Moscow will respond “extremely firmly” to new armed incursions, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu promised on Wednesday, two days after a spectacular attack by groups from Ukraine on Russian territory. “We will continue to respond quickly and extremely firmly to such actions,” Sergei Shoigu said during a meeting with senior military officials. On Tuesday, his army claimed to have “crushed” with its air force and artillery a group that had attacked the Belgorod border region the day before, the most spectacular incursion into Russian territory since the start of the conflict with Ukraine.
The main information:
– Russia says it will respond “extremely strongly” to further armed incursions
– Xi Jinping promises Moscow his “firm support” on “fundamental interests”
– ‘Numerous’ nighttime drone attacks reported in Russia’s Belgorod region
– WHO demands an immediate end to Russian attacks on Ukraine’s healthcare system
Increase in sabotage in Russia
The incursion, claimed by Russian armed groups based in Ukraine saying they want to overthrow Russian President Vladimir Putin, represents a new failure for Russia, whose army is entangled in Ukraine. Several voices among pro-Russian military bloggers, particularly influential in the construction of the narrative of the Ukrainian conflict, were thus moved by this incident, for example ironically boasting of this “military success” a few days after the claim of the capture of Bakhmout in the Donbass.
This incident also occurs in a context of multiplication and amplification of attacks and sabotage in Russia, at a time when kyiv says it is completing its preparations to launch an offensive to retake the territories occupied by Moscow. According to the Russian authorities, during the incursion, a civilian was killed in the village of Kozinka, one of the localities attacked, and a woman died of heart failure during its evacuation.
On Wednesday, Sergueï Choïgou also indicated that the envelope allocated to the financial support of the wounded in combat and the families of the soldiers killed in Ukraine represented each time “a one-time aid of an amount (between) 3 and 5 million rubles ” (between 35,000 and 58,000 euros at the current rate).
Russian Prime Minister denounces Western “pressure” in Beijing
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Michoustin hailed Wednesday in Beijing during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart bilateral relations “of an unprecedented level” in the face of “pressure” from Western sanctions. Former rivals during the Cold War, China and Russia have been strengthening their diplomatic and commercial relations for a decade, a trend that has accelerated since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Claiming to be a neutral party in the conflict, Beijing calls for respect for the sovereignty of states, but has never publicly condemned the military operation carried out by Russian President Vladimir Putin since February 2022.
Xi Jinping promises Moscow his “firm support” on “fundamental interests”
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday promised Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Michoustin visiting Beijing his “firm support” in terms of “fundamental interests” and called for “strengthening” economic cooperation with Moscow, hit by Western sanctions.
Former rivals during the Cold War, China and Russia have been strengthening their diplomatic and commercial relations for a decade, a trend that has accelerated since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Claiming to be neutral in the conflict, Beijing calls for respect for the sovereignty of states, but has never publicly condemned the military operation carried out by Russian President Vladimir Putin since February 2022.
WHO demands immediate end to Russian attacks on Ukraine’s healthcare system
The World Health Assembly in Geneva on Wednesday demanded that Russia “immediately” cease its attacks on Ukraine’s healthcare system, in a resolution marking support for Kiev, 15 months to the day after the invasion. The text was adopted by 80 votes against 9 opposed to the text, including Russia and China but also Syria, Algeria or even Cuba and North Korea.
Ukrainian Ambassador Yevheniia Filipenko said support for the Kyiv resolution was “a sign of hope for more than 14 million Ukrainians in need of health assistance” and a show of solidarity with health workers in the country. She stressed that the vote showed Moscow that “attacks on health care on a large scale are not tolerated.”
The representative of Russia denounced a text “full of lies”. “We are not against the work of the WHO in Ukraine: we are against the lies and the politicization of the work of the WHO,” she said. “I thank everyone who didn’t support the lies and who was so bold.” Some 52 countries, out of the 177 member countries of the WHO (World Health Organization) who had the right to participate in the vote, abstained.
About 10,000 of the prisoners recruited by Wagner killed in Ukraine, according to their leader
About 10,000 of the 50,000 detainees recruited from Russian prisons by the paramilitary group Wagner were killed in Ukraine, where they were on the front line in the very bloody battle of Bakhmout, admitted the head of the organization, Yevgeny Prigojine. “I selected 50,000 detainees, of whom around 20% were killed,” Prigozhin said in an interview published Tuesday evening by pro-Kremlin blogger Konstantin Dolgov.
In addition, he indicated that a similar proportion of his professional fighters had also died in combat, without however quantifying their precise number. According to him, the Ukrainian losses are much heavier: “I have three times fewer killed and (…) about half as many wounded”.
France and the EU will support Ukraine “for the long term”, Paris reminds China
France and the European Union are determined to support Ukraine “over time” and “in all areas”, Paris reaffirmed Tuesday to a Chinese envoy, sent by Beijing to Europe to discuss a political settlement of the conflict. Russian-Ukrainian. The French Foreign Ministry, through its Director General for Political and Security Affairs Frédéric Mondoloni, underlined “Russia’s full responsibility for the outbreak and continuation of the war”, during a meeting with the special envoy Chinese Li Hui in charge of the Ukrainian file, according to a press release from Paris.
According to this text, France, while welcoming “the resumption of dialogue between China and Ukraine”, recalled that Kiev was “exercising its right of self-defence” and underlined that it and the EU were ” determined to support (Ukraine) over the long term, in all areas”.