Speaking as a professional translator, let me encourage you to look beyond dictionary definitions - each definition in a dictionary means that the word in question
can stand in a particular role. A true pair of synonyms would coincide in meaning in all situations. Dictionaries can be very dangerous tools indeed in unsure hands. I know I've injured myself with them repeatedly, as has every translator at some time or another.
"Actual" is a common mistranslation from French or German. As a rule of thumb, actuel/aktuell can almost always be translated as "current". "Actual" in English means something more like "true".
In the phrase "actual situation", "actual" does take on the Latin meaning of "existing now or current", but you can see that today's gloss of "true" also fits there: "true situation" works pretty well to describe the actual situation. Although come to think of it, "actual situation" sounds little odd to my ear (although that is a very dangerous metric, because everything can sound odd if you think too hard about it).