On the 50th day of the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Moscow, Russian flagship in the Black Sea, sank after being hit by a Ukrainian missile according to kyiv… or due to an accidental fire, according to Moscow. This major setback has reignited the escalation of the conflict while Russia also accuses Ukraine of bombing villages on its soil – information that remains impossible to verify. Moscow announced early this Friday, the 51st day of conflict, that it would resume its targeting of kyiv, while in the East, in the Donbass, and in Mariupol the advance of Putin’s troops is slipping.
Between sunken cruiser and damaged missile factory, Moscow and kyiv are still playing the card of intimidation and information warfare. The fact remains that Volodymyr Zelensky continues to ask his “allies” for heavy and long-range weapons, while the CIA paints a vitriolic portrait of Vladimir Putin and believes that these military setbacks could encourage him to resort to a “weapon tactical or low-power nuclear weapons”. Back in four infographics on an additional week of war in Ukraine.
Russian cruiser sunk
The cruiser Moscow, flagship of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, damaged during the offensive against Ukraine, sank Thursday evening. The crew of more than 500 men was evacuated. The Ukrainians claimed on Thursday that they hit it with cruise missiles. Moscow has so far not confirmed this explanation for the sinking, simply saying that a fire broke out on board the 186-meter-long missile ship, detonating ammunition. The cruiser then sank during an attempt to tow it to the nearest port.
In the process, the Pentagon, however, considered that the loss of this ship was “a blow” to the Russian fleet in the region. Spokesman John Kirby said the sinking would “consequence their capabilities” in combat, with the ship being a “key element in their efforts to establish naval dominance in the Black Sea”. For his part, William Burns, the head of the CIA, went further by pointing out that the military setbacks in Ukraine could incite a “revengeful” Vladimir Putin to resort to a tactical or low-power nuclear weapon.
A missile factory hit
Could the CIA have been right? Vizar, a factory in the kyiv region that manufactures Neptune missiles that the Ukrainian army said it used to hit the Russian cruiser Moskva, was hit overnight from Thursday to Friday by a Russian strike. A factory workshop and an administrative building adjoining it, located in the locality of Vychnevé, were seriously damaged.
“For me, they make us pay for the destruction of the Moskva,” a factory employee told AFP. The governor of the Odessa region, Maxime Marchenko, said overnight from Wednesday to Thursday that Neptune missiles had been used by the Ukrainian army to strike the Moskva. And, according to UkrOboronProm, the state holding that oversees Ukrainian arms factories, Vizar is one of the Ukrainian factories that manufactures these missiles.
The targeted Donbass
The control of the whole of Donbass, partially in the hands of pro-Russian separatists since 2014, has been the priority target of the Russian army since the end of March. In the largest region of Donbass, that of Donetsk, where “fighting is taking place on the entire front line”, three people have been killed and seven injured in the past twenty-four hours, according to the Ukrainian presidency. The other region of this mining basin, that of Lugansk, was the scene of 24 bombardments which caused two deaths and two injuries.
And if the highest officials of the American army estimated Thursday that Vladimir Putin had “given up” to take kyiv to focus on the separatist zones of Donbass, these estimates were quickly contradicted this Friday by the new Russian strikes on the capital. Ukrainian. However, in his ritual evening message posted on Facebook, Volodymyr Zelensky assured Thursday that “the main target” of the Russians was indeed this region of eastern Ukraine: “It’s the Donbass that Russia wants to destroy first, as if they wanted only stones left and no human beings left. »
Finland and Sweden threatened
NATO membership of Sweden and Finland would have consequences for these countries and European security, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned on Friday. “Being a member of NATO cannot strengthen their national security. In fact(Finland and Sweden) will be NATO’s front line,” said ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
Already on Thursday, the former Russian president and current number two of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev affirmed that if Finland or Sweden joined NATO, Russia would strengthen its military means, particularly nuclear ones, in the Baltic Sea and near Scandinavia.
Finland, which has some 1,300 km of border with Russia, will decide “within a few weeks” whether to submit a candidacy to NATO, according to its Prime Minister. Sweden does not rule out joining the Western military alliance either, but seems more in the background than its neighbour.