► In Severodonetsk, one of the “most difficult battles”
The fighting continues in Severodonetsk, this Thursday, June 9. Ukrainian soldiers continue to resist Russian forces, which now control much of this strategic eastern city.
“We are defending our positions, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. It is a very hard, very difficult battle, probably one of the most difficult of this war”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video released Wednesday evening. According to him, this is where ” fate “ of the Donbass region.
For Russia, getting hold of this city would be decisive in order to conquer the entire vast coal basin of Donbass, already partly held by pro-Russian separatists since 2014.
A few hours earlier, the governor of the Luhansk region had claimed that the forces of Moscow “controlled a large part” de Severodonetsk. “The industrial zone is still ours, there are no Russians there. The fighting takes place only in the streets inside the city,” he announced.
► “Wave of hunger”
The financial, food and energy consequences of the war continue to worsen worldwide, affecting 1.6 billion people, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned on Wednesday.
“For people around the world, war threatens to unleash an unprecedented wave of hunger and misery, leaving in its wake social and economic chaos, at-il having you. There is only one way to stop this brewing storm: the Russian invasion of Ukraine must stop. »
The blocking of Ukrainian ports by the Russian Black Sea fleet is paralyzing the country’s grain exports, particularly wheat, of which it was before the war on the way to becoming the world’s third largest exporter. African and Middle Eastern countries are the first to be affected and fear serious food crises.
As Moscow blames the West for the shortage because of their sanctions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Cavusoglu in Ankara on Wednesday to discuss “secure maritime corridors” which would allow the transport of grain to the Black Sea to be resumed.
► The body of French journalist Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff repatriated
The remains of journalist Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, killed in Ukraine on May 30, arrived in France on the night of Wednesday June 8 to Thursday June 9. She was welcomed by members of her family, relatives and the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul-Malak.
In front of his coffin draped in black, a moment of contemplation took place on the tarmac of Le Bourget airport, where his body arrived at “a little over 3 hours”according to the continuous news channel BFMTV, for which he worked.