Situation on the ground, international reactions, sanctions: the point of this Wednesday, April 6, 2022 on the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
An investigation into Boutcha, “next step”
An investigation into the circumstances of the deaths of people dressed in civilian clothes, found dead in Boutcha by the Ukrainian authorities after the withdrawal of the Russian army, is “the next step”, a senior UN official said on Thursday.
Russian communications intercepted
The German intelligence services (BND) have recorded radio communications from Russian soldiers in which they discuss the abuses committed in Boutcha, the magazine der Spiegel said on Thursday.
In one of the radio messages referred to by der Spiegel, a soldier explains to another that he and his colleagues shot down a person on a bicycle. In another, a man says: “First we interrogate the soldiers, then we shoot them.”
Russia continues to commit ‘atrocities’ according to Blinken
The United States believes that Russia is continuing to commit “atrocities” in Ukraine “at this very moment,” US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken said Thursday after a NATO meeting.
UN suspends Russia from Human Rights Council
The UN General Assembly, made up of 193 member countries, on Thursday suspended Russia from its seat on the UN Human Rights Council, in a vote that garnered 93 votes in favor.
Twenty-four countries voted against this suspension – the second in the history of the UN after the ousting of Libya in 2011 -, initiated by the United States. And 58 countries abstained.
US, G7 and EU sanctions against Russia
In a vote in Congress, the United States formally revoked the trade status of Russia and Belarus on Thursday, paving the way for punitive tariffs.
The congressional bill also requires the United States to call for Russia’s suspension from the World Trade Organization.
The G7 countries also announced new economic sanctions against Russia on Thursday, including a ban on new investment in key sectors.
The European Union has approved an embargo on Russian coal.
Moscow admits ‘significant military losses’
Moscow acknowledged Thursday “significant losses” within its army deployed in Ukraine, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, without quantifying them.
Eastern Ukraine evacuated
Eastern Ukraine, now a priority target of the Kremlin, was trying to evacuate its civilian population, before a new Russian offensive expected despite new “devastating” American sanctions against Moscow. “We managed to evacuate more than 1,200 people today” on Wednesday, said Serguiï Gaïdaï, governor of the Lugansk region (east), still under Ukrainian control. This official specified that all these evacuations had been carried out in the absence of any ceasefire and under very difficult conditions due to the intense bombardments of the Russian forces. “I ask people to evacuate, because we clearly see that before going on the all-out offensive, the enemy will just completely destroy all these places,” he said in an interview with Ukrainian television. . “Please go” while there is still time.
These evacuations are made during brief lulls, or are made impossible as in Popasne, south of Sverodonetsk, where the intensity of the bombardments prevented any operation with the inhabitants of this locality of the Lugansk region, according to Mr. Gaïdaï. “We have nowhere to go, it’s been like this for days,” a resident of Severodonetsk, Volodymyr, 38, told AFP on Wednesday as he watched a burning building. “I don’t know who this war is for, but we are there under the bombs…” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk also launched from kyiv on Wednesday an appeal to the inhabitants of the east of the country to evacuate the region “immediately”, due to fears of a major Russian military offensive. We must leave “now” on pain of “risking death” in the coming days, she also insisted. If the Russian army launched a major attack in the region, “we could no longer help” the population, she warned.
A convoy of the Red Cross
Pavlo Kirilenko, governor of the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control, assured Wednesday that the population was beginning to respond to evacuation calls. “They are listening. The road (for the evacuation) is more borrowed,” he said in a video posted on his Facebook page. The Ukrainian authorities fear in the east of the country a situation similar to that of Mariupol in the south, where thousands of people still stuck in this besieged and bombarded city for weeks, are living through hell.
A convoy of seven buses and about 40 private vehicles under the protection of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) arrived on Wednesday from southeastern Ukraine to Zaporozhye (south), noted an AFP journalist. . “Those who were part of the convoy had managed to flee Mariupol”, explained the Red Cross, whose one of the teams responsible for helping to evacuate civilians had been “detained” by the police on Monday in a locality under Russian control. , then forced to turn back.
“No water, no electricity”
“These people have really lived through the worst,” ICRC spokesperson Lucile Marbeau told AFP. “We hear people saying that they had to leave Mariupol on foot. Over there, in Mariupol, there is still no food, no water, no electricity.” “There was very heavy shelling. That’s why we were delayed,” said one of the evacuees, Iryna Nikolayenko, who was able to force her way out of this port city during a break in the fighting. . “A week ago, conservative estimates put the death toll at 5,000,” Mariupol City Council wrote on Telegram on Wednesday. “But given the size of the city, the catastrophic destruction, the length of the blockade and the fierce resistance, there could be tens of thousands of civilian casualties in Mariupol,” he warned.
Zelensky’s accusations
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday accused Russia of blocking humanitarian access to Mariupol to conceal the “thousands” of victims in this city. “I think one of the main reasons why we can’t get humanitarian aid into Mariupol is that until everything has been ‘cleaned up’ by the Russian soldiers, they’re afraid the world will see what’s going on there,” Zelensky said in an interview with Turkish television channel Habertürk. Russia has been accused of “war crimes” after the discovery of dozens of bodies in several localities near kyiv, including Boucha, after the withdrawal of Russian forces. And equally dramatic tolls could emerge in other towns near the capital, such as Borodianka, which Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi has called “one of the most destroyed towns in Kyiv region”. “What is happening is nothing less than major war crimes. Responsible nations must come together to hold those responsible to account,” US President Joe Biden said in Washington on Wednesday, pledging ” to stifle for years” the economic development of Russia.
New US Sanctions
The United States announced on Wednesday a new round of economic and financial sanctions against Russia, which it describes as “devastating” and which notably target the big banks and the daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to Washington, Russia could see its economy collapse by some 15% this year. In addition to banning all new investments in Russia, a measure known since Tuesday, the American executive will impose the most severe constraints on the essential public bank Sberbank and the largest private bank in the country, Alfa Bank .
And in Europe, European Council President Charles Michel said on Wednesday that the EU should “sooner or later” impose sanctions on Russian oil and gas. Several European countries very dependent on Russian gas, Germany in the lead, are however very reluctant to such a measure which would heavily penalize their economies.
The troubled Russian economy
Risk of default, collapse of the automotive sector, inflation … After weeks of increasingly harsh sanctions, the Russian economy is starting to crack, according to data published on Wednesday. For Timothy Ash, analyst of Blue Bay Asset, “Putin impoverishes Russia for years”. However, the conflict shows no sign of weakening and NATO expects it to last a long time, “several months or even years”, according to the declarations of its Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday in Brussels, at the opening of a meeting of Foreign Ministers of the member states of the Alliance.