Situation on the ground, international reactions, sanctions: update on the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
kyiv targeted by Russian fire during Guterres’ visit
The Ukrainian capital, kyiv, was the target of strikes on Thursday evening, in the middle of a visit by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and for the first time since mid-April, AFP journalists noted. AFP correspondents saw a floor of a building on fire with black smoke billowing from shattered windows, while many police and rescue workers were present at the scene.
“In the evening, the enemy fired on kyiv. Two strikes on the Chevchenkovsky district”, confirmed the mayor of kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, adding that “information about the victims is being clarified”. “Missile strikes in the center of kyiv during the official visit of Antonio Guterres”, lambasted on Twitter Mikhaïlo Podoliak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ukrainian justice says it has identified “more than 8,000” alleged war crimes
Ukrainian investigators have identified “more than 8,000 cases” of alleged war crimes since the start of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said Thursday. “We now have more than 8,000 cases,” she said in an interview with German media outlet Deutsche Welle.
“It’s actually 8,600 cases relating to war crimes alone and more than 4,000 cases that are related to war crimes,” Venediktova said. These alleged crimes include “the killing of civilians, the bombing of civilian infrastructure, torture” and “sex crimes” reported in the “occupied territory of Ukraine”, according to the magistrate. Prosecutors are also investigating “the use of prohibited weapons”, she added.
Joe Biden wants to allocate 33 billion dollars “to help Ukraine defend itself”
The United States cannot afford to remain passive in the face of the conflict in Ukraine, Joe Biden explained Thursday to justify his request to Congress for a colossal budget extension of 33 billion dollars mainly to deliver more military aid to kyiv. Of this total, 20 billion must go to the supply of armaments, nearly seven times more than the impressive quantities of arms and ammunition already supplied to Ukraine since the Russian invasion, launched on February 24.
kyiv has already received 10 anti-tank weapons for each Russian tank, boasted the American president during his speech at the White House. But the United States “does not attack” Russia, he assured, it “helps Ukraine to defend itself” against Russian “atrocities and aggression”. The Kremlin had earlier warned against arms deliveries to Ukraine which “threaten European security”.
Gazprom suspends deliveries to two countries, EU reacts
The Russian group Gazprom announced on Wednesday that it had suspended all its gas deliveries to Bulgaria and Poland, ensuring that these two countries had not paid in rubles, as Vladimir Putin has demanded since March. Denouncing a new “gas blackmail”, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen affirmed that these two member countries of the EU and NATO, very dependent on Russian “blue gold”, were now supplied “by their neighbors in the European Union”.
The European Commission has also proposed suspending all customs duties on Ukrainian products imported into the EU for one year. This proposal still needs to be approved by the European Parliament and the 27 Member States. President Zelensky welcomed the plan, adding that Russia was “trying to cause a global price crisis” and sow “chaos” in the global food market.
Meeting of Energy Ministers
The European ministers in charge of energy will meet Monday, May 2 in “extraordinary session”, announced Wednesday evening the French minister in charge of the ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili.
kyiv expects ‘extremely difficult weeks’
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Wednesday he expected “extremely difficult weeks” against the Russian army, which “has already accumulated forces for a major offensive in the east”, Moscow’s priority . He called on Ukrainians for “resilience and unity”.
Russian forces, which have been stepping up their offensive in Donbass for two weeks, announced on Wednesday that they had carried out airstrikes on 59 Ukrainian targets. At the same time, the Ukrainian army recognized Russian advances in the east, in the Kharkiv region and in the Donbass. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that “hangars with a large amount of foreign weapons and ammunition, delivered to Ukrainian forces by the United States and European countries, were destroyed with Kalibr missiles fired from the sea on the Zaporozhye aluminum plant in southern Ukraine.
The governor of this region, however, brought a firm denial: “No ammunition and arms depot has been affected in Zaporozhye”, he retorted, hammering that the affected factory “has not been operational since six years”.
London calls for heavy weapons
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Wednesday called for increased deliveries of heavy weapons and aircraft to Ukraine, stressing that the time is for “courage” in the face of Russia.
“Heavy weapons, tanks, planes – dig into our stocks, ramp up production, we have to do all that,” she insisted — calling Vladimir Putin “a desperate rogue operator, who has no interest in international mores” — in a speech at the official residence of the Lord Mayor of the City of London.
Vladimir Putin meanwhile again warned against any outside intervention in the conflict in Ukraine, promising a “rapid and lightning” response.
Shootings in Moldova
The authorities of the pro-Russian separatist republic of Transdniestria, in Moldova, for their part announced that a village bordering Ukraine hosting a large deposit of Russian ammunition had been the target of fire after being flown over by drones.
The unrecognized region has reported a series of explosions in recent days that it has called “terrorist attacks”, leading kyiv to accuse Moscow of seeking to spread the war further into Europe.
Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu described these events as a “dangerous deterioration of the situation”.
The head of the UN in Ukraine
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres arrived in Ukraine on Wednesday, his first visit to the country since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24.
Mr. Guterres is due to travel Thursday morning to Borodianka, Irpin and Boutcha, theaters of abuses during the Russian occupation in March, before meeting Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Tourism: Russia suspended from WTO
Russia was suspended from the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) on Wednesday because of its invasion of Ukraine, deemed contrary to the “values” of the organization.
Anticipating a possible suspension, Russia itself announced in the morning at the opening of the debates before the general assembly in Madrid that it wanted to withdraw from the agency, which brings together 159 member states.
Groups linked to the Russian state have carried out more than 200 computer attacks against Ukraine and its infrastructure since the beginning of the invasion by the Russian army, according to a Microsoft report published on Wednesday.
These attacks “have not only damaged the systems of institutions in Ukraine but have also targeted the disruption of the population’s access to reliable information and vital services on which civilians depend, and have attempted to undermine trust in the country’s leaders,” said Tom Burt, vice president of Microsoft.