On the fourteenth day of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces surrounded at least four cities on Wednesday, as Kiev, still under Ukrainian control, prepares for an upcoming assault. Russia and Ukraine agreed on Wednesday on ceasefires to allow the establishment of several humanitarian corridors around areas hard hit by fighting in recent days.
The main information to remember:
- Maternity destroyed in Mariupol, 17 injured
- The Russian army advances towards Kiev
- 400 Ukrainians arrested in Kherson
- 5,000 civilians evacuated to Sumy
A destroyed maternity hospital in Mariupol
A maternity and pediatric hospital in Mariupol, a besieged port in southeastern Ukraine, was destroyed by Russian shelling, a regional official said. “There are 17 confirmed injured among hospital staff,” he told Ukrainian television, adding that “there was no child” among the injured and “no death”, according to a first report. The White House denounced a “barbaric” use of force against civilians, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the bombing “immoral”.
A Russian advance towards Kiev?
Russian troops were approaching Kiev on Wednesday, still under Ukrainian control. Columns of tanks were now only about fifteen kilometers away, near Brovary. 30 km from this locality, fighting also took place near Rusaniv, Ukrainian soldiers told AFP. Russia has for the first time recognized the presence of conscripts in Ukraine.
The assault on the capital should be held within the next four days, predicts the Institute for the Study of War, based in Washington. Ukraine also retains control of Chernihiv, north of Kiev, whose city center was shelled, causing the death of many civilians.
400 Ukrainians arrested in Kherson
The Russian army has arrested 400 Ukrainians protesting against the Russian occupation in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities have said. Kherson, near the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow, was the first major city to fall into Russian hands on March 2.
A Russian-Ukrainian agreement on a series of civilian evacuation corridors
Russians and Ukrainians agreed on Wednesday morning to respect ceasefires around a series of humanitarian corridors in order to evacuate civilians, announced Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. According to her, Moscow has confirmed its agreement to respect a truce from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. local time around six areas hit by the fighting: corridors have been defined in particular to evacuate civilians from Energodar to Zaporozhe (south), from Izium to Lozova (east) and from Sumy to Poltava (northeast), where a corridor had already allowed the evacuation of thousands of civilians on Tuesday.
Several corridors must also be established to evacuate civilians to Kiev from several violently bombarded towns to the west of the capital, including Boutcha, Irpin and Gostomel.
“No major impact on safety” in Chernobyl
The power cut at the Chernobyl nuclear site has “no major impact on security”, said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), informed of the problem by the Ukrainian authorities. Systems for remotely monitoring nuclear materials at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine stopped transmitting data to the International Atomic Energy Agency (AEIA) on Tuesday.
Progress in the negotiations
Russians and Ukrainians agreed on Wednesday to respect ceasefires around a series of humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians, the Ukrainian government announced. A total of 3,000 people were able to be extracted from Irpin and Vorzel, northeast of Kiev, according to the police.
Russia has seen “progress” in negotiations with Ukraine, a government spokeswoman said. Russia’s goals “do not include the occupation of Ukraine, the destruction of its state, or the overthrow of the current government”, she said, reaffirming that they were not targeting the civilian population.
5,000 civilians evacuated from Sumy
More than 5,000 people have been evacuated so far from the city of Sumy, located 350 km northeast of Kiev, said Wednesday the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, quoted by Ukrainian media. .
In Mariupol, a major strategic port on the Sea of Azov (southeast), some 300,000 civilians remained stuck, however, according to Kiev, which accuses the Russians of not respecting the humanitarian corridor. The Russian army announced a new humanitarian truce for Wednesday morning.
Zelensky promises to fight “to the end”
“We will fight to the end,” Volodymyr Zelensky told Britain’s parliament. The Ukrainian president was speaking by video link, during an intervention aimed at obtaining more support for his country after the Russian invasion.
In an interview broadcast by the American channel ABC, Volodymyr Zelensky also affirmed that he no longer wanted to insist on obtaining Ukraine’s membership of NATO, one of the questions which officially motivated the Russian invasion. He says he is ready for a “compromise” on the status of the separatist territories in eastern Ukraine, whose independence Russian President Vladimir Putin has unilaterally recognized.
Russia on the brink of default
The rating agency Fitch has again lowered the rating it gives to Russia’s debt, a decision meaning that the risk of a sovereign default is in its eyes “imminent”. In addition, the sale of foreign currencies will be suspended in Russia until September 9, the country’s Central Bank announced in a statement on Wednesday, hit by unprecedented Western sanctions due to the Russian military intervention in Ukraine.
The United States rejects the offer of Polish Mig-29
The United States, while continuing its discussions with Poland, considered that Warsaw’s proposal to deliver its MIG-29 planes to the American army and then hand them over to Ukraine is not “viable”, said said the Pentagon spokesman on Tuesday. Poland said on Tuesday that it was ready to “move all its MIG-29 planes without delay and free of charge to the Ramstein base (in Germany, editor’s note) and make them available to the United States government”.
London continues to deliver anti-tank missiles
The British government said on Wednesday that it intended to continue its deliveries of anti-tank missiles to Ukraine after the Russian invasion, as part of the defensive support provided to the country. “In response to Russia’s continued aggression, we have increased our supply” of anti-tank weapons, Defense Minister Ben Wallace told MPs.
Some 3,615 NLAWs have been delivered “to date” and the UK will deliver “more”, he said, adding that a “small shipment” of Javelin anti-tank missiles was also planned.
Washington fears
The United States said on Tuesday it feared that Russian forces could “take control” of “biological research” structures in Ukraine and seize sensitive materials.
“Ukraine has biological research facilities, and we are actually now quite worried about the possibility of Russian forces trying to take control of them,” said the number three of the American diplomacy, Victoria Nuland, during a parliamentary hearing.
Nord Stream 2 “dead”, according to Washington
The controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, targeted by retaliatory measures taken by Berlin and Washington after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is “dead” and cannot be “resurrected”, says a US official on Tuesday.
Investigations into possible Russian crimes
German justice has launched an investigation into possible war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine. Shortly after, the Spanish courts announced the opening of an investigation into “serious violations of international humanitarian law” resulting from Russia’s “unjustified act of war” in Ukraine.
Support on Airbnb
Tens of thousands of users of the Airbnb tourist rental site have booked accommodation in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, not to get there but to help the local population. On March 2 and 3, 61,000 nights were booked in the country, representing a total of nearly $2 million, a company spokesperson told AFP on Tuesday.
The son of a British MP in combat
The son of a British MP has claimed to be among a group of former British soldiers who are leaving to fight against Russian forces in Ukraine. Ben Grant, 30, is the eldest son of Conservative MP Helen Grant, commissioned by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on girls’ education and former Secretary of State.
“I was not sent, nothing to do with the government, nothing to do with my mother,” he told British daily The Guardian, who met him this weekend at Lviv train station. (Western Ukraine), waiting for a train to the capital Kiev. “I decided to do this”, “I didn’t even tell my mother”, added the young man, who spent more than five years in the commandos of the Royal Marines. He is part of a group of seven former soldiers.
This father of three children explained that he made his decision after seeing images of a Russian bombardment on a house from which echoed children’s cries. According to him, there will be a hundred more to join Ukraine.