Nicholas Tonev
modified to
10:39 a.m., March 27, 2022
In Ukraine, the population is not well informed. On Friday, Russia announced that it wanted to focus on its new objective, the liberation of the Donbass mining basin. An announcement that the Ukrainians welcome with tweezers, like here in kyiv. Story of our special correspondent in the Ukrainian capital, Nicolas Tonev.
The news fell yesterday. The Russian command has indeed surprised by announcing “to concentrate the bulk of the efforts on the main objective: the liberation” of the Donbass mining basin, in the east of the country, contrasting with the will displayed by Moscow so far to “demilitarize and denazify Ukraine” as a whole and not only in this region where the two pro-Russian separatist “republics” are located.
What do the Ukrainian people think of it, at the heart of the war? He must first be informed, which was not the case for any of the people met by our teams on Saturday morning. Europe 1 therefore informed them of the words of the Russian staff and here is their reaction. “It doesn’t matter what they say or think. But what they do does matter.”
“They are cunning and trying to save time”
Another protests: “The Donbass? But what are they doing in Irpin? In Boutcha? These Russian fascists loaded the bodies of civilians on their tanks and circled around the refugee buses to show them for two hours.” For this Ukrainian, this is purely strategic. “They are cunning and trying to buy time. At this moment, we are in a moment of tension like that which a rubber band can suffer on the verge of breaking. I am sure that the force will remain on our side.”
As for the military situation around the capital, the information from Europe 1 this morning is that the Russian troops would be in difficulty and were even preparing defensive positions on the northern and north-western front of kyiv.