A meeting with Putin Lukashenko on Monday
Russian and Belarusian Presidents Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko are due to meet in Minsk on Monday for a summit intended to further strengthen their alliance. Belarus, Russia’s only ally in this war, loaned its territory to enable the Russian assault on kyiv at the start of the invasion on February 24.
According to Mr. Lukashenko, the summit will be “above all (devoted) to the economic sphere”, but the two leaders will also talk about “the politico-military situation around (their) countries”.
Ukraine tries to restore power
Throughout the country, interventions are underway to restore electricity after the Russian strikes.
“Our engineers and repair crews have already started working during the air strike and are doing everything possible to restore power generation and supply. That takes time. But it will be done,” the Ukrainian president said.
In kyiv, the mayor Vitali Klitchko specified that only a third of the inhabitants had water and heating, and 40% of electricity. In Kharkiv (north-east), the second largest city in the country, the authorities announced in the evening that they had restored power to 55%. According to regional governor Oleg Sinegoubov, 85% of the region’s inhabitants had access to electricity on Friday evening.
Zelensky Calls Today’s Russia “Nazi”
In an interview on LCI, Volodymyr Zelensky only envisages peace negotiations by recovering “our own lands”, the territories currently occupied by the Russians. Putin “does not want peace. Or else a peace that is consistent with his vision of things. “At that time, we will have to speak with a Russia ready to respect its interlocutor and which is beginning to give us back what belongs to us in accordance with international law. It is with a Russia like that that I will be ready to negotiate, but not with the Russia that we have at the moment, a Nazi Russia. »
“Nazi” is a term usually used by Vladimir Putin to describe Ukraine. “President Putin’s tactics (are) as dirty as Hitler’s in his time,” he had denounced before, speaking of the bombing of energy infrastructure.