President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Wednesday near Bakhmout, epicenter of the front and symbol of Ukrainian resistance in the east of the country, where he promised a military victory over “terrorist” Russia, the day after a call for peace launched without convincing from Moscow by the Chinese head of state Xi Jinping. The declarations of the Ukrainian president, who came to reinforce his troops as close as possible to the fighting near Bakhmout, then in Kharkiv, a large city in the northeast, followed new deadly strikes by the Russian army.
These claimed the lives of at least eight civilians in the Kiev region, and hit a residential building in Zaporizhia head-on, killing at least one person and injuring dozens. “We will definitely respond (…) to all attacks on our cities,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message. “Here in the Donbass, in the Kharkiv region, wherever the Russian Evil has come, it seems obvious that this terrorist state cannot be stopped other than by our victory,” he added. “Russia will lose this war,” said the Ukrainian president.
Previously, Volodymyr Zelensky had posted a video on Telegram of his trip near Bakhmout, a city threatened with encirclement by Russian forces. We see him in a black sweater in a concrete hangar, with heavily armed soldiers to whom he gives medals. His trip – the second to this part of the front where he had already been in December – came just hours after Chinese President Xi Jinping left Moscow, following a summit the day before with Vladimir Putin. .
Displaying an alliance with the West, the limits of which he has hardly defined with his Russian counterpart, the Chinese president has put on the table a plan for settling the conflict, which the Russian side has affirmed that it agrees to consider but that the West – United States in the lead – suspected of only being able to consolidate Russian territorial gains.
Information to remember:
- The United States has warned Beijing of the consequences of delivering lethal weapons to Russia.
- Volodymyr Zelensky was in Bakhmout on Wednesday to support Ukrainian troops.
- The Ukrainian president called for peace on this first day of Ramadan.
Zelensky’s call for peace for Ramadan
Volodymyr Zelensky sent a message to Internet users on the first day of Ramadan, on Twitter. “May the power of prayer in this holy month of Ramadan help us to cleanse Ukraine of evil Russian atheism, of those who truly believe in nothing, and that is why they are capable of such terror. May the next Ramadan will begin in peace as well as in all Ukrainian land liberated from Russia,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video posted on Tuesday evening.
May the power of prayer in this holy month of Ramadan help us cleanse Ukraine of Russian godless evil, of those who truly believe in nothing, and that is why they are capable of such terror. Let the next Ramadan begin in peace and on the entire Ukrainian land free from Russia. pic.twitter.com/ukzhncJ3Tg
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 22, 2023
Blinken calls Russian-Chinese rapprochement a ‘marriage of convenience’
The Russian-Chinese rapprochement resembles “a marriage of convenience” rather than “conviction”, said Wednesday the head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, according to whom Beijing has not yet delivered lethal weapons to Moscow in full war in Ukraine. “Partly because they have a very different view of the world from ours, they entered into a marriage of convenience. I’m not sure it’s of conviction,” the secretary of state told the committee. of Foreign Affairs of the United States Senate.
“Russia is clearly the junior partner in this relationship,” he added. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited for a two-day trip to Russia focused on strengthening ties with his counterpart Vladimir Putin. “I’m not sure that Russia or Putin want world order, rather world disorder,” he said.
China has not yet delivered lethal weapons to Russia, assures the Americans
China has not yet “crossed the line” of delivering lethal weapons to Russia in the midst of the war in Ukraine, US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken said on Wednesday. “To date, we have not seen them cross that line,” the US secretary of state said in response to a question during a Senate committee hearing in Washington.
For several weeks, American diplomacy has exerted intense diplomatic pressure on China to prevent it from delivering important military equipment to Moscow, mired in the conflict in Ukraine. In mid-February, Washington announced that China was considering such an option, and there were reports of small shipments being sent by Chinese companies to Moscow.