Germany agreed to Poland's request to deliver Soviet-made fighter jets to Ukraine, Kiev demanded that its allies speed up its supply of weapons and ammunition, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised his country's capabilities in the field of defense industries.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced on Thursday that his country had approved Poland's request to deliver five MiG-5 warplanes to Ukraine.
Pistorius said in a statement that Berlin had agreed to the extradition hours after receiving the official request from Warsaw, adding that it confirmed that Germany could be relied upon.
Under a bilateral agreement, Poland, a member of NATO, needs Germany's consent to deliver the Soviet-made fighters to Ukraine because they are former East German stockpiles.
The agreement contains an end-use clause that prohibits Poland from delivering fighter jets to a third party without Germany's written consent.
Poland is the first NATO member to meet Kiev's needs for warplanes. Warsaw recently delivered eight warplanes of the same model to Ukraine from its own stockpile.
Borrell announced the start of implementation of the first part of the European Union initiative to deliver billion-euro ammunition to Ukraine (Reuters)
Delivery of weapons and ammunition
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kiev's Western partners should speed up the delivery of weapons and ammunition they had previously pledged and start training Ukrainian pilots to fly Western-style fighter jets.
Kuleba said in a video intervention during a meeting in the Romanian capital Bucharest that his country is committed to Russia's withdrawal from all the territories it occupied, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
At the same time, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell announced the start of the implementation of the first part of its historic initiative to deliver more than a billion dollars worth of ammunition to Ukraine.
Zelensky praises
On the other hand, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday praised the Ukrainian defense manufacturing processes, on the first anniversary of the sinking of the Russian cruiser "Moskva" in the Black Sea with a Ukrainian-made missile "Neptune".
Zelensky said in his daily evening address that the Neptune missiles showed the professionalism of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, and that this day will be celebrated in the future as the day of the arms industry and defense.
The Ukrainian president added that today his country is capable of producing everything from missiles to missiles, from artillery shells to drones.
Ukraine announced on April 14, 2022 that its forces had hit the Russian cruiser Moskva with anti-ship missiles, but Moscow said at the time that the cruiser was severely damaged after a fire, explosion and sinking while trying to tow it to a port amid stormy weather.
Ukrainian soldiers at a combat post near the city of Pakhmut (French)
Battle of Pakhmut
On the ground, fierce clashes continue between Ukrainian forces and the Russian Wagner military special group in the center of the city of Pakhmot in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine amid conflicting reports about the situation on the ground.
After controlling about three-quarters of the city, Wagner's forces are trying to advance towards Ukrainian positions in the western part of the city, which has been under Russian attacks since last summer and is almost completely destroyed.
The leader of the Russian group, Yevgeti Prigozhin, said yesterday that his forces controlled more than 80 percent of Pakhmut, adding that it was too early to talk about a complete encirclement of the city of 70,<> before the war.
But the Ukrainian military denied Prigozhin's comments claiming control of most of Bakhmout, saying it controlled "much more" than 20 percent of its area.
Fighting continues in other cities in the Donetsk region, including Marinka and Avdevka, amid attempts by Russian forces to expand their control in the Donbas region.
In parallel, Ukrainian forces reported civilian deaths and injuries as a result of Russian shelling in the south and east of the country, and talked about repelling 45 Russian attacks during the past day, concentrated towards Bakhmut, Liman, Avdiyevka and Marinka in the Donetsk region in the east.
The commander of Ukraine's joint forces, Serhiy Nayef, also said Ukraine's air defense forces should prepare for a possible Russian missile attack on Sunday's Easter holiday.
For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces eliminated hundreds of Ukrainian military personnel in attacks along the front line in the axes of Kobyansk Bukharkiv (northeast), Krasny Liman and Donetsk (east) and Zabarugia and Kherson (south) in the past 24 hours.
European sanctions
On the other hand, the European Union yesterday included the Russian Wagner Group in the list of organizations subject to its sanctions because of its active participation in what it described as Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.
The European Council, which represents the bloc's 27 member states, announced that the new inclusion in the sanctions list complements the previous listing of the group, noting that the group was added back to the list "due to acts that undermine or jeopardize Ukraine's territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence."