The night in Ukraine: Lavrov rumbles against the West and NATO

The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov incited hatred against NATO in two interviews during the night.

In an interview with the Chinese agency Xinhua early on Saturday morning, according to Russian agencies, he accused the military alliance of preventing the end of the "special operation" through political agreements and arms deliveries.

In an interview with the Arabic-language channel Al-Arabiya, Lavrov also said that Russia knows the routes through which the West wants to deliver arms to Ukraine.

The delivered weapons should now become the target of what the official Russian side calls a “special operation” “once they reach the territory of Ukraine”.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi caused irritation with information about a mass grave.

The IAEA reported the resumption of communications on Chernobyl.

In Berlin, the Ukrainian Ambassador Andriy Melnyk thanked the German media for their coverage of the war.

Negotiations are sluggish

Negotiations with Kyiv on a draft agreement to end the war are not going well, according to Lavrov: they are also being hampered by the "militant rhetoric and inflammatory actions of Kyiv's western supporters".

However, the Russian side is in favor of continuing the negotiation process.

According to Ukrajinska Pravda, Zelenskyy said there was a high risk that Kyiv would break off negotiations with Moscow.

He again called for direct negotiations with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.

The first negotiations to end the hostilities began four days after the Russian invasion on February 24.

Lavrov: Are not at war with NATO

Russia does not see itself at war with NATO.

Rather, NATO believes it is at war with Russia, Lavrov said, according to Russian agencies.

Furthermore, Russia is not threatening nuclear weapons, Western media exaggerated on this subject.

"We are not "playing" with a nuclear war," Lavrov said.

At the end of February, Russia had put deterrent weapons on alert, which was understood worldwide as a threat to the nuclear arsenal.

Lavrov also claimed that the Russian military was doing "everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties."

Ukraine, on the other hand, reports civilian casualties every day.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights recently put the number of civilians killed at 2,899, but the actual numbers are said to be considerably higher.

Irritations about Zelenskyj's information about the mass grave

In an interview, Selenskyj spoke of a new mass grave with 900 dead in the Kiev region.

His spokesman and the police denied it.

"As of April 29, a total of 1,187 bodies of victims of the Russian army have been discovered in the Kyiv region, probably the president meant this total number when he spoke of over 900," said a comment from the police of the Kyiv region.

Presidential spokesman Serhiy Nykyforov also emphasized in the online newspaper Ukrajinska Pravda that the president meant the total number.

After the withdrawal of Russian troops almost a month ago, the discovery of civilians, some of them tied up, who had been shot, caused horror around the world, especially in the Kiev suburb of Bucha.

Moscow has denied all allegations.

IAEA: Russian nuclear specialists in Zaporizhia

Russian authorities have sent nuclear specialists to Ukraine's nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia to the south-east.

The eight representatives of Rosenergoatom, which belongs to the Russian state-owned company Rosatom, are demanding daily reports from the station management on "confidential issues" related to the operation of the nuclear plant, according to a statement by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), citing Ukrainian authorities.