Day 161 of war in Ukraine and there is no sign of truce, even if it seems that Putin wants a solution denied. The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, said that during the night, new explosions were heard in various districts of the city. Three people were killed in a Russian bombing while an evacuation operation was underway in Kherson with a minibus. Another 3 civilians lost their lives following an attack by Russian forces in the Donetsk region.
Meanwhile, the Russian supreme court has declared the Azov battalion a “terrorist organization”, and this means that the Ukrainian soldiers of the regiment taken prisoner by the Russians will not be subject to the law of war.
Yesterday a first load of corn left from the port of Odessa towards Lebanon, with a stopover in Istanbul for inspections. And new funds are on the way to arm Ukraine: 500 million euros from the EU and 550 million dollars from the United States
UPDATES:
08.00 – Schroeder: Putin wants a negotiated solution
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder assured that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants a negotiated solution to the war in Ukraine. “The good news is that the Kremlin wants a negotiated solution. A first success is the agreement on wheat, perhaps it can be slowly extended to a ceasefire », he said in an interview with the weekly Stern, specifying that he had seen Putin last week in Moscow.
Schroeder stressed that it will take some time to reach an agreement on a number of crucial issues such as Crimea or the Donbass. For the eastern region of Ukraine, “a solution based on the Swiss cantonal model will have to be found,” she said. The 77-year-old former German chancellor is a close friend of Putin: although he has criticized the war in Ukraine, he has always refused to condemn Russia. At the end of May, after weeks of pressure and furious controversy over his relations with Moscow and in particular with the Kremlin leader, Schroeder left the board of the Russian energy giant Rosneft.
07.30 – Ukraine: two explosions in Kharkiv
Two explosions shook the city of Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine this morning, the mayor, Ihor Terekhov, reported the Kyiv Independent. Terekhov specified that one explosion hit the Kholodnohirskyi district and the other a location yet to be confirmed. No casualties or damages have been reported for the moment.
– 07.00 Zelensky hears Stoltenberg, focus on prisoners of war
The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky discussed the issue of Ukrainian prisoners of war with the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg and the President of the OSCE and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, Zbigniew Rau. This was stated by the leader of Kiev in his usual evening video speech. Ukrinform reports it. “In the negotiations with both Stoltenberg and Rau, I paid particular attention to the issue of our prisoners of war held by Russia – he explained – in particular, this also applies to the Russian terrorist attack in Olenivka, which must become the final argument. so that all civilized countries of the world officially recognize Russia as a terrorist state ”, he concluded.
– The updates of yesterday 2 August