London. In addition, precautions would have to be taken so that sanctions would automatically come back into force in the event of renewed Russian aggression. President Putin, Truss said, should not be allowed “to profit from this appalling aggression.”

In a joint statement, Germany and six other EU countries have advised their citizens not to travel to Ukraine as volunteer combatants . The justice ministers of Belgium , France , Germany , Italy , Luxembourg , the Netherlands and Spain signed an appeal to this effect.

economic consequences

After the EU largely refused to pay for gas supplies in rubles , Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has announced possible new steps by Russia. “No pay – no gas,” he said, according to the state agency Tass. Moscow wants to wait for the EU’s response and then determine the next steps. “But we definitely don’t intend to present ourselves as benefactors and deliver free gas to Western Europe,” said Peskow.

The Putin confidante accused the West of unleashing an economic war against Russia. One will “now adapt to the new reality”.

what is happening today

Representatives of Russia and Ukraine want to negotiate directly in Istanbul for the first time in almost three weeks about a ceasefire in Ukraine . The talks are expected to last until Wednesday.

According to Ukraine, the key issues include ” security guarantees and neutrality ” and Ukraine’s status as a “nuclear-weapon-free state”. At the very least, humanitarian issues would have to be clarified. The ultimate goal is to agree on a ceasefire.

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