Almost six months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the annexed Black Sea peninsula of Crimea is increasingly becoming the focus of the war. At the weekend, the Crimean administration accused Ukraine of several attempted attacks – all of which were repelled.
Meanwhile, in Russia’s circles loyal to the Kremlin, there is still great horror after the daughter of right-wing nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin was apparently the victim of a bomb attack.
In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyj honored several compatriots for their special merits. Chancellor Olaf Scholz consulted with US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson about further aid for the attacked country.
Among others, football legend Andriy Shevchenko, who used his fame to help Ukraine, received the order “National Legend of Ukraine”, Zelenskyy announced on Telegram on Monday night.
The honorees also include a train conductor who brought fleeing people from particularly hard-fought areas and whose wife was killed on one of the journeys.
According to officials, another attempted Ukrainian attack was repelled over Crimea. Russian anti-aircraft defenses hit “objects” approaching the Belbek airbase near Sevastopol, the city’s chief administrator, Mikhail Rasvozhayev, wrote on Telegram.
There was only an explosion in Sevastopol on Saturday after Russian sources said a drone on the Black Sea Fleet headquarters was shot down by air defenses. So there were no victims.
In Crimea, which belongs to Ukraine under international law but was annexed by Russia, there have recently been repeated explosions, some of them serious, including in an ammunition depot. Ukraine received this with satisfaction, but did not accept responsibility for the detonations.
According to Ukraine, it has fended off several Russian attacks in the east and south of the country. For example, Russian advances in the eastern region of Donetsk in the direction of the cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Avdiivka were repulsed, the Ukrainian general staff said on Sunday evening. The information could not be independently verified.
From Kyiv it was also said that Russia wanted to close the airspace for a few days in parts of the Voronezh and Belgorod regions bordering Ukraine and in some areas of the Lipetsk region a little further inland from Monday. There was no confirmation of this from the Russian side.
Moscow is shocked by the alleged murder of Darja Dugina, daughter of right-wing nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin. “Alexander Gelyevich, your tragedy has become the pain of millions,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Dugin on Telegram.
According to investigators, Dugina’s car exploded on Saturday evening while driving in a suburban settlement in the Moscow region. The 29-year-old was considered a fervent supporter of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Ukraine has denied involvement in the incident.
Chancellor Scholz spoke to US President Biden, French President Macron and British Prime Minister Johnson on the phone on Sunday. They had agreed “that support for Ukraine in defending against Russian aggression would continue in the long term,” said German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit.
With a view to the situation at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which is occupied by Russia, the heads of state and government called for military restraint in its vicinity and a rapid on-site visit by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock defended the German arms deliveries to support Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to negotiate the simplest of issues, such as international humanitarian law, and there is no response to attempts at mediation, criticized the Greens politician at the Federal Foreign Office at the federal government’s open day in Berlin.
Meanwhile, Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) announced a visit to Kyiv in late summer or autumn.
Chancellor Scholz will speak with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Montreal on Monday – among other things, about aid for Ukraine. Scholz is traveling through Canada for three days together with Economics and Climate Minister Robert Habeck.
