War in Ukraine: what to remember from the 317th day of the Russian invasion

Artillery fire continued on Friday from both sides of the front in Bakhmut, the epicenter of the fighting in eastern Ukraine, despite the entry into force of a unilateral truce announced earlier by Moscow, authorities said. AFP journalists. Shots from the Ukrainian side and the Russian side were heard after the start of the ceasefire in this city with largely destroyed and deserted streets, but their intensity was less compared to the previous days.

The day after France announced that it would send light tanks to Ukraine, the United States and Germany promised kyiv, in a joint press release, the delivery of infantry armored vehicles, of the Bradley type on the American side and of the Marder model. German side. Berlin has also pledged to provide a Patriot air defense battery, as Washington has already done. Volodymyr Zelensky immediately hailed “a very important decision”, thanking the American and German leaders.

US provides $3 billion in new military aid

The United States will provide $3 billion in new military aid for Ukraine, the largest package to date, the White House announced Friday. This assistance, the details of which will be given by the Pentagon later in the day, must also include armored infantry and personnel carriers as well as howitzers, said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean- Rock.

Washington and Berlin had already announced on Thursday that they would deliver armored infantry to kyiv, of the Bradley type on the American side and of the Marder model on the German side, but had not indicated the models. In service since the 1970s, the Marder are light armored vehicles intended for troop transport. Their main armament is a 20mm cannon.

The Bradleys are machines more or less of the same family, in service since the beginning of the 1980s. In the M2 model, they are equipped with a 25 mm cannon as well as an anti-tank missile launcher, and can carry , in addition to the crew, six fighters. The Bradley “is not a tank, it’s a tank killer,” Pentagon spokesman General Ryder said Thursday. “We are convinced that this will help (Ukrainian forces) a lot on the battlefield,” he added.

The ceasefire criticized by the European Union

The head of diplomacy of the European Union (EU) Josep Borrell described Friday as “hypocrisy” the ceasefire announced by Moscow in Ukraine, on the occasion of Orthodox Christmas, judging it “not credible”. “The Kremlin completely lacks credibility and this declaration of a desire for a unilateral ceasefire is not credible,” Josep Borrell told reporters on the sidelines of a visit to Fez, Morocco. “The answer that comes to mind for all of us is skepticism in the face of so much hypocrisy,” he said.

Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered his army to observe a ceasefire “along the entire line of contact between the parties in Ukraine” on January 6-7, the first major truce since the start of the Russian invasion almost a year ago. Despite this announcement, artillery duels continued on Friday.

For the ceasefire to be considered valid, “there must be a complete cessation of military attacks. There must be the withdrawal of (Russian) troops and their military equipment from Ukrainian territory,” Borrell explained. , after meeting students from the Euro-Mediterranean University.

“In the absence of such concrete actions, a unilateral ceasefire appears as an attempt by Russia to buy time to regroup its troops and try to restore its badly damaged international reputation,” Borrell said. .

Supposed start of the ceasefire decreed by Russia in Ukraine

The ceasefire decreed unilaterally by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine on the occasion of Orthodox Christmas is supposed to have started at noon (9 a.m. GMT) on Friday, an initiative whose sincerity has been questioned by kyiv. According to the terms of this truce announced the day before, the first of magnitude in Ukraine since the start of the Moscow offensive, Russian troops will cease fighting until Saturday at midnight (21:00 GMT).

‘Excuse’ to slow down Ukrainian troops, says Zelensky

Volodymyr Zelensky also castigated the unilateral ceasefire announced by Vladimir Putin for Orthodox Christmas, which he said was only an “apology with the aim of at least stopping the advance of our troops in the Donbass and bring equipment, ammunition, and bring men closer to our positions”. “What will be the result? No more deaths,” he said.

During the day, the Russian president had announced this ceasefire, after a call to this effect from the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, but also a proposal from the Turkish head of state Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who telephoned Vladimir Putin in the morning.

“In view of the appeal of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, I instruct the Russian Minister of Defense to introduce a ceasefire regime along the entire line of contact between the parties in Ukraine from noon on 6 January of this year until midnight on January 7,” said the Russian president, quoted in a statement from the Kremlin.

A ceasefire to “give air”

He also called on the Ukrainian forces to respect this truce in order to give the possibility to the Orthodox, the majority confession in Ukraine as in Russia, to “attend services on Christmas Eve, as well as on the day of the Nativity of Christ”. .

This ceasefire is the first truce of a general nature since the beginning of the war, only local agreements having been concluded so far, such as for the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal factory in Mariupol (south-east ) in April. “Russia must leave the occupied territories, only then will there be a ‘temporary truce’. Keep your hypocrisy”, reacted on Twitter an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mykhaïlo Podoliak.

For the American president, Vladimir Putin seeks “to give himself some air”. He “was ready to bomb hospitals, nurseries and churches (…) on December 25 and on New Year’s Eve,” joked Joe Biden. This ceasefire “will do nothing to advance the prospects for peace”, responded British Foreign Minister James Cleverly, calling for a permanent withdrawal of Russian forces. Such a truce will bring “neither freedom nor security” in Ukraine, abounded the German diplomacy.

In his telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan had proposed a “unilateral ceasefire” intended to support “appeals for peace and negotiations between Moscow and kyiv”. Russia is ready for a “serious dialogue” with Ukraine provided that the latter complies with Russian demands and accepts the “new territorial realities” born of the invasion of this country in February, argued Vladimir Putin.

Several civilians killed

Moscow claimed in September the annexation of four regions occupied at least partially by its army in Ukraine, despite multiple military setbacks on the ground, on the pattern of that of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in March 2014. Volodymyr Zelensky insists on a total withdrawal of Russian forces from his country, Crimea included, before any dialogue with Moscow. Otherwise, he promises to take back the occupied territories by force.

During his talks with Erdogan, Putin accused the West of “feeding the kyiv regime with weapons and military equipment and providing it with operational and targeting information”. The Russian truce is being offered less than a week after a Ukrainian strike on New Year’s Eve left at least 89 people dead in Makiivka, eastern Ukraine. A particularly deadly bombardment that the Russian army had to recognize, an extremely rare fact, and which aroused criticism in Russia against the military command.

On the front in Ukraine, the bombardments continued on Thursday with in particular the death of a woman and her 12-year-old son in a Russian bombardment in Beryslav, near Kherson, in the south, according to the deputy head of the administration presidential Kyrylo Tymoshenko.

Two people were also killed and three others injured in a strike on a village in the Zaporizhia region, also in the south, according to Governor Oleksandre Staroukh. Residents of the eastern town of Chassiv Iar told AFP on Thursday that a Russian missile hit a building before dawn, injuring a man and a woman.

Germany will deliver 40 “Marder” armored vehicles

Germany will send 40 “Marder” armored vehicles to the Ukrainian army in the first quarter of 2023, the government said on Friday, the day after Berlin and Washington announced a new phase in military support for kyiv which provoked the wrath of Moscow. “Forty vehicles will be ready in the first quarter, and can be sent to Ukraine”, after an “eight-week training” provided to the Ukrainian army, said Steffen Hebestreit, the spokesman for the German government, during a meeting. a regular press briefing on Friday.

US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on Thursday the dispatch of infantry fighting vehicles to support Ukrainian troops against the Russian army, but had not yet specified either their number or the timetable for their deployment. these deliveries. This news angered the Russian Embassy in Berlin, which condemned the deliveries, saying they contributed to an “escalation of the conflict in Ukraine”. On her website, she called the move “particularly cynical” because it takes place two days before Orthodox Christmas.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Twitter that he thanked Chancellor Scholz on the phone for these new weapons. “The time has come to deliver Western technology protection tanks”, explained Mr. Hebestreit on Friday, referring to “intense discussions since mid-December” between allies, having led to this decision which marks a qualitative leap in the deliveries of arms to Ukraine.