Land gains in Donetsk, deaths in drone attack on Odessa

Odessa was shelled on Saturday night +++ Territory gains in Donetsk +++ Selenskyj speaks of “difficult battles” +++ all information in the news blog

A firefighter extinguishing a fire in OdessaOleksandr Gimanov/AFP

Saturday June 10th

Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau arrives in Kiev

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived in Kiev on Saturday. As the newspaper Kiev Independent reports, he laid a wreath at a memorial in St. Michael’s Cathedral.

It is the Canadian leader’s second visit to Ukraine during the war. He last visited Kiev in May 2022 and reopened the Canadian embassy in Ukraine there.

Scholz defends arms deliveries to Ukraine – protest at Church Congress

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has defended arms deliveries to Ukraine. They served to enable Ukraine to defend itself against the Russian attack. “She can and should do that,” he said to great applause from the audience in Nuremberg, the Protestant press service reported. However, individual participants also chanted “negotiations now” from the stands.

Scholz replied to the protesters that negotiations were “okay”. The only question is, with whom and about what. It is not acceptable that Ukraine should negotiate that part of its territory simply becomes Russia, said Scholz.

Ukrainian ambassador expects billions in damage

Following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Oleksiy Makeyev, fears billions in damage to people, the environment and agriculture. “Cities, infrastructure, entire industries must be rebuilt,” the diplomat told the newspapers of the Funke media group (Saturday editions). “The overall damage will not be visible until the water has drained.”

According to Funke, after the explosion at the Ukrainian dam, the Ukrainian government submitted an application for emergency aid to the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and asked, among other things, for tankers for the drinking water supply, fire hoses, life buoys, motor pumps for dirty water and life jackets.

According to Makejev, the reconstruction costs for Ukraine this year alone amount to 14.1 billion US dollars (around 13 billion euros). “Of this, $3.3 billion has already been allocated in Ukraine’s budget. Everything is needed, from drinking water filters to rubber dinghies,” said the ambassador.

Russia fires at Ukraine with 35 drones and 8 missiles

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, last night Russia directed 35 drones and 8 missiles at targets in Ukraine. 20 Iranian Shahed drones and two ballistic missiles were shot down.

After the dam was blown up, the level of the Dnipro falls

After the rupture of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine, the southern part of the Dnipro is expected to return to its riverbed by next Friday, according to Russian sources. As the Russian-appointed governor of the annexed Ukrainian region of Cherson announced, this can be deduced from preliminary calculations for the sinking of the water masses. The water level in the downstream town of Nowa Kachowka, adjacent to the dam, has dropped three meters since Tuesday’s peak. The governor said they had started pumping out the water and dumping garbage. More than 6,000 people have been evacuated from the flooded parts of the city, as well as from Oleschky and Hola Prystan at the mouth of the river in the Black Sea.

The governor accused Ukraine of shelling temporary shelters for those displaced by the flood. A woman died in the process. Ukraine, for its part, accuses Russian troops of shooting at civilians in the flooded areas.

Russia: Two missiles intercepted over Crimea

Russian air defenses shot down two Ukrainian Grom-2 ballistic missiles over Crimea, regional governor Sergey Aksyonov said on Saturday on the online news service Telegram. No one was killed or injured in the attack, he said, according to the Russian news agency Tass. Crimea was last attacked on May 6 with Grom-2 missiles.

Merz: No “approach to the aggressor”

CDU leader Friedrich Merz considers a rapprochement with Russia to be wrong in the struggle to end the war in Ukraine. “Appeasement, appeasement, approaching the aggressor with the wrong means” is “the wrong way,” he said on Saturday at the 38th German Evangelical Church Congress in Nuremberg. He made references to the futile attempt by the Allies to appease Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler with their policy of appeasement.

“Even in our time there were documents that promised peace,” said Merz. “First, freedom was restricted step by step, and then, step by step, the peace was broken.” That’s why one has to ask oneself today whether Russia has been mishandled for two decades – and whether China is similarly underestimated today.

Land gains reported in Donetsk region

According to their own statements, the Ukrainian troops have gained ground in the Donetsk region. On Friday they continued their counter-offensives in at least four frontline areas, writes the US think tank Institute for the Study of War. The Ukrainian army made tactical gains in Donetsk Oblast near the border with Zaporizhia Oblast.

Three people killed by drones in Odessa

According to Ukrainian sources, three people were killed and at least ten others injured in a drone strike in southern Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent reports. Russian forces used Iranian-made Shahed-131/136 drones to attack the region. According to the report, all the drones were destroyed by Ukrainian forces.

On June 9, during ongoing evacuation efforts, Russian forces attacked Kherson, injuring three people, including an underage girl.