The essential :
- On Friday, Vladimir Putin hailed “positive progress” in the negotiations, now almost daily. On Saturday, Volodymyr Zelensky, in turn, spoke of a “fundamentally different approach” from Moscow, which previously only “set ultimatums”. On Sunday, a Russian negotiator also reported “progress” during the talks. These will resume on Monday by videoconference.
- The Russian forces continue to pursue their efforts on several key cities, including the capital Kiev, Mariupol asphyxiated by a siege and the strategic city of Dnipro. This Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk announced the opening of new humanitarian corridors to continue the evacuation of civilians whose towns are surrounded. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced in a video that 12,729 civilians had been evacuated via humanitarian corridors on Saturday.
- Russian airstrikes targeted a military base in western Ukraine, near the Polish border, overnight from Saturday to Sunday, killing 35 and injuring 134. According to Moscow, 180 foreign mercenaries were eliminated by its strikes. The police chief of Popasna (Donbass) accuses the Russians of using phosphorus bombs, which the Nazis used during the Second World War.
11:45 p.m. – Zelensky again calls for a no-fly zone
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again urged NATO on Sunday to establish a no-fly zone over his country, warning that otherwise the organization risked seeing “Russian rockets” falling on its member states. . “If you don’t lock down our skies, it’s only a matter of time, Russian rockets will fall on your territory, on NATO territory,” he said in a video address broadcast in the evening.
10:16 p.m. – Zelensky leaves his official residence for the first time
This is a first since the beginning of the war. President Zelensky left his official residence for a military hospital, where he met soldiers wounded at the front. The head of state presented medals to the soldiers and took some photos, according to a video posted on social networks on Sunday evening.
10:02 p.m. – New Russian-Ukrainian negotiations on Monday
A session of negotiations by videoconference between Russia and Ukraine will be held on Monday. Objective: to summarize the preliminary results of the talks, according to Mykhaïlo Podoliak, a negotiator and adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Earlier in the evening, the spokesperson for the Russian presidency, Dmitry Peskov, announced that this exchange would be held on Monday by videoconference. “Negotiations are continuing uninterrupted by videoconference. The working groups are at work constantly. A large number of issues require constant attention,” he said.
9:42 p.m. – At least 12 dead in attacks on health care
In Ukraine, since the start of the war, 31 attacks on health care have been documented, leaving at least 12 dead and 34 injured, according to a count released by Unicef on Sunday. “The health care system in Ukraine is clearly under strain, and its collapse would be a disaster”, warn the directors general of Unicef, UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) and WHO. According to reports from the WHO Health Care Attack Monitoring System, in 24 of these incidents, health care facilities were damaged or destroyed, while in 5 cases ambulances were damaged or destroyed. destroyed. According to these agencies and organization, 4,300 births have taken place in Ukraine since the start of the war and 80,000 Ukrainian women are expected to give birth in the next three months.
8:31 p.m. – The American journalist killed in Irpin worked for “Time”
Brent Renaud, a 50-year-old freelance photographer and filmmaker, is the first foreign journalist to be killed since the start of the war. He died Sunday by gunshot in a suburb of Irpin. Former video journalist New York Times, he was on a mission for the Time, responsible for covering the refugee crisis. “We are devastated by the loss of Brent Renaud. As an award-winning filmmaker and journalist, he tackled the world’s toughest stories, often alongside his brother Craig Renaud,” the newspaper said in a statement. press release, considering it essential that journalists be able to cover the war in Ukraine “in a secure manner”.
7:40 p.m. – Negotiations will resume on Monday
The Kremlin said Sunday that talks between Kiev and Moscow would continue Monday by videoconference, in the midst of the conflict in Ukraine, at a time when diplomatic contacts are increasing despite the fighting. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, quoted by the state-run TASS news agency, denied talks were underway on Sunday, saying they would resume on March 14.
Earlier in the day, a Russian negotiator had estimated that the talks were progressing. “If we compare the position of the two delegations between the start of the negotiations and now, then we see significant progress,” said Leonid Slutsky, an MP who was part of the Russian delegation who recently met with Ukrainian negotiators in Belarus.
7:15 p.m. – “Several teams have already been the subject of deliberate attacks”, warns the boss of Reporters Without Borders
Questioned by France Info, in the wake of the death of Brent Renaud, Christophe Deloire – boss of Reporters Without Borders – stressed that the tragedy is not an isolated case. “Several television teams have already been attacked, and deliberately attacked,” he recalled, citing the examples of an “Al Arabiya team, [ainsi qu’]another from Sky News, a team of Danish journalists, a Swiss journalist [qui a] injured…”. “It is a place where there are extremely serious dangers for foreign reporters, and even more so for Ukrainian journalists, since the difference is that Ukrainian journalists find themselves covering a war without get used to it. They did not voluntarily go to war. It is war that has come to them.”
We ask that full light be shed on the circumstances of the death of documentary filmmaker Brent Renaud and the injuries inflicted on the journalist who was with him in the suburbs of Kyiv. @RSF_inter pic.twitter.com/P2cU6tLgfF
— Christophe Deloire (@cdeloire) March 13, 2022
6:45 p.m. – Bermuda stops registering Russian planes
The civil aviation of Bermuda, where several hundred planes of Russian companies already targeted by sanctions are registered, announced that they would break their certification from Sunday, paving the way for flight bans. Western sanctions targeting Russian aircraft for the invasion of Ukraine “have had a significant impact on the continuation of security checks of aircraft operated in Russia”, Bermuda’s authority for the air force said in a statement on Saturday. civil aviation (BCAA).
Thus, it declares that it “cannot confidently approve” their safety and therefore “suspends all flight certificates” of these hundreds of planes as of Sunday, out of the more than 1,600 of the Russian commercial fleet. The country is considered a tax haven.
6:20 p.m. – UN demands an end to attacks on health workers
Several UN agencies on Sunday demanded an end to attacks on health personnel and infrastructure in Ukraine, which they described as acts of “unacceptable cruelty”. “Attacking the most vulnerable babies, children, pregnant women and those who are already ill in this way, as well as healthcare workers who risk their own lives to help save others, is an act of unconscionable cruelty,” declare in a joint press release the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the United Nations Population Fund (Unfpa), calling for a ceasefire immediate.
The WHO has already listed and documented 31 attacks against health personnel and infrastructure since the start of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army on February 24. In 24 incidents, health infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, while in 5 cases, ambulances were hit or destroyed. These attacks left 12 dead and 34 injured, according to the latest count published on Sunday by the WHO.