Situation on the ground, international reactions, sanctions: the point of this July 1, 2022 on the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
At least 21 people were killed in overnight strikes by strategic bombers on buildings in the Odessa region of southern Ukraine, kyiv claimed on Friday, a new act of Russian “terror” according to the president Volodymyr Zelensky.
According to the Ukrainian command of the southern front, it was Tupolev Tu-22, planes dating from the Cold War and designed to carry nuclear warheads, which dropped Kh-22 missiles from the Black Sea against civilian buildings. a small coastal town south of Odessa.
“The enemy hit the village of Serguiyvka in the Belgorod Dnistrovsky district with three missiles. A large building was destroyed as well as a tourist complex,” regional governor Maksym Marchenko said on Telegram.
“Twenty-one people were killed, including a 12-year-old boy. Thirty-eight are in hospital, including five children. Two children are in serious condition,” he said. “There was not the slightest military target” there, he said. “I insist: this is deliberate Russian terror and not a few mistakes or an accidental missile strike,” President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced in the evening.
“I call on our partners to provide Ukraine with missile defense systems as soon as possible. Help us save lives,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba wrote on Twitter, calling Russia a “terrorist state”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, questioned on the subject, assured that the Russian forces were “not operating on civilian targets” in Ukraine.
“The Russian side, which is once again talking about collateral damage, is inhumane and cynical,” commented German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit. “It shows us once again in a cruel way that the Russian aggressor deliberately accepts the death of civilians,” he added.
The Kh-22 missiles that were used Friday in the Odessa region according to the Ukrainian military are Soviet cruise missiles dating from the Cold War, designed to strike a carrier battle group.
According to the Ukrainian army, missiles of the same type reached a shopping center in the middle of the day on Monday in Kremenchuk, in central Ukraine 200 km from the front, killing at least 19 people there according to the latest reports. .
Also on Friday, the governor of the Mykolaiv region, Vitaliy Kim, reported the firing of 12 missiles by Russian forces against this area of southern Ukraine. He did not give a report.
The Pentagon listed a new $820 million contribution on Friday.
These new deadly strikes came the day after the closure in Madrid of a NATO summit during which its members, led by the United States, assured Ukraine of their unwavering support in the face of Russia and announced new military aid.
The Pentagon on Friday listed a new contribution of $820 million, including missiles, shells and sophisticated NASAMS air defense equipment, which will help combat Russian aviation, including drones, as well as against cruise missiles.
Norway in turn announced aid of 10 billion crowns (nearly one billion euros).
But it was also on Thursday that the Ukrainians inflicted a snub on the Russian forces in the Black Sea, forcing them under the fire of their artillery to abandon Serpents’ Island, a rocky Ukrainian islet southwest of Odessa and opposite at the mouth of the Danube.
The coastal town of Serguiïvka struck Friday by the Russians, about 80 km south-west of Odessa, is located in the part of the Ukrainian coast closest to this essential island for controlling maritime traffic, in particular for exporting the millions of tons of cereals that remain stuck in Ukrainian silos.
Latest episode in this grain war: Ukraine has asked Turkey to intercept a 140-meter-long Russian cargo ship from the port of Berdiansk, in the occupied zone, which it suspects of transporting thousands of tons grain stolen by the Russians.
As if to illustrate this issue, the Ukrainian army affirmed, with video support in the evening, that the Russian army had bombarded Serpents’ Island on two occasions around 6:00 p.m. with phosphorus bombs, even though it had assured Thursday to withdraw as a “sign of goodwill” and not driven out by Ukrainian strikes.
On the other hand, Volodymyr Zelensky admitted that the situation remained “extremely difficult” in Lyssytchansk, a city in the industrial basin of Donbass, in the east, where most of the fighting is concentrated.
“The (Russian) forces have arrived at the gates of Lysychansk. The Ukrainian army is suffering heavy losses,” the Russian Defense Ministry wrote in a statement on Friday.
The Russians “are trying to encircle our army from the south and west” near this city, confirmed Serguiï Gaïdaï, the governor of the Lugansk region.
“Day and night”
“It bombs day and night,” testified, in Siversk, about twenty kilometers from Lyssytchank, a woman who refused to be named, at the foot of her building. Lyssytchansk is the last major city not yet in Russian hands in the Lugansk region, one of the two provinces of Donbass, which Moscow intends to fully control.
In the Kharkiv region (northeast), Governor Oleg Sinegoubov on Friday reported four dead and three injured in the past 24 hours. In Kherson, in the south, Ukrainian helicopters hit “a concentration of enemy troops and military equipment” near Bilozerka, the Ukrainian army said the same day, reporting “35 dead” among the Russian soldiers and destroyed enemy armor.
On the diplomatic front, European Commission President Ursula van der Leyen, addressing the Ukrainian parliament via video on Friday, called on it to speed up its anti-corruption reforms, as part of its accepted EU candidacy. last week by the leaders of the 27 Member States of the Union.
She also welcomed the passing of a law aimed at combating “the excessive influence of the oligarchs on the economy” and called for the adoption of a “law on the media, which brings Ukrainian legislation into line with the standards of the European Union”.
“Now we are together” and it is “a great honor and a great responsibility”, President Zelensky told parliament, stressing that “Ukraine is fighting to choose its values, to be in the European family” .
Finally, kyiv won a symbolic battle over Russia on Friday, with UNESCO recognizing that the Russian invasion was jeopardizing the Ukrainian culture of borsch, a beet and meat soup prepared on both sides of the border.
The United Nations cultural body has placed Ukrainian borsch on its list of Intangible World Heritage in Danger.
“The existence of this soup in itself is certainly not in danger in itself, but it is the human and living heritage associated with borsch which is in immediate danger” because of the war, according to the Unesco. Moscow denounced a culinary illustration of “Kiev nationalism”.