Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has appealed to Russian citizens not to adopt children from Ukraine. "I strongly recommend Russian citizens not to adopt Ukrainian orphans who have been illegally abducted from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine," Vereshchuk says. "I remind all Russian so-called 'adoptive parents' and 'guardians': sooner or later you will have to answer for yourself."

According to the Ukrainian Ministry for the Occupied Territories, 19,514 Ukrainian children are currently considered illegally deported. Russia presents the relocation of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children left behind in the conflict zone.

Zelenskyj after troop visit: We are stronger

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj has once again stressed the strength of Ukrainians after visiting the border region with Russia. "The threat is constant, our border is constantly shelled," Zelenskyi said on Tuesday in his nightly video address about the impressions of his visit to the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine. "But life and our people are obviously stronger than all fears."

During his visit to Sumy, Zelenskyj had met with the commanders of the border troops deployed there. "The strong positions along the entire border with the terrorist state (Russia) are a consequence of the strength of our people, who are ready to defend the border at any time," Zelensky said. Ukrainian border troops are shielding a several hundred kilometers long section of the common border with Russia in the northeast to prevent Russian units from invading there.

Kiev's military spokesman: Situation in Bakhmut "very dynamic"

The situation in the fiercely contested eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut is, in the words of a Ukrainian military, "very dynamic". Sometimes even the enemy has tactical advantages, said the spokesman for the Ukrainian Eastern Front, Serhiy Cherevatyj, on Tuesday evening on television. But these benefits are predictable. "We recognize them and take countermeasures."

There is no strategic advantage whatsoever. "The situation is stable, but difficult," Cherevaty said. "Fighting and countermeasures are about depriving the enemy of the opportunity to successfully expand his attacks." Bachmut has been fought for months. The Wagner mercenary troop operating on the Russian side there threatens the city from the east, north and south.

Pentagon: Russia wants to use very old tanks after losses

In view of the massive destruction of armored vehicles by the Ukrainian military, Russia is forced to resort to decades-old tanks from Soviet times, according to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Ukraine has thinned out the Russian stock of armored vehicles "in a way that no one could have imagined," Austin said at a Senate hearing. "That's why we see Russia now trying to acquire T-54 and T-55 tanks, given the extent of the damage Ukraine has inflicted on them."

The tank models were developed by the Soviet Union mainly after the Second World War. According to the US Institute for War Studies (ISW), the tanks have significantly lighter armor and smaller guns than more recent models.