According to British information, Ukrainian troops have recaptured towns and defensive positions up to 35 kilometers east of Kyiv. The British Ministry of Defense announced on Friday that this contributed to the fact that the Russian troops were falling behind because their supply lines were overstretched.
US intelligence information: Up to 60 percent failure rate in missiles
According to US findings, Russia also has massive problems with its precision-guided missiles. The high-tech weapons used in the attack on Ukraine had a failure rate of up to 60 percent, three US officials with knowledge of intelligence information in Washington told the Reuters news agency. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy again appealed to the West to help his country more.
Russia: Tank farm near Kyiv destroyed
However, the Russian shelling continued. According to a Russian agency report, the Russian Defense Ministry said that a large fuel depot near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv had been destroyed by rocket fire. Two rockets also hit a Ukrainian military unit near the city of Dnipro. The regional governor spoke of “serious destruction”.
Clinic in Kharkiv shot at
According to the police, a clinic in the heavily contested city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine was hit by Russian fire. It served as a center for humanitarian aid, and there is no military facility nearby, the police said on social media. Seven people were injured, four of them died.
Furthermore, Russian troops are said to have encircled the city of Chernihiv in northern Ukraine and cut it off from the surrounding area. Governor Wiatscheslav Tschaus announced this on television. The city is surrounded by the enemy and is being bombarded with artillery and fighter planes. The information cannot be independently verified.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government hopes that an escape corridor for the encircled port of Mariupol will be opened this Friday. It should apply to civilians who can leave the southeastern Ukrainian city in a private vehicle, said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. Numerous vehicles are ready for the evacuation in nearby Berdyansk. “There are 48 buses there right now,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Wereshchuk said in a video message on Friday. In the city, about 70 kilometers from Mariupol, there is also a tanker for refueling private vehicles.
A corridor to the city of Zaporizhia has been agreed with the Russian side for further escape. In addition, there is an agreement on another escape route from the Russian-occupied Melitopol to Zaporizhia. Mariupol, once populated by 400,000, is one of the Ukrainian cities hardest hit by Russian attacks.
In a video message, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy thanked the 27 EU heads of state and government for the sanctions against Russia. However, the support came too late to stop Putin from invading Ukraine. “Now we are discussing Ukraine’s membership of the European Union. At least here I ask you not to be late,” said Zelenskyy. He hopes that the biggest skeptics of EU enlargement – Germany, France and the Netherlands – will change course.
The EU, on the other hand, again gave Ukraine no commitment to join, but only emphasized “Ukraine’s European aspirations and European decision” in a decision on Friday night. At their summit in Brussels on Thursday, NATO, the G7 and the EU called on Russia to end the fighting immediately.
Source: Nachrichten
