As Ukraine endures more than two months of war, Washington announced new military aid to the country on Friday. This Saturday, the Russian offensive still knows no truce. However, around fifty civilians were able to be evacuated to Mariupol. Follow the latest information live.
7:26 p.m.
China is “carefully” following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and will likely learn from this conflict to adjust its plans to take control of Taiwan, CIA Director Bill Burns warned on Saturday. “Chinese leaders are carefully watching what lessons they can learn from Ukraine regarding their own ambitions and Taiwan,” he said.
Beijing was “surprised” by the setbacks of the Russian army and by the strong resistance of Ukrainian society, analyzed the boss of the main American intelligence agency during a conference organized by the Financial Times newspaper. “I think they were particularly struck by the way the Atlantic Alliance came together to impose economic costs on Russia in response to its aggression,” he continued. China was “troubled by the fact that Putin brought Europeans closer to Americans”, according to Bill Burns.
6:37 p.m.
All civilian women, children and the elderly have been evacuated from the Azovstal steelworks, the last pocket of resistance by Ukrainian forces against the Russian army in the devastated city of Mariupol, kyiv announced on Saturday.
“The president’s order was carried out: all women, children and elderly people were evacuated from Azovstal. This part of Mariupol’s humanitarian mission is accomplished,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on social media.
3:14 p.m.
Ukraine claimed on Saturday that it destroyed a Russian landing ship near the small Snake Island in the Black Sea, which has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion launched at the end of February.
A Bayraktar TB2 combat drone, developed in Turkey, “hit a landing ship of the 11770 Serna project as well as two Tor-type surface-to-air missile systems”, the Ukrainian navy said on Facebook, without specifying the date.
2:24 p.m.
Evacuations of civilians were to continue in Mariupol on Saturday, as was the Russian offensive which knows no let-up ahead of celebrations in Moscow of the victory over Nazi Germany on May 9. “We will continue (Saturday) our evacuation operation” in Azovstal, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Friday evening on Telegram, specifying that the evacuation of the city of Mariupol is also planned for the end of the day. -noon.
These new evacuation attempts would complement those of the previous days. On Friday, 50 people were evacuated from the huge Azovstal steelworks, the last pocket of resistance by Ukrainian forces in Mariupol.
These are women, children and the elderly. These operations, which are taking place under the aegis of the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), began last weekend and allowed, according to kyiv, nearly 500 civilians to flee.
11:44 am
France may be able to do without Russian gas “eventually”, said the president of the French energy giant Engie, Jean-Pierre Clamadieu, on Saturday, while the European Union is looking for alternatives to reduce its energy dependence on Russia. “Eventually, yes.
The question is in what term”, he declared at the microphone of France Inter, before indicating that France was “probably able to reduce in a very significant way” its dependence on Russian gas from here ” three or four years”. Its delivery, in fact, is based on a whole network of infrastructures (gas pipelines, liquefaction facilities, etc.) which are complex to put in place, said Mr. Clamadieu.
07:01
The UN Security Council on Friday unanimously gave its “strong support” to “the search for a peaceful solution” in Ukraine, in a first show of unity since the start of the Russian invasion of this country, where 50 additional civilians were evacuated from Mariupol, a besieged port city.
Meanwhile, the United States on Friday announced $150 million in new military aid to Ukraine, including artillery munitions and radar, but warned that arms funds for kyiv were now “virtually exhausted”.