Moscow is apparently planning annexations in eastern Ukraine

According to the United States, Russia could try to annex parts of eastern Ukraine as early as May. To this end, Russia is planning “sham referenda” in Donetsk and Luhansk. Ukraine accuses Moscow of abducting its citizens from occupied territories.

According to US estimates, Russia plans to annex large parts of eastern Ukraine in May and recognize the southern Ukrainian city of Cherson as an independent republic.

The US and others have information that Moscow is planning “sham referendums” in the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, which would see the territories annexed to Russia, said Michael Carpenter, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE ).

There are also indications that Russia will organize a vote on independence in Kherson. With such referendums, the Kremlin may be trying to give its actions a democratic touch, said Carpenter. The approach expected from the United States came “directly from the Kremlin’s tactics manual.”

Internet in Kherson apparently under Russian control

In addition, the Internet in Cherson is now said to be under Russian control. “Someone must have activated a line from Crimea to Kherson,” said Doug Madory, director of internet analytics at Kentik. He described the development as “eerily similar” to what happened after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.

The London-based organization NetBlocks, which documents internet blocking worldwide, reported like Madory that internet traffic in the Kherson region was rerouted via the state-controlled Russian telecommunications company Rostelecom from Sunday evening after a one-day outage.

Situation in Mariupol “total disaster”

In the city of Mariupol, which has been contested for weeks, the city council announced another attempt to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal steel plant. The rescue failed on Monday. According to Ukrainian sources, around 200 civilians are said to be staying there together with soldiers.

According to the aid organization Doctors Without Borders, the humanitarian situation in Mariupol is disastrous. “From the information we have so far, it can be said with certainty: It’s a total catastrophe,” said the organization’s emergency coordinator for Ukraine, Anja Wolz, to the newspapers of the Funke media group.

The true extent of human suffering in the besieged metropolis will only become fully apparent in the future. “I don’t think we have any idea what we’ll see there. Butscha, Irpin and Hostomel are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Wolz. Hundreds of bodies were found in the cities of Bucha, Irpin, Borodyanka and Hostomel after Russian troops withdrew.

No medical care in Mariupol

Wolz emphasized that there are currently hardly any ways to provide medical care to the people in the enclosed city. “It is currently almost impossible to bring relief supplies to Mariupol,” said Wolz. Although there are volunteers who smuggle medicines into the city, these are only very small quantities of medicines.

In addition, there is a lack of medical staff to provide medical care for the population in Mariupol. “Operations cannot take place. The people there are on their own.” This also applies to the other combat zones in the country.

Ukraine reports rocket attack on Odessa

According to Ukrainian sources, a rocket attack hit the port city of Odessa on the Black Sea on Monday evening. Maxim Marchenko, the governor of the Odessa region in south-western Ukraine, wrote to Telegram that there were dead and injured. He did not provide any information on the number of people affected.

Regarding the situation in the fighting on the ground in eastern Ukraine, the US Department of Defense announced that the Russian military was making only minimal progress. “Troops still suffer from poor leadership and control, morale in many units is low, logistics are suboptimal,” a Pentagon official said. For example, the Ukrainian military was able to push the Russians back further from Kharkiv.

Moscow: 1.1 million people brought to Russia

Russia said it had brought almost 1.1 million people to Russia from the contested areas of Ukraine. Almost 200,000 of them are children, said Colonel General Mikhail Mizinzew in Moscow. On Monday alone, 11,500 people, including 1,850 children, were brought to Russia, he was quoted as saying by the Interfax agency.

According to the Russian account, these people from Ukraine are being brought to safety from the fighting and alleged violence by the Kiev leadership. Alleged refugees from the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine were brought to Russia even before the Russian attack on February 24.

Ukraine accuses Russia of kidnapping

Ukraine sees this as a deportation of its citizens from the currently Russian-occupied areas in the east and south. According to Kyiv, the Russian army is not letting people flee to Ukrainian-controlled territory. The Ukrainian Security Council accused Russia of kidnapping the children and using them for propaganda purposes.