War in Ukraine: what to remember from the 127th day of the Russian invasion


THE ESSENTIAL

Symbolically at least, the victory is major: the Russian forces announced Thursday their withdrawal from Serpents’ Island in Ukraine, a strategic position in the Black Sea conquered by Moscow and subject for weeks to Ukrainian bombardments. This small island had become emblematic from the first day of the Russian offensive, when a member of the small Ukrainian garrison defending it had ordered the enemy ship demanding its surrender to “go fuck itself”. Before finally surrendering.

Information to remember:

  • The Russian army announces its withdrawal from Serpents’ Island
  • Ukraine congratulates itself on having driven the Russians out of a “strategic territory”
  • Russia says it has more than 6,000 prisoners
  • New deadly attacks against civilians, especially in Mikolaiv in the south
  • Lysytchansk “lives under an uninterrupted bombardment of all kinds of weapons”
  • On the sidelines of NATO, Vladimir Putin castigated the attitude of Westerners

Erdogan calls for stepping up peace efforts

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Thursday in Madrid to “intensify” efforts for a “lasting ceasefire” in Ukraine. “We must intensify diplomatic efforts for a lasting ceasefire in Ukraine. For Turkey there will be no losers with peace,” he told reporters at the close of the meeting. NATO summit.

Since the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine on February 24, Ankara has been trying to maintain contact with both sides and has offered to mediate.

Warning against a cap on the price of Russian oil

Capping the price of Russian oil, as Western countries are considering to punish Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine, would cause a “deficit” that would lead to soaring prices for European consumers, Moscow warned on Thursday.

Such a measure “can only lead to a market imbalance, to a shortage of energy resources on the market, which, in turn, will lead to an increase in the prices” that European consumers will have to pay, “said the Deputy Russian Prime Minister in charge of Energy Alexandre Novak, during an interview with the Russian television channel Rossiia-24.

Russia says it has more than 6,000 prisoners

Russia said on Thursday that it held “more than 6,000” Ukrainian prisoners of war, also confirming that it had exchanged 144 Ukrainian fighters the day before for as many Russians and pro-Russian separatists. “The total number of captured or surrendered Ukrainian servicemen is more than six thousand,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

This number was not immediately verifiable independently. Igor Konashenkov also confirmed that kyiv and Moscow exchanged 144 prisoners on Wednesday, as announced by the Ukrainian government. This is the biggest exchange since the start of the Russian offensive at the end of February. “Almost all (Russian and pro-Russian fighters) who have been released are injured or seriously injured. They are already receiving the necessary medical treatment,” he said.

NATO countries agree on a new aid plan

In a joint statement, NATO member countries said they had agreed on a new aid plan involving the “delivery of non-lethal military equipment” and a strengthening of Ukrainian defenses against cyber attacks. -attacks. “Russia’s appalling cruelty is causing immense human suffering and massive displacement,” they wrote, saying Moscow bore “full responsibility for this humanitarian catastrophe.” Aid should therefore continue in the months to come.

“Ukraine can count on us for as long as it takes,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday, referring to a “moral and political obligation” for the Atlantic Alliance. The organization has also validated its expansion to Sweden and Finland. At a press conference in Ashkhabad, the Turkmen capital, Vladimir Putin castigated the attitude of Westerners.

Ukraine congratulates itself on having driven the Russians out of a “strategic territory”

The Ukrainian army congratulated itself on Thursday for having forced the Russians, “unable to resist the fire of our artillery”, to withdraw from Snake Island, “strategic” territory in the Black Sea, occupied since the first days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “I thank the defenders of the Odessa region who have done their utmost to liberate a strategically important territory,” the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Valeriy Zalouzhniy, said on Telegram.

“Unable to resist the fire of our artillery, our missiles and our air strikes, the occupiers left Serpents’ Island”, he rejoiced, accompanying his message with a video showing strikes on the island. “Our armed forces have done a great job,” Andriï Yermak, the head of the administration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said on Twitter. The Russian army had announced its withdrawal from the islet earlier Thursday, claiming to have done so “as a sign of goodwill”, the “objectives set” on the spot having been “accomplished” according to it.

This gesture should facilitate the export of cereals from Ukraine by the Black Sea, had also justified the spokesman of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov. The southern command of the Ukrainian army had, for its part, indicated that “the enemy (Russian) fled in two speedboats”, leaving the island “on fire” where “explosions are still heard”.

Little Serpents’ Island, located in the northwest of the Black Sea facing the mouth of the Danube, became emblematic from the first day of the Russian offensive when a member of the small Ukrainian garrison defending it challenged the Russian ship demanding its surrender to “fuck off”. The Russian military had finally taken control of it. The island was then regularly targeted by Ukrainian drone and missile strikes. Russia assured on June 21 that it had repelled an attempt by kyiv forces to retake Serpents’ Island.

“Hegemony”

“The leading countries of NATO wish (…) to affirm their hegemony, their imperial ambitions”, he accused. “The call for Ukraine to continue fighting and refuse negotiations only confirms our assumption that Ukraine and the good of the Ukrainian people is not the goal of the West and the NATO, but a way to defend their own interests,” said the Russian president. In a new strategic roadmap adopted at the Madrid summit, NATO designates Russia as “the most significant and direct threat to the security of the allies”.

“We cannot rule out the possibility of an attack on the sovereignty or territorial integrity of the allies”, warns this document, which had not been revised since 2010. NATO countries have validated a strengthening of their military presence on the eastern flank of the Alliance, which will increase the number of its “high-readiness forces” to more than 300,000 soldiers.

The promise of support from the West also materialized with the announcement, on Wednesday, by London of the release of one billion pounds (1.16 billion euros) of additional aid to Ukraine, including anti-aircraft defense and drones. “As Putin fails to achieve the gains he had planned and hoped for, and the futility of this war becomes apparent to all, his attacks on the people of Ukraine are increasingly barbaric,” the prime minister said. British Boris Johnson, in a press release.

“Uninterrupted bombardment”

This new sum brings British military aid to kyiv to 2.3 billion pounds, according to Downing Street. For their part, the United States announced the payment of a tranche of 1.3 billion dollars of economic aid, as part of a support plan of 7.5 billion promised by Washington in May, while the Ukrainian budget deficit is widening by five billion dollars a month. On the ground, Ukraine has suffered new deadly attacks against civilians, notably in Mikolaiv (south), where, according to Volodymyr Zelensky, a hypersonic missile targeted a residential building, killing at least five people.

Two days earlier, at least 18 people were killed in the bombardment of a crowded shopping center in Kremenchuk, 330 kilometers southeast of kyiv, according to the Ukrainian government. Vladimir Putin on Wednesday denied any responsibility for the attack. “Our army does not hit any civilian infrastructure site. We have every possibility of knowing where what is,” he said. In the Donbass, the city of Lysytchansk “lives under an uninterrupted bombardment of all kinds of weapons”, lamented the governor of the Lugansk region, Serguiï Gaïdaï, estimating that 15,000 civilians remain in the city.

It is the last major city to be conquered by the Russians in the Lugansk region, one of the two provinces of the Donbass industrial basin, which Moscow intends to fully control. In addition, the Ukrainian authorities announced that they had recovered 144 soldiers, including 95 “Azovstal defenders” in Mariupol as part of the “largest exchange (of prisoners with Moscow) since the start of the Russian invasion”. “Among them are 43 soldiers from the Azov regiment”, a unit integrated for several years into the Ukrainian army, but which Moscow describes as “Nazi”, added the Ukrainian intelligence service.



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