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

Russia’s offensive in Ukraine intensified on Tuesday, with a series of strikes on kyiv placed under curfew, as three European prime ministers defied Moscow’s bombs by visiting the city in a show of solidarity. Russo-Ukrainian talks aimed at stopping the bloodshed continued, after a major concession by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, ready to give up joining NATO.

Three European Prime Ministers in Kyiv

The Polish Prime Ministers Mateusz Morawiecki, Czech Petr Fiala and Slovenian Janez Jansa, who left Poland by train, arrived in kyiv on Tuesday evening to affirm “the unequivocal support” of the European Union for Ukraine. They spoke with President Zelensky and his Prime Minister Denys Chmygal.

After the meeting, Mateusz Morawiecki called on the EU to “very quickly give Ukraine the status of candidate” for membership of the European bloc. “We will never leave you alone. We will be with you because we know that you are not only fighting for your freedom (…) but also for us”, he tweeted.

Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, also on the trip, called for a NATO “peace mission”, “protected by the armed forces”, to “provide humanitarian and peaceful aid in Ukraine”, according to the agency. Polish PAP.

Four dead in building fire in Kyiv

Tuesday morning, four people were removed dead and about forty others released alive from a building in a western district of kyiv, Sviatochin, according to a report from local authorities. The 15-storey building burst into flames on Tuesday after being hit by a strike, according to Ukrainian emergency services.

Another building was hit in the northwest district of Podil, closer to the city center, causing one person to be injured. “The explosion was huge,” says Alla Rahulina, sobbing, her voice trembling, after being comforted by neighbors. kyiv, which Russian forces are trying to encircle, has been emptied of at least half of its approximately three million inhabitants since the start of the conflict on February 24.

According to the mayor, the capital of Ukraine, surrounded by Russian forces, would have been emptied of at least half of its 3.5 million inhabitants. In addition, in this region, the airport of Dnipro suffered “massive destruction” after two Russian bombardments, according to the regional authorities.

A curfew decreed in kyiv

kyiv City Hall has imposed a 35-hour curfew from Tuesday evening March 15 in the Ukrainian capital, which is experiencing a “dangerous and difficult moment”, announced Mayor Vitali Klitschko. Traffic will be banned in the city “from today” at 8 p.m. (6 p.m. GMT) and until 7 a.m. (5 a.m. GMT) on Thursday, the former world boxing champion announced on Telegram, after kyiv was bombarded several times on Tuesday morning. This curfew should allow the Ukrainian authorities to carry out operations “of cleaning”that is, search for Russian infiltrators in the city.

Ongoing negotiations

The deserted city was nevertheless awaiting the visit of Polish Prime Ministers Mateusz Morawiecki, Czech Petr Fiala and Slovenian Janez Jansa, who left Poland on Tuesday by train to meet President Zelensky and Prime Minister Denys Chmygal, according to a press release from the Polish presidency. The objective of this visit is to “reaffirm the unequivocal support of the whole of the European Union” for Ukraine, and to “present to it a vast package of support measures”.

This visit, the first announced by foreign leaders since the start of the war, comes as Russian-Ukrainian talks resumed on Tuesday afternoon, after a 24-hour break. “Negotiations are ongoing,” said Mykhaïlo Podoliak, chief negotiator on the Ukrainian side, on Twitter. On the menu of the discussions are notably “a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops” from Ukrainian territory.

Zelensky rules out NATO membership

President Zelensky appeared to make a major concession, saying he had to admit that Ukraine will never join NATO, days after saying he had “tempered his position” on the question of membership.

“We heard for years that the doors were open, but we also heard that we could not join. This is the truth and it must be recognized,” the Ukrainian president told a meeting with officials Westerners. Vladimir Putin had partly justified the invasion of Ukraine by the fear of seeing this ex-Soviet republic join the Western military alliance which he considers an existential threat for Russia.

TV tower strike kills 19

Pending a possible breakthrough in the discussions, Russia is nevertheless expanding its offensive to the whole country, after having mentioned on Monday “the possibility of taking under total control (the) large cities which are already surrounded”.

The offensive now also targets the west of the country. After strikes on a military base near Poland on Sunday, a strike on Monday against a television tower near Rivne left 19 dead, according to the latest report from local authorities on Tuesday. The fighting is also approaching the large city of Dnipro, strategic for its central location on the Dnieper River. Its airport was bombed and largely destroyed overnight from Monday to Tuesday, according to its mayor.

2,000 cars were able to leave Mariupol through a humanitarian corridor

In the south of the country, the Russians are still trying to take Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Sea of ​​Azov, besieged for days, according to the Ukrainian general staff.

Some 2,000 vehicles were able to leave the city on Tuesday in the direction of Zaporozhye via a humanitarian corridor, in addition to 160 cars on Monday, according to the municipality. But up to 300,000 people are trapped, holed up in basements and deprived of everything.

Further west, Mykolaiv, the last lock on the road to Odessa, on the Black Sea, is also regularly bombarded. In a maternity hospital in the city, women are already used, when the warning sirens sound, to go down to the basement, where a delivery room has been set up, AFP noted. “In peacetime, it was a place used by plumbers, technicians. Four or five days ago, we had two women who gave birth simultaneously in this room,” says chief medical officer Andriy Hrybanov.

Three million refugees

In nearly three weeks of conflict, more than three million people have fled Ukraine, mostly to Poland, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday. Including 1.4 million children, or “practically one child per second”, according to Unicef.

New penalties

After three weeks of war, a fourth set of European Union sanctions was to come into force on Tuesday, including measures against market access, exports of luxury goods or membership of international financial institutions.

A Russian oligarch’s yacht worth nearly 128 million euros was notably immobilized on Monday in Barcelona (Spain) as part of these sanctions, according to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. “And more are to come,” he warned. The British government has also announced new sanctions, including punitive tariffs on vodka and a ban on the export of luxury goods to Russia.

Previous Western sanctions packages have already frozen some $300 billion in Russian reserves abroad, which could prevent Russia from meeting several foreign currency debt payment deadlines in March-April. Russia on Monday accused the West of wanting to provoke an “artificial” default through its sanctions. Moscow has also proposed to its partners in the UN Security Council to vote on Wednesday on a “humanitarian” resolution linked to its “special military operation”, according to Russian diplomats.