(Kyiv) Ukraine was reaping promises of deliveries of anti-aircraft systems to neutralize the threat of Russian missiles, while, according to Moscow, Turkey was to offer mediation on Thursday to try to launch negotiations.
Posted at 6:18 a.m.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will “probably officially propose something” to Vladimir Putin when they meet on the sidelines of a regional summit in Astana, the Kremlin has said.
Turkey, which has kept the channels open with Kyiv and Moscow, has already established itself as the intermediary having enabled a major exchange of prisoners and the agreement allowing the export of Ukrainian wheat. It also hosted failed peace talks in the spring, with both sides blaming each other.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has already hammered that any negotiation with Moscow was impossible as long as Mr. Putin was in power, pointing in particular to the rain of missiles that fell this week on civilian targets and essential installations across his country.
On Monday and Tuesday, Russia launched these “massive” salvos on Ukraine in retaliation for the partial destruction on Saturday of the Crimean Bridge, a symbolic and strategic target linking the peninsula annexed by Moscow to Russian territory. This resounding setback for the Kremlin came after a series of retreats in the northeast and south.
Antiaircraft promises
The Russian bombings at the start of the week destroyed energy installations and hit homes and even parks. They have led the West to multiply the promises of anti-aircraft defense system deliveries to Ukraine.
After the announcement of the arrival of a German system and the upcoming delivery of American models, the United Kingdom announced on Thursday that it would provide anti-aircraft defense munitions capable of shooting down cruise missiles.
French President Emmanuel Macron also promised anti-aircraft “radar, systems and missiles”, without specifying when they would be delivered.
Again last night, a five-storey building in Mykolaiv (south) was partially destroyed and seven people are believed to be under the rubble. A rescuer was killed in another strike that targeted the building where he was stationed.
Early Thursday morning, Russia also struck Makariv, in the Kyiv region, with Iranian-made drones, according to Ukrainian authorities. Other aircraft of this type were shot down in the regions of Odessa and Mykolaiv (south).
The G7 and the IMF reaffirmed on Wednesday that they would support Ukraine “as long as necessary” to deal with the economic consequences of the Russian invasion, which amount to billions of dollars.
“The key issue is to cover our budget deficit and quickly rebuild the infrastructure” destroyed, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his address on Wednesday evening.
Russia has been forced since the beginning of September to abandon almost the entire Kharkiv region, to retreat in certain areas in the East and South.
But his forces remain on the offensive and are nibbling ground around the town of Bakhmout, a town in the east which had 70,000 inhabitants before the war and which today has been largely deserted and ravaged by artillery fire.
Pro-Russian forces in the area claimed to have taken two villages, Opytne and Ivangrad, on the southern edge of the city. The Ukrainian general staff claimed to have repelled the Russian attacks in the region.
Ukrainian soldiers met on Wednesday not far from this section of the front indicated that the Russian artillery was in a strong position there.
Further north, in Iampil, near the strategic Lyman railway hub recently reconquered by Ukraine, AFP journalists heard heavy artillery fire on Thursday. According to a soldier returning from the front, the village of Torske was under Russian bombardment there.
On the southern front of the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the Kherson region, Kyiv on Wednesday claimed the reconquest of five villages.
Illegal annexations
Also in southern Ukraine, in the region of Zaporijjia, the situation around the eponymous nuclear power plant occupied by the Russian army continued to cause concern.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi, who is trying to negotiate a formula capable of securing these installations, is expected in Ukraine on Thursday, after a first visit last week to Kyiv and a meeting this week with Vladimir Cheese fries.
With his army in difficulty, the Russian president tried to regain the initiative at the end of September by mobilizing hundreds of thousands of reservists to reinforce his lines and decreed the annexation of four regions in the East and South.
The UN General Assembly on Wednesday condemned these “illegal annexations” with an overwhelming majority, sending, according to US President Joe Biden, a “clear message” to Moscow. But China and India abstained.
Russian regional authorities have for their part acknowledged that the first mobilized reservists from the Chelyabinsk region in Western Siberia had died, without specifying whether they had died at the front or in the bases where training is organized.