Russia announces a ceasefire on the Azovstal steelworks, elsewhere the bombardments rain down

• The EU presented the sixth package of sanctions against Russia, which provides for a total embargo on Russian oil, which will be implemented gradually over the next six months; the exclusion of other Russian banks from the Swift network, including Sberbank; the inclusion on the list of sanctioned Russian personalities of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, many Russian soldiers, but also the wife, daughter and son of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. These proposals will have to be approved by the Twenty-Seven to be applied.
• In Mariupol, the situation is still critical. Russia launched an assault with tanks and infantry on the Azovstal steelworks for the first time on Tuesday, according to one of the soldiers present in the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the city. The Kremlin on Wednesday denied launching the attack. But promises a ceasefire Thursday, Friday and Saturday according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. “The armed forces will open a humanitarian corridor from 08:00 to 18:00 Moscow time (05:00 to 15:00 GMT) on May 5, 6 and 7 from the site of the Azovstal metallurgical plant to evacuate civilians. During this period, the Russian armed forces and the units of the Donetsk People’s Republic (unilaterally proclaimed by the pro-Russian separatists, editor’s note) will unilaterally cease fire and hostilities.the ministry continued in a statement.
• Missiles are falling all over the country. Russian forces continued their offensive in the east on Wednesday, while hitting numerous targets in the west, from Lviv to the hitherto unspoiled mountainous region of Transcarpathia, not far from the Hungarian border. “In order to destroy Ukraine’s transport infrastructure, the enemy fired missiles at facilities in Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovograd, Lviv, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Transcarpathia, Odessa and Donetsk regions”said the General Staff of the Ukrainian army in the morning.
• In the eastern partthe Russians seek to “to secure full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and to maintain a land corridor to occupied Crimea”, he added. A Russian strike left two dead and eleven injured, all civilians, in the village of Chandrygolove, lamented the governor of the Donetsk region Pavlo Kyrylenko. Others caused one death and one injured, a child, around Kharkiv.
• During a new telephone conversation between Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putinon Tuesday, the Russian president estimated that “The West could stop these atrocities by […] stopping the supply of arms to Ukraine”. Mr. Putin also claimed that kyiv “missed[ait] preparation for serious work” in the peace talks. For his part, Mr. Macron called on Russia to “to live up to its responsibilities as a permanent member of the Security Council” of the UN, according to a press release from the Elysée.

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