Situation on the ground, international reactions, sanctions: the point on the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Mariupol: the Russian army says it has “completely liberated” the Azovstal factory
The Russian army said on Friday it had “fully liberated” the Azovstal steel plant in the strategic city of Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine, after the surrender of the last Ukrainian soldiers present there. “Since May 16, 2,439 Nazis from the Azov (regiment) and Ukrainian servicemen stuck in the factory have surrendered. Today, May 20, the last group of 531 fighters has surrendered,” the carrier said. word of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, in a statement published on Telegram.
According to this source, Russian President Vladimir Putin was informed by his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of “the end of the operation and the complete liberation of the combine (Azovstal) and the city of Mariupol”. Igor Konashenkov assured that the chief of the fighters of the Azov regiment on the spot had surrendered and had been evacuated from the factory in a “special armored vehicle” to prevent him from being attacked by hostile inhabitants.
Russian opponents Kasparov and Khodorkovsky designated “foreign agents”
Two opponents in exile of Vladimir Putin, the former chess champion Garry Kasparov and the former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, were designated Friday in Russia “foreign agents”, indicated the Russian Ministry of Justice. This infamous label, reminiscent of the “enemies of the people” of the Soviet period, is used massively against opponents, journalists and human rights activists accused of carrying out political activities financed abroad. “Foreign agents” are subject to numerous constraints and tedious procedures, under threat of heavy penalties. In particular, they must indicate this status in all their publications.
In the updated list on its website, the Russian Ministry of Justice claims that Mikhail Khodorkovsky, 58, and Garry Kasparov, 59, have “sources” in Ukraine to finance their activities. Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov has long opposed President Vladimir Putin and has lived in exile in the United States for nearly ten years. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was one of Russia’s most powerful businessmen in the 1990s, before coming into opposition with the Kremlin when Mr. Putin came to power in 2000. He spent ten years in prison, between 2003 and 2013, and has since lived in exile. For years, he notably financed the opposition organization Open Russia in Russia, which dissolved itself in May 2021 in the face of growing repression.
Eight injured in strike on newly rebuilt cultural center
At least eight people including a child were injured by a Russian missile strike on a newly rebuilt cultural center in Lozova, eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said on Friday. At first, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Telegram that “a Russian missile hit the house of culture which had just been rebuilt. Seven victims, including an eleven-year-old child.”
But in the evening, the governor of the region, Oleg Sinegoubov revised this toll upwards, with eight injured including an eleven-year-old girl, all of whom received shrapnel. “A fire broke out in the culture house following the missile strike,” he added, adding that it had been extinguished. According to him, three missiles were fired in all, two of which were intercepted. “Surrounding buildings were also damaged. There is no doubt that the occupants directly targeted the house of culture”, the largest cultural center in the region with more than 1,000 places, added Mr. Sinegoubov on Telegram.
Pressure in the Donbass
Russian forces are stepping up pressure in the Donbass, in eastern Ukraine, which they have turned into “hell”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday, who also considered that the massive aid announced by Washington in kyiv is an investment in Western security. The US Congress on Thursday released a gigantic envelope of 40 billion dollars to support Ukraine’s war effort against Russia. And the G7 finance ministers have begun to count the billions that each country could pour into Kyiv. “For our partners, it’s not just spending or a donation,” reacted Mr. Zelensky in his video address on the night of Thursday to Friday.
“It is their contribution to their own security because the protection of Ukraine means their own protection against new wars and crises that Russia may cause,” he said. The new American aid should in particular allow Ukraine to equip itself with armor and strengthen its anti-aircraft defense, at a time when Russia is concentrating its efforts in the east and south of the country after having failed to take kyiv and Kharkiv, in the north. Moscow seeks in particular to completely conquer the Donbass, a Russian-speaking region partially controlled since 2014 by pro-Russian separatists. “Ukrainian armed forces continue to make progress in liberating the Kharkiv region. But the occupiers are trying to further increase the pressure in the Donbass. This is hell, and this is not an exaggeration,” he said. said the Ukrainian president.
Severodonetsk crushed under fire
Russian bombardments left 12 dead and 40 injured on Thursday in Severodonetsk, in the Lugansk region (east), according to local governor Serguiï Gaïdaï. He said most of the shots hit apartment buildings, and the death toll could rise. An AFP team on the spot noted that this industrial city had been transformed for several days into a battlefield and crushed under artillery fire. “I don’t know how long we can hold out,” said Nella Kachkina, 65, a retired municipal employee.
Severodonetsk and Lyssytchansk constitute the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the Lugansk region. The Russians surround these two localities, separated by a river, and bombard them relentlessly. Separately, Russian soldiers on Thursday killed five civilians in the Donetsk region, also in the Donbass, according to Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. Russia announced on Thursday that nearly 800 Ukrainian soldiers entrenched in the bowels of the Azovstal steel complex in the port of Mariupol had surrendered in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to 1,730 since Monday.
Moscow released footage showing cohorts of men in combat gear emerging, some with crutches or bandages, after a long battle that had become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion in Mariupol. According to kyiv, this city-martyrdom was 90% destroyed and at least 20,000 people died there. These soldiers, including 80 wounded, “made themselves prisoners”, underlined the Russian Ministry of Defense. kyiv did not speak of surrender. “I am doing everything to ensure that the most influential international forces are informed, and as far as possible involved, in the rescue of our heroes,” Mr. Zelensky said Thursday evening.
underground maze
Members for the most part of a unit of marine riflemen and of the Azov regiment founded by Ukrainian nationalists, the evacuated combatants had been entrenched for several weeks in the maze of underground galleries dug in Soviet times under the gigantic steelworks, massively bombarded by Russians.
In a video released on Thursday, Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment, confirmed that he was still in the factory with the rest of the command, refusing to reveal details of the “operation” in progress. Their fate remains unresolved: Ukraine wants to organize an exchange of prisoners of war but Russia has made it known that it considers at least some of them not as soldiers, but as “neo-Nazi” fighters.
The war threatens to aggravate the global food crisis as it seriously disrupts agricultural activity and grain exports from Ukraine, a country which was until then the world’s fourth largest exporter of maize and is on the way to becoming the third largest exporter of wheat. “Stop blocking the ports of the Black Sea! Allow the free movement of ships, trains and trucks carrying food out of Ukraine”, launched Thursday evening the head of the American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, during a meeting of the UN Security Council. To which the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, retorted by denouncing a Western desire “to blame Russia for all the problems of the world”.