“A Hundred Days of War – death, destruction and loss”headlined Friday, June 3, New York Timeswhile the conflict in Ukraine had just passed this symbolic threshold.
“Victory will be ours”Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday. “in a defiant tone”, in the words of the newspaper. He noted that 50 foreign embassies had resumed “their full-fledged activities” in kyiv, what the New York Times see as one “a sign of the fragile sense of normalcy that is returning to the capital”.
Ukrainian troops have “achieved what seemed impossible” and arrested “the second army in the world”, added Mr. Zelensky. The leader was speaking outside the presidential palace in Kyiv, where he was flanked by his top advisers, as “in a video message he posted at the start of the war”pick it up BBC.
“This bravado on Friday partly reflected new deliveries of heavier and longer-range weapons by the United States and European countries”explains the Financial Times. When Russia launched the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, traces the daily, “Western leaders expected the capital to fall within days”.
“However, fix it New York Times, more than three months after the start of a war that has radically changed Europe’s security calculations, killed thousands on both sides, displaced more than 12 million people and caused a humanitarian crisis, Russian forces now control a fifth of the country, an area larger than the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg combined.”
No peace in sight
Asked at a press conference about the results obtained by Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, for his part judged that many areas had been “liberated” of the Ukrainian army, which he described as “Nazi”.
Several leaders around the world have taken advantage of the threshold of the hundred days of war to praise “resistance” demonstrated by Ukraine, writes the BBC. Notably European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who said that “the bravery of Ukrainians commands our respect and admiration”.
On Friday, Macky Sall, the current president of the African Union (AU) and Senegalese head of state, called on Vladimir Putin to let Ukrainian cereals leave the country. During a joint press conference with the Russian president in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, he also blamed Western sanctions against Moscow for aggravating the food crisis in Africa. “Our countries, although far from the theater, he said, are victims of this economic crisis.” Tens of millions of people in Africa are on the verge of hunger and starvation, recalls the New York Times.
As for the evolution of the conflict, “for now, peace in Ukraine does not seem to be in sight”warns the New York Times. On Friday, the sky around Sievierodonetsk, the last major city in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine still under Ukrainian control, was heavy with smoke as the two armies exchanged fire in a fierce battle.
Questioned by the newspaper, Bruno Tertrais, the deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research based in Paris, believes that the two parties could get bogged down for months or years in a war of “positions”rather than motion.