War in Ukraine: Russian air raids continued during the night. Now Russian troops are to prepare the Kyiv invasion. News ticker.
- Escalated Ukraine conflict*: On the night of Monday (March 28), the Russian attacks on Ukraine continued, including Kyiv, Lutsk, Rivne and Kharkiv were shaken by air raids*.
- The US sees Putin’s troops largely blocked (see update from March 28, 8:51 p.m.).
- Zelensy accuses Russia of murdering Ukrainian mayors (see update from March 28, 3:30 p.m.).
- This News ticker about the military fighting in the Ukraine war is continuously updated. More on the background of the Ukraine crisis* here.
Update from March 28, 8:51 p.m.: Apparently, Russian troops are making little headway. They are largely blocked in several parts of Ukraine, a senior US defense official told US reporters on Monday. The television channel CNN published the quotes.
The situation in Mariupol, Chernihiv, Mykolayiv and Kharkiv has not changed, the unnamed official said. “They made no progress in approaching Kyiv, they made no progress in the north, neither in Chernihiv nor in Kharkiv,” the official said of Russian forces.
Ukraine war: Apparently at least 5000 dead in Mariupol
Update from March 28, 6:37 p.m.: At least 5,000 people have been killed in the city of Mariupol, which was besieged by Russian troops, according to Ukrainian sources. “About 5,000 victims were buried,” Ukrainian refugee corridors official Tetyana Lomakina told AFP on Monday. However, no burials have been carried out for about ten days due to the ongoing bombardment by Russian troops in Mariupol, and the death toll could even be “about 10,000”.
Update from March 28, 5:09 p.m.: Ukraine has apparently recaptured the city of Irpin, previously controlled by Russian troops. So said the mayor of Irpin, Oleksandr Markushyn. He told US broadcaster CNN: “Irpin was freed last night. Now we must evacuate the city completely. There are wounded Russian soldiers. They offer to surrender or they will be destroyed.” Initially, the information could not be independently verified.
Markushyn’s Telegram channel also said on Monday afternoon that Ukrainians who had fled Irpin should continue to stay away from the city. “Please do not return to Irpin, because it is not safe there now.” Irpin has around 50,000 inhabitants and is located near Kyiv.
Update from March 28, 4:45 p.m.: According to data from The Kyiv Independent almost 5,000 people, including 210 children, have been killed in the war in Ukraine in the war in the war in Ukraine. The information cannot currently be independently verified.
Ukraine war: Kharkiv under heavy fire since outbreak – “Russian-speaking city”
Update from March 28, 3:50 p.m.: According to Ukrainian sources, almost 1,180 multi-storey residential buildings have been destroyed in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov since the start of the Russian attacks. In addition, more than 50 kindergartens, almost 70 schools and 15 hospitals were destroyed, said Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov on Monday, according to the Unian agency. Within 24 hours, Russian troops shelled Kharkiv almost 60 times with artillery and mortars. The information cannot be independently verified. Around 30 percent of the population had left the city, Terekhov said. But some people have returned. Before the start of the war, Kharkiv had around 1.5 million inhabitants and is the second largest city in Ukraine after Kyiv. Since the Russian invasion four and a half weeks ago, the city has been attacked from the air and with artillery.
According to Terekhov, the residents of bombed-out houses are housed in remaining schools, kindergartens, basements and subway stations. Despite the attacks, supermarkets in Kharkiv are still open and all the necessary groceries are available. Kharkiv is also being supplied with humanitarian aid from other cities. A shipment of drugs worth $880,000 had also arrived from the United States.
“Kharkiv is a Russian-speaking city,” the newspaper quoted Ukrainska Pravda Terekhov. At the beginning of the war, practically every fourth resident had relatives or acquaintances in Russia. Many also had friends in Russia. “People could never have imagined in their worst dreams that Russia would attack Ukraine and Kharkiv,” Terekhov said.
Ukraine now fears a Russian breakthrough on Kyiv – Zelenskyj accuses Russia of murdering mayors
Update from March 28, 3:30 p.m.: In an interview, Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke about the mayors killed in the Ukraine war. “Russians are kidnapping the mayors of our cities. We cannot find some of them. We have already found some of them and they are dead,” the Ukrainian president told The Economist. In the same interview, he accused Germany of “often making mistakes”*.
Update from March 28, 11:48 am: Reports of fires around the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that was damaged in 1986 are said to be false. According to Ukrainian sources, no major fires have been found in the exclusion zone. Satellite images do not currently detect any such heat sources, the Ukrainian civil defense service said on Monday. Information to the contrary is incorrect.
Last week, citing European satellite data, Parliament informed of several major fires in the restricted area, which is largely controlled by Russian troops. The fire was triggered by gunfire. “Big fires have started in the exclusion zone, which can have very serious consequences,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram on Sunday evening (see first report).
War in Ukraine: Establishment of escape corridors not possible – “provocations” on the routes
Update from March 28, 11:04 a.m.: According to information from Kyiv, no escape corridors for the evacuation of civilians can be set up this Monday due to the threat from Russian troops. There is intelligence information about possible “provocations” on the routes, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Monday. For weeks, Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of sabotaging the evacuation of civilians from particularly hard-fought areas.
The Ukrainian newspaper Pravda meanwhile, citing various regional administrations, reported on continuous Russian shelling in different parts of the country. There have been rocket attacks in the region around Kyiv and fighting along a highway. In Chernihiv in the north, Ukrainian soldiers fended off Russian attacks last night. The Zhytomyr and Kharkiv areas were also fired at with rockets and bombs.
Russian troops are said to be planning an advance on Kyiv
First report/overview: Kyiv – In the Ukraine war*, according to Ukrainian information, Russian troops want to break through defense systems in the vicinity of Kyiv* and advance further in the direction of the capital. In the north-west and east, the Ukrainian army is repelling attempts by Russian soldiers to take control of important roads and settlements, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Monday morning (March 28). Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense has published footage of armored vehicles leaving the town of Zalissia about 40 kilometers from Kyiv and said to be traveling on the E95 highway.
Ukraine war: Zelenskyy side reports fire at Chernobyl nuclear ruin – escalation of the situation in Mariupol
The information provided by both sides cannot be independently verified. In the morning, the Ukrainian General Staff also reported ongoing fighting in other parts of the country, including in the Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia regions in the south.
The exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is occupied by Russian armed forces*. Fires are said to have broken out again in the area. “Big fires have started in the exclusion zone, which can have very serious consequences,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram on Sunday evening. However, because of the Russian troops, it is currently “impossible to completely control and extinguish the fires”. At the beginning of the week there could be new negotiations in the Ukraine war*.
Ukraine War: Army launches counterattack against Russian troops
The Russian government had previously announced that it wanted to concentrate on the “liberation of Donbass”* in the Ukraine war. “This means potential or severe deterioration around Mariupol,” Ukraine’s presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said in a video message posted on the president’s Telegram account. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army counterattacked in some places and was able to push back Russian troops in isolated areas around Kyiv and in the vicinity of the city of Kharkiv, it is said. This information could not be independently verified. You can read more about the reactions from Germany to the Ukraine war in our news ticker*. (bm/dpa) * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA
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