Russia has apparently lost 500,000 soldiers since the start of the Ukraine war. According to a Reuters report, Putin is ready for a ceasefire along the current front lines. All news about the war against Ukraine in the news ticker.
7.43 p.m.: Russia’s former President Dmitri Medvedev has threatened Poland with “radioactive ash” following comments by Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. The Pole Sikorski had spoken to the British newspaper “The Guardian” about how the USA would presumably react to a Russian use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
“The Americans told the Russians that if you detonate a nuclear bomb, even if it doesn’t kill anyone, we will hit all your targets in Ukraine with conventional weapons, we will destroy them all,” Sikorski told the paper. Poland is one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters.
The US said nothing of the kind “because they are more cautious,” wrote Medvedev on the social network X. “If Americans hit our targets, it means a world war, and a foreign minister, even of a country like Poland, should understand that,” wrote Deputy head of the Russian Security Council on Sunday.
Polish President Andrzej Duda has asked for US tactical nuclear weapons to be stationed in Poland, he claimed. “Warsaw will not be left out and will certainly receive its share of radioactive ash. Is that what you want?” added Medvedev. Duda said in April that Poland was ready to accept NATO nuclear weapons as a counterweight to the stationing of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
4.15 p.m.: Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen commented on the controversial draft law for a stricter asylum procedure at the Finnish-Russian border in an interview with the state broadcaster “Yle”. According to Rantanen, people who enter the country via the eastern border without a valid reason should be sent back to Russia.
The Finnish Parliament has been examining the draft since last week. Currently, Finland must accept all asylum-seeking migrants and process their applications. The new law would allow Finnish border guards to return asylum seekers coming across the eastern border directly to Russia.
Due to a sharp increase in migrant arrivals, Finland closed its 1,340-kilometer border with Russia in November 2023. The new law is intended to improve control over migration and make the asylum procedure more efficient.
The debate over the bill is controversial. Supporters see this as a necessary protection of the borders, while critics warn of possible human rights violations. The Finnish government emphasizes its determination to balance national security and international obligations.
12.39 p.m.: Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) currently sees no reason to expand the area of operation of Western weapons in the Ukrainian war. At a “citizens’ dialogue” on Sunday in Berlin, the Chancellor rejected calls for the weapons supplied to be used on Russian territory. There are “clear rules that have been agreed with Ukraine and that work” for German arms deliveries, said Scholz. “At least that’s my theory,” he added.
The goal of his Ukraine policy is to “prevent it from becoming a big war,” Scholz added. The supply of German weapons for Ukraine’s self-defense also serves to “prevent an escalation of the war, a war between Russia and NATO.”
At the same time, Germany is trying to find diplomatic ways to resolve the war, said Scholz. “It’s not about the big questions yet,” he said. But it’s about protecting the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, grain exports and the exchange of prisoners. “This is a small plant that I hope will grow more from it,” said Scholz. “And that’s why we maintain this and try to have as many countries as possible involved.”
7:16 a.m.: On Sunday morning, rescue workers extinguished the fire in a hardware store in the city of Kharkiv that broke out in a devastating Russian air raid the day before. The extinguishing work took more than 16 hours, Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram. According to him, the number of victims has now increased to twelve. He put the number of injured at 43. In addition, 16 people were still missing.
The extinguishing and rescue work continued throughout the night; possible further victims under the rubble of the “Epizentr” were not ruled out. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, around 200 people were in the hardware store at the time of the attack on Saturday afternoon.
Sunday, May 26, 12:49 a.m.: The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, has called for frozen Russian assets to be used to support Ukraine. “There are around 300 billion euros of frozen Russian state assets held by oligarchs around the world,” Makeiev told Bild am Sonntag. “And it would also be a right message to the German taxpayer to say that we are not only taking their money, but also Russian money, to help Ukraine fight for peace.”
What Russia is doing today is also a danger for Germany, Makeiev continued. “Democracy must be better armed than autocracy. And of course you need money for that. Not only for Ukraine, but also for the Bundeswehr.”
6:20 p.m.: The Russian military’s attack on a hardware store in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv is, in the words of President Volodymyr Zelensky, “another manifestation of Russian madness.” “Only madmen like (Kremlin chief Vladimir) Putin are capable of killing and terrorizing people in such a disgusting way,” the Ukrainian president said in his daily video address early Saturday evening.
According to the regional civil defense, at least two people were killed and another 33 injured in the attack. Meanwhile, the fire brigade’s firefighting teams fought their way further into the destroyed building. According to Zelensky, around 200 people were in the “Epizentr” hardware store at the time of the attack.
Zelensky once again asked Ukraine’s supporters for additional anti-aircraft systems. Another Russian Su-25 fighter jet was shot down in the east of the country on Saturday. But: “If we had more appropriate, modern air defense systems and aircraft, the Russian Air Force would of course have collapsed long ago in the same way as its Black Sea Fleet.” For Zelenskyj, shooting down Russian aircraft is “a real peacekeeping measure.”
4.42 p.m.: According to the authorities, at least two people were killed in a Russian attack on the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine on Saturday. “We know for sure that there are two dead,” the city’s mayor, Igor Terechow, said on the online service Telegram. According to initial information, a hardware store in a residential area was hit.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said there may have been “more than 200” people in the hardware store. All emergency services are on duty to help people and put out fires, he said on Telegram.
11.40 a.m.: According to unofficial reports, a radar in the Russian early warning system against incoming nuclear missiles was damaged in a Ukrainian drone attack. Photos of damage to the facility near the city of Armavir in southern Russia appeared in Russian and Ukrainian channels, the US Institute for War Studies (ISW) wrote in its situation report on Friday evening.
From the Moscow side, the former Russian ambassador to NATO, Dmitri Rogozin, made the comments on Saturday. On the social network Rogozin, now a senator in the Russian Federation Council, accused the USA of planning this attack or at least knowing about it. Such actions bring the world closer to the brink of nuclear war, he warned. The Kremlin or the Russian Defense Ministry did not comment.
The Russian Voronezh-DM early warning radar at Armavir can reportedly detect attacking nuclear missiles at a distance of 6,000 kilometers. In the chain of such radar stations, it monitors the airspace over Crimea and southwestern Europe and far into the Atlantic.
Saturday, May 25th, 9:08 a.m.: According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russian losses of soldiers since the beginning of the war in Ukraine are said to amount to a total of 500,080. There were 1,140 losses in the last 24 hours alone. The numbers cannot be confirmed independently.
In addition, 7,650 Russian tanks have already been destroyed over the course of the war, as have 12,929 artillery systems and 1,082 multiple rocket launchers. According to reports, Russia has also lost 356 aircraft, 12,929 artillery pieces and one submarine.
8.25 p.m.: Germany has delivered another Iris-T fire unit to Ukraine, which has been attacked by Russia. The air defense system arrived in Ukraine on Friday, as the Federal Ministry of Defense announced on Platform X. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) explained that it was a combined unit of IRIS-T SLM and IRIS-T SLS – “a highly modern and well-proven medium and short-range air defense system, directly from German industry.” Russia has been increasing its air attacks on Ukraine for months, killing people and destroying important infrastructure, said Pistorius.
Germany has already delivered several air defense systems to Kiev, including the IRIS-T and Patriot types.
5:58 p.m.: According to “Spiegel”, Germany has delivered another Iris-T-SLM air defense system to Ukraine. As the magazine reported on Friday, the system had already arrived on site and was ready for use.
3:10 p.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to end the war in Ukraine with a ceasefire that recognizes the current front lines. This is reported by “Reuters”, citing four Russian sources. But the supposed peace offer is disinformation, as political scientist Gustav Gressel explains on Platform X. Instead, there is calculation behind Putin’s plan.
Such rumors are spread to distract the West and give the illusion that peace is within reach, writes Gressel. Russia is already in a state of war economy. “If the current trend continues, Russia will prevail over Ukraine without the need for negotiations. But if the West decides to act instead of talking, things can still be turned around,” said Gressel.
Moscow knew that Kiev would not recognize the current front lines. As a result, the negotiations would continue to drag on, but the hope for peace would deter the West from further arms deliveries. “In the meantime, the war would continue and the military situation would deteriorate due to the lack of supplies,” said Gressel. “The use of negotiations as a means of war is as old as diplomacy.”
More about the Ukraine conflict on the next page.