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Field work with skirmishes in the background (in the Kherson region on June 20)
Photo: STRINGER / REUTERS
This is what Kiev says
Ukraine's military intelligence service HUR has confirmed reports of a Russian missile strike against its headquarters. The attacks took place at the end of May, but "did not achieve the desired or the announced goal," the agency's spokesman, Andriy Yusov, said on Ukrainian television on Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin, among others, had reported on the missile strike.
The Russian leadership has repeatedly threatened to strike at Ukraine's "decision-making centers." The first information about an attack on the HUR headquarters surfaced on May 29. Eyewitnesses at the time reported explosions on Kyiv's Rybalsky Island (actually a peninsula) in the Dnieper. Officially, there was no statement from Kiev at that time. Yusov did not want to comment on the consequences of the attack even now. He would not do that until after the war, he said.
Some Russian media said that the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, was also injured in the shelling. After weeks of silence, Budanov reappeared on Ukrainian television for the first time on Tuesday. Externally, there were no injuries to his eyes.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has praised progress on the front line two weeks after the start of the Ukrainian offensive. "In the South, we are moving forward," he said in his video address. He acknowledged heavy fighting, but everywhere – including in the east, where Ukrainian troops are on the defensive – the enemy is being destroyed, he said.
Only shortly before, the Ukrainian head of state had dampened the public's expectations of the Ukrainian offensive. In an interview with the BBC broadcast on Wednesday, he admitted that the offensive was progressing "slower than desired". Zelensky also attributed the small terrain gains to the large-scale mining of the site by Russian troops. Therefore, a cautious approach is necessary so as not to endanger the lives of the soldiers unnecessarily.
In his evening video message, however, Zelensky announced mainly positive news. In addition to the unspecified progress on the front line, the president also touched on the reconstruction conference for Ukraine in London and the EU's new package of sanctions against Russia. At the conference, Ukraine not only received state aid, but also commitments from the private sector to participate in the sustainable development of the country.
Zelenskyy praised the EU's sanctions package as important for further isolating Russia "as long as Russia's main export is malice and death." The main thing now is to cut off ways to circumvent the previous sanctions, said the Ukrainian head of state.
This is what Moscow says
The head of the Russian mercenary force Wagner has accused Moscow of lying to the people of Russia about the course of the Ukrainian offensive. "They are misleading the Russian people," Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a voice message released by his spokesmen on Wednesday. "Large areas have been ceded to the enemy," he added.
Kiev launched a counteroffensive in the south and east of Ukraine in early June to recapture territories lost last year. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly claimed that the Ukrainian offensive is failing.
But Wagner chief Prigozhin, whose mercenaries have led attacks on cities in eastern Ukraine for months, accused the Defense Ministry of not telling the truth. A number of villages, including Pyatchatky, have been lost, Prigozhin said, citing a lack of weapons and ammunition. According to him, Ukrainian troops have also tried to cross the Dnieper River, a natural barrier on the front line.
"All this is totally hidden from everyone," said the 62-year-old. "One day, Russia will wake up only to discover that Crimea has also been handed over to Ukraine," he warned.
Kyiv has so far reported small territorial gains and says it has recaptured eight settlements since the offensive began.
Situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant wants to pump water again from the damaged reservoir of the destroyed Kakhovka dam to cool the reactors. This was announced by the International Energy Agency (IAEA). In the past two weeks, the nuclear power plant had received its cooling water from the reserves of a nearby thermal power plant. Last week, the UN agency said it was unclear whether the nuclear power plant would be able to pump water from the damaged reservoir again. The head of the authority, Rafael Grossi, had visited Europe's largest nuclear facility last week. The area around the nuclear power plant is fiercely contested.
Humanitarian situation
The outgoing president of the German Teachers' Association, Heinz-Peter Meidinger, has complained about problems with the school integration of some Ukrainian pupils and has also identified insufficient efforts by the federal states as the cause. Around 200,000 Ukrainian children have been accommodated in schools to some extent. However, their motivation for German lessons is "very different, depending on whether one assumes an imminent return or not," he said in the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung". It is already clear that the promise of school policy that now, at the end of the school year, all Ukrainian refugee children will have found their way to the learning level of the regular classes, cannot be kept."
This Thursday, the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs will discuss, among other things, the integration of Ukrainian pupils and other educational policy issues.
According to the head of the association, there are too few qualified teachers for the special task of integrating war refugee children. "Teachers with special qualifications for German as a foreign language are in short supply," he explained. The countries also made too little effort to recruit such skilled workers. Extracurricular teachers with a qualification for "German as a second language" are "only offered poorly paid contracts and fixed-term contracts".
International reactions
The EU wants to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine. To this end, the EU Commission will present a plan before the summer break, said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at a reconstruction conference for Ukraine on Wednesday in London. She added: "The perpetrator must be held accountable."
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock made a similar statement on the sidelines of the conference. For the reconstruction of Ukraine, it is essential that Moscow is held accountable in the medium term, the minister told journalists. Russia had caused the damage in Ukraine. She added: "Whoever breaks all the rules of international law, the Charter of the United Nations, must be held responsible for it and pay for this reconstruction and the damage he has caused, in the end."
The Russian ambassador to London, Andrei Kelin, described such plans as illegal in an interview with the British channel Sky News broadcast on Wednesday evening. "Nobody can use this money, it's money from the state," Kelin said of the approximately 350 billion US dollars (almost 320 billion euros) that Western states have frozen in Russian funds.
At the Ukraine Recovery Conference on Wednesday and Thursday in the British capital, the foundations for the reconstruction of the country are to be laid. The focus is on how private companies can be encouraged to invest in the country, which has been battered by Russia's war of aggression.
jok/dpa