Russian S-300 missiles hit civilian buildings late yesterday evening in Kharkiv, the death toll and injuries are still unknown. Meanwhile, Japan has sent 471 million dollars to Ukraine Support, Recovery and Reform Trust Fund «to meet the most urgent needs in the repair of critical infrastructure».
Diplomatic tensions are growing between Moscow and Berlin. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova announced on TV the expulsion of more than 20 German diplomats. Retaliation, she said, against Germany’s earlier decision to expel Russian diplomats. According to the German newspaper Bild, 34 diplomats have to leave Russia. Moscow has accused Berlin of having started a process of destroying bilateral relations and has reported that it will “significantly limit the maximum number of employees of German diplomatic missions”.
The analysis
War in Ukraine, all Putin’s loopholes to evade sanctions. How does Russia resist – that’s how much gas and oil weigh
Thomas Carboni
On Russian soil, more than 3,000 residents were evacuated from their homes in the city of Belgorod, on the border with Ukraine. In the same area where a bomb was accidentally dropped by the Russian army on Thursday, another explosive device was found. “The operational command has decided to evacuate 17 apartment buildings within a radius of 200 meters”, “all those who need temporary accommodation will be assisted”, announced the governor of the Russian region Vyacheslav Gladkov on his Telegram channel, later reporting that the bomb has been removed from the area and residents have returned to their homes.
Ukraine, the Russian grenade and then the shots: this is life in the trenches in Bakhmut
The founder and leader of the pro-Russian military group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, speaking with the media, revealed that the son of the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov participated in the war “as part of the group’s artillery units”, under a false name: “Only I was aware of it.”
Former Wagners pardoned by Putin return to Russia and commit murders and violence
The Wagner Group has found a huge pool of mercenaries from which to draw in Russian prison inmates. Some estimates made by MediaZona speak of a number between 17,000 and 33,000 people released from prisons to then be enlisted and, after serving, pardoned by President Vladimir Putin. Many died on the battlefield. Others, on the other hand, returned home and often went back to committing crimes. The Guardian has told the story of Georgiy Siukayev, convicted of murder and recruited by Wagner mercenaries last autumn to fight in Ukraine. After being pardoned, Siukayev returned to his hometown of Tskhinvali, where he killed Soslan Valiyev, a 38-year-old man with a developmental disability. His case is not the only one. In late March, Yulia Buiskich, an 85-year-old pensioner, was killed in her home in the small town of Novy Burets in the Kirov region, 600 miles east of Moscow. To assassinate her, probably with an axe, would have been Ivan Rossomakhin, a 28-year-old former Wagnerist who had already committed other crimes before being sentenced to 10 years in prison for murder in 2020. «The state, Putin himself and Prigozhin are responsible for Yulia’s death and should answer for it,” said a relative of the woman who remained anonymous.
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