World News
Zelensky near the front, new drone strike on a Russian base
|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Steph Deschamps / December 7, 2022
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went on Tuesday near the frontline, not far from Bakhmut, the main battlefield in eastern Ukraine where the Ukrainian army has been resisting a Russian offensive for months.
This trip also comes at a time when Russia accuses its neighbor of multiplying drone attacks against airfields on its territory, which Washington has however declared ‘not to encourage’.
Kiev does not claim responsibility for these strikes, but they illustrate the difficulties encountered by the invasion launched on 24 February by Vladimir Putin.
“We do not allow Ukraine to organize strikes beyond its borders, we do not encourage Ukraine to launch strikes beyond its borders,” assured to the press in Washington, the spokesman for the U.S. diplomacy Ned Price. Everything we do, everything the world does to support Ukraine, is in support of Ukraine’s independence’.
The Ukrainians continue to suffer power cuts, the day after a new series of bombings on the energy infrastructure of their country.
These attacks cause ‘a new level of humanitarian needs’ for the population, the head of the UN humanitarian agency said in New York.
Since October, the prolonged attacks on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine have created a new level of need that affects the entire country and aggravates the needs caused by the war,” said Martin Griffiths before the UN Security Council.
For his part, President Volodymyr Zelensky released three videos of himself in the Donbass, a region that Moscow claimed as its annexation in September, but does not fully control.
Eastern Ukraine is the most difficult axis (of the front),’ Zelensky told servicemen on the occasion of the Armed Forces Day. Thank you for your resilience,” he added, before handing out decorations.
Nearby, in the pro-Russian stronghold of Donetsk, six civilians were killed in Ukrainian strikes, according to local authorities.
Volodymyr Zelensky regularly visits the frontline, something that the Kremlin master has never done so far, preferring video-conferences from his office or his residence.
Vladimir Putin has only made rare trips, such as to annexed Crimea on Monday, where images showed him driving a vehicle over the bridge linking this peninsula to Russia, which had been partially destroyed in early October by an attack attributed by Moscow to Kiev.
The Ukrainian president was only 45 kilometers from Bakhmut, which Russian forces have been trying to conquer since the summer at the cost of considerable destruction, without succeeding for the moment.
Moscow has deployed not only soldiers, but also the paramilitary group Wagner, which has recruited criminals.
The capture of Bakhmut would finally constitute a success for the Russians, who have been suffering setbacks since the autumn, forced to retreat to the north-east and the south.
Faced with the multiplication of these defeats, the Kremlin has decided, since October, to concentrate its attacks on Ukrainian energy installations, depriving the population of electricity, and even of water and heating, at a time when winter is arriving with its negative temperatures.
Again on Tuesday, the Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Choigou, explained these ‘massive strikes’ by the need to ‘reduce the military potential of Ukraine’.
While the Kremlin keeps swearing that it will overcome the Ukrainian resistance, the last few months have proven to be very difficult for the Russian military, faced with Ukrainians motivated and armed by their Western allies.
Moscow has also denounced Ukrainian attacks on military airfields over the past two days, including two targeted on Monday, which are located several hundred kilometers from the border. Kiev has not officially admitted any responsibility in these actions.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called them a ‘dangerous factor’, adding, without giving details, that ‘necessary measures will be taken’.
The Russian newspaper Kommersant writes that Ukraine used Soviet TU-141 drones to strike, in particular, on Monday, the base of Engels, housing strategic bombers and located 500 km from the nearest Ukrainian border.
The British Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday that if Kiev had been able to carry out such an operation, Moscow must consider it as ‘the most significant strategic failure to protect its forces since the invasion of Ukraine’.
In addition, on Tuesday morning, another drone attack, this time in the area of the Kursk airfield, near the Ukrainian border, set fire to a fuel tank.
Finally, Kiev and Moscow proceeded to a new exchange of prisoners, announced the Russian Ministry of Defense, noting in a statement that ’60 Russian servicemen’ had been released on Tuesday.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Sylvie Claire / July 21, 2024
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on the phone on Friday, with the former US president claiming to have promised the Ukrainian president to “end the war” between Ukraine and Russia should he return to the White House. “As your next president of the United States, I will bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives,” said the Republican presidential candidate.
Donald Trump frequently claims that he would be able to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine very quickly on his return to power, but never provides details of how he would achieve this. Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the phone call, during which he congratulated the billionaire on his official nomination the previous day as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.
Donald Trump’s frequent praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as his criticism of other Nato countries, is causing concern among Ukraine’s Western allies. In February, he threatened that, if he returned to the White House, he would no longer guarantee the protection of Atlantic Alliance countries against Russia if they did not pay their share, even claiming that he would “encourage” Moscow to attack them. The former American president also used his power over the Republicans to block a $61 billion military aid package for Kiev for months in Congress, which was finally adopted at the end of April.
In his posting on X on Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky said he had “agreed with President Trump to discuss, in a face-to-face meeting, the steps to be taken towards a just and lasting peace” in Ukraine.
World News
Former Ukrainian far-right MP murdered in Lviv: “All leads are being investigated, including Russia”
Reading Time: < 1 minute
Steph Deschamps / July 21, 2024
In a message on Telegram, the Ukrainian National Police said she had succumbed to her injuries in hospital after being the target of an assassination attempt.
“I always say that no place is safe in Ukraine,” lamented Lviv mayor Andriï Sadovy, denouncing a ‘heinous murder’ and offering his condolences to the victim’s relatives.
According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office, the attack took place on Friday evening, at around 7.30pm, when an unidentified individual fired at Irina Farion, seriously wounding her in the head. “All surveillance cameras are being checked, witnesses are being interviewed and several districts (of Lviv) are being examined. All leads are being investigated, including the one leading to Russia”, reacted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on X on Saturday.
Interior Minister Igor Klimenko told a briefing in Lviv on Friday evening that the suspected killer could have been lurking around Irina Farion’s home for several days.
According to him, investigators are currently focusing on the possibility of a murder motivated by a “personal grudge” linked to the victim’s activities, but are not ruling out a “commissioned assassination” either.
The 60-year-old language teacher and linguist was a member of parliament for the nationalist Svoboda party between 2012 and 2014.
Reading Time: < 1 minute
Sylvie Claire / July 18, 2024
At least six people died in a shopping mall fire on Wednesday in Zigong, southwest China, and thirty others were rescued, China’s state broadcaster CCTV said. “Rescue teams are continuing their search,” the media outlet added.
Images broadcast by the channel and others shared on social networks show thick black smoke rising from a building overlooking a shopping street in this city 1,600 kilometers from the capital Beijing, in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
The fire broke out in the early evening in a shopping mall at the foot of a 14-storey building, CCTV reported.
“At 8:20 pm, the fire was extinguished and 17 people were rescued. Others are still trapped, and rescue operations are continuing”, said the station in an initial report on the situation.
Fires and other fatal accidents are frequent in China, due to the sometimes lax application of safety standards. In January, at least 39 people perished in a store fire in central China. According to the authorities, the fire started in the basement of a store when workers “broke the rules” during construction work. At the time, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for lessons to be learned from the disaster to prevent further tragedies. The same month, a fire in a residential building claimed at least 15 lives.
World News6 days ago
Trump promises Zelensky to “end the war” in Ukraine in phone call
World News6 days ago
Former Ukrainian far-right MP murdered in Lviv: “All leads are being investigated, including Russia”
World News1 week ago