Europe 1 with AFP
modified to
11:40 a.m., January 19, 2023
Sweden has decided to supply the Ukrainian army with long-range self-propelled guns of the Archer model, modern equipment requested by kyiv for many months, as well as light armored vehicles, the government announced on Thursday. After a government meeting, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced at a press conference “the first decision to start delivering Archer artillery systems to Ukraine” to help it against Russia.
Sweden, which has broken with Ukraine with its doctrine of not delivering armaments to a country at war, will also send 50 CV-90 armored infantry combatants as well as NLAW man-portable anti-tank missiles, said announced the government. These announcements come at a time when Western countries are multiplying announcements of sending heavy weapons to Ukraine.
“Military support is decisive,” said Prime Minister Kristersson because “it can change whoever takes the initiative in the coming winter” on the front in Ukraine. With a range of more than 30 kilometers, which can exceed 50 km with certain advanced shells, the Archer artillery system, produced by a Swedish subsidiary of arms giant BAE Systems, is of the same class as the French Caesar gun.
Information to remember:
- A helicopter crash near kyiv killed at least 14 people.
- The Ukrainian Interior Minister was among the passengers.
- A criminal investigation was opened after the disaster
Zelensky criticizes German hesitations regarding tank deliveries
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday criticized Germany’s hesitation to allow heavy tank deliveries, saying it was not the “right strategy”. “There are times when you shouldn’t hesitate or compare yourself. When someone says ‘I will deliver tanks if someone else does,'” said Mr. Zelensky, who was speaking by videoconference during the a breakfast on the sidelines of the Davos Forum.
The Ukrainian president was referring to press reports that Berlin will deliver heavy tanks only if the United States delivers Abrams tanks. However, Washington is not ready to provide Ukraine with these combat tanks, a senior Pentagon official said on Wednesday, justifying this refusal by questions of maintenance and training, without however excluding a change in the American position on the matter. ‘coming.
“I don’t think this is the right strategy to adopt”, regretted the Ukrainian president, targeting Berlin, which is under increasing pressure from several European neighbors to authorize deliveries of Leopards , very powerful combat tanks.
An investigation opened after the crash of the helicopter of the Minister of the Interior
The Ukrainian authorities began Thursday a criminal investigation ordered by President Volodymyr Zelensky, after the death of the Minister of the Interior Denys Monastyrsky in the crash of his helicopter which made at least 14 dead. “The Security Service of Ukraine has opened a criminal investigation into this terrible event,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech Wednesday evening. “I instructed the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, in cooperation with all other authorized bodies, to clarify all the circumstances of the disaster,” he further specified.
The helicopter, a Super Puma EC-225 (Airbus Helicopters) according to the State Service for Emergency Situations (SES) to which it belonged, crashed Wednesday morning in Brovary, near kyiv. According to the same source, nine people were on board the aircraft, including the minister and his deputy. According to a latest report attributed to the same source, 14 people died, including a child, and 25 injured were hospitalized, including 11 children.
“The head of the national police of Ukraine will be the head of the ministry for the time being. We have also distributed the responsibilities that fell to the minister in the framework of our defense operation and the guarantee of state security “, added Volodymyr Zelensky.
On the spot, AFP journalists saw debris near apartment buildings, a door, two crushed cars. And bodies wrapped up and taken on a stretcher, one by one, to a van.
“Our pain is unspeakable”
This crash, which occurred four days after a Russian missile strike that killed 45 people in Dnipro, in eastern Ukraine, aroused great emotion. Ukrainian officials, like Prime Minister Denys Chmygal on Telegram, called the death of 42-year-old Denys Monastyrsky, a former lawyer who joined Volodymyr Zelensky’s party, a “great loss”.
In Washington, President Joe Biden and his wife Jill “mourn with all who are bereaved by this heartbreaking tragedy,” the White House said. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, lamented on Twitter the death of “a great friend of the EU”. At the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland), NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg assured that the member countries of his organization would provide kyiv with “heavier and more modern” weapons.
The contact group for Ukraine, which brings together some 50 countries led by the United States, met on Friday at the American base in Ramstein in Germany to coordinate the continuation of aid to kyiv. “The main message will be increased support with heavier and more modern weapons,” Stoltenberg said. Shortly before, the Ukrainian president had launched by videoconference a “call for speed” in decision-making to help Ukraine, while Germany in particular is reluctant to authorize the delivery of Leopard tanks to the country.
“Tyranny advances faster than democracies”, lamented Volodymyr Zelensky. “The time the free world uses to think is used by a terrorist state to kill.”
Wagner chief says he has ‘things to learn’ from Ukrainian military
The boss of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigojine, said his troops had “some things to learn” from the Ukrainian army, in the midst of a fierce battle to take Bakhmout in eastern Ukraine. “The Ukrainian army is working efficiently, coherently. We have things to learn from them. But in any case Wagner’s units are moving forward, meter by meter,” he said in a statement. message published Thursday by its press service.
He assured that “the locality of Artiomovsk (name given by the Russian authorities to Bakhmout, editor’s note) will be taken”. Since last summer, Wagner’s troops and the Russian army have been trying to seize this city in the Donetsk region (east) with a questionable strategic interest but which has acquired great symbolic weight with the length of the fighting.
On Thursday, Yevgeny Prigojine also claimed that his units had seized the village of Klichtchiivka, just south of Bakhmout, and that “fierce fighting” was still going on. Last week, Wagner announced the capture of Soledar, northeast of Bakhmout, presented by Moscow as an important step to encircle the latter.