If the Russian president said on Tuesday that he still “hoped” for a diplomatic solution through negotiations with Ukraine, the Russian army is continuing its offensive in the Donbass and in the south of the country. Faced with this aggression, the countries allied with Washington will regularize their meetings in order to agree on the aid to be provided to kyiv.
“If someone intends to interfere from the outside in what is happening (in Ukraine, editor’s note) and to create unacceptable threats for Russia, they must know that our response (…) will be fast and lightning, ”said Vladimir Putin this Wednesday before the Russian Parliament. According to him, Russia will not hesitate to use its most modern weapons.
Western weapons destroyed by Moscow “in large quantities”
Faced with the intensification of Western military aid to kyiv, Russia is adjusting its strategy in Ukraine by targeting strategic supply nodes while pursuing its objective of controlling part of its territory. The Russian army claimed on Wednesday that it had destroyed in a strike a “large quantity” of weapons delivered to kyiv by the United States and European countries, at a time when Western efforts are intensifying to arm Ukraine in the face of Moscow.
However, according to Oleksandr Starukh, the governor of the region interviewed on BFMTV, there were “no weapons” in the factory destroyed by the Russians in Zaporijia.
The Russian military also claims to have carried out airstrikes against 59 Ukrainian targets, including 50 where troops were located and four ammunition depots.
Destroy infrastructure
The day before, a missile strike by Russian forces had damaged the road and rail bridge, linking Ukraine to Romania, according to Oleksandr Kamyshin, the director of Ukrainian railways. The Russians touched this bridge again on Wednesday.
On Monday, it was the railway installations in the Vinnytsia region (central-west), an important railway hub both for the internal lines of Ukraine and for connections with foreign countries, which had been targeted. “We are entering a new phase: the Western countries have announced a reinforcement of their military aid, so the Russian side must strike these reinforcement capacities and the capacity of the Ukrainians to supply themselves with weapons”, underlines Jean-Pierre Maulny, the Deputy Director of the Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS).
“The objective of Western aid is to allow Ukrainian troops to last under Russian bombardment, so for the Russians this is bad news and they are trying to reduce the scope”, adds Pascal Ausseur, the director general. of the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies (FMES). It now remains to be seen how far the Russians will go. For the moment, “they are hitting railway infrastructure, we do not see that they are hitting convoys”, notes a French military source.
Sixty-three days after the start of the Russian offensive, the question of significant air defense aid, requested almost daily by kyiv, remains, for its part, still unresolved.
Several localities in the East taken by the Russians
The Ukrainian army has recognized an advance by Russian forces in the east of the country, with the capture of several localities in the Kharkiv region and in the Donbass. From Izium, already under their control, the Russian forces lead an assault in the direction of Barvinkové, further south. They took the locality of Zavody and the northeastern suburbs of the locality of Velyka Komychouvakha, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in its morning report.
Further east, towards Lyman, the Russian army captured the town of Zaritchne and “made assault attempts near Iampil”, he continued. Near Severodonetsk, one of the major cities in the region with 100,000 inhabitants before the war, forces from Moscow have taken control of the locality of Novotochkivské and are leading an offensive in the direction of Nyzhnie and Orikhové, according to the same source.
The call for help from the commander of the Mariupol 36th Marine Brigade
In the strategic port city of Mariupol, besieged and devastated, “the enemy massively bombards and blocks our units near the Azovstal factory”, said in its daily report the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. Mariupol 36th Marine Brigade commander Sergei Volyna appealed for help again, saying he had 600 wounded soldiers and hundreds of civilians with him.
“My message today is: save the Mariupol garrison, carry out an exfiltration operation for us. People will just die here (…) civilians die with us (…) the city is almost erased from the face of the Earth”, he implores in a message relayed on Telegram.
Moscow bans entry of British parliamentarians
Russia has banned 287 members of Britain’s lower house of parliament from entering the country, in retaliation for a similar move by London against Russian MPs who backed the Ukraine offensive. “The personalities targeted, whose entry into Russia has been banned, participated most actively in the establishment of anti-Russian sanctions by London,” said Russian diplomacy.
Brussels proposes to suspend customs duties for Ukrainian products
The European Commission has proposed to suspend for one year all customs duties on Ukrainian products imported into the EU in order to support the economy of the country attacked by Russia. This proposal, which still needs to be approved by the European Parliament and the 27 member countries, is “an unprecedented gesture of support for a country at war”, the European executive said in a statement. The United Kingdom had already announced on Monday the elimination of its customs duties on products imported from Ukraine. Zelensky is very supportive of it.
The EU wants to review its immigration policy
The European Commission has also proposed a reform of EU immigration legislation to better attract the skills it lacks, in particular from Ukraine, and facilitate the mobility of these workers between the 27 member countries. . Brussels therefore wishes to simplify the procedure allowing third-country nationals to jointly obtain a work and residence permit in the EU, while reducing processing times.
These include allowing people to apply from their country of origin and improving their rights. This single permit will no longer be linked to a single employer and its beneficiaries will therefore be able to change jobs completely legally.
Gas: the EU to the rescue of Bulgaria and Poland
The suspension of Russian gas deliveries to Bulgaria and Poland, for not having paid in rubles as required, is the consequence of unprecedented hostile acts against Russia, the Kremlin said on Wednesday. “The conditions that have been set are part of a new payment method developed after unprecedented unfriendly acts in the economic and financial sphere” after the Russian offensive in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Bulgaria and Poland are now supplied with gas “by their neighbors in the European Union”, after Gazprom suspended Russian deliveries, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday. “We will ensure that Gazprom’s decision has the least possible effect on European consumers,” assured the head of the European executive in a brief speech to the press in Brussels.
Vladimir Putin said last month that Russia would now only accept payment for gas deliveries in its national currency. Ursula von der Leyen contradicts the master of the Kremlin on Wednesday: “About 97% of contracts (between EU groups and Russian gas suppliers) provide for payment in euros or dollars (…) Companies with such contracts must not give in to Russia’s demand, it would contravene the sanctions” imposed by the Twenty-Seven, she declared.
Antonio Guterres arrived in Kyiv
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres pleaded on Tuesday, during his first trip to Moscow since the start of the offensive, for a ceasefire “as soon as possible”. He said he was “concerned by the repeated reports of possible war crimes”, judging that they “require an independent investigation”.
“Despite everything, the negotiations are continuing (…) I hope that we will achieve a positive result,” declared Russian President Vladimir Putin during this meeting.
The UN Secretary General has arrived in Ukraine. He will travel Thursday to the suburbs of kyiv, to Boutcha, Irpin and Borodianka, theaters of abuses attributed to the Russian army by the Ukrainians, where international investigators are mobilized to gather elements of “war crimes”.
Ukraine retains control over its airspace
In a statement released on Wednesday, the British Ministry of Defense said that kyiv “retains control of the majority of its airspace. Russia failed to effectively destroy the Ukrainian Air Force or suppress Ukrainian air defenses. Ukraine continues to endanger Russian air assets. »
“Russian air activity is mainly focused on southern and eastern Ukraine, where it provides support to Russian ground forces. Russia has very limited air access to northern and western Ukraine, which limits offensive actions to deep strikes with ranged weapons. Russia continues to target Ukrainian military assets and logistical infrastructure across the country,” the statement added.
“The majority of Russian airstrikes in Mariupol are probably carried out using unguided free-fall bombs. These weapons reduce Russia’s ability to effectively discriminate in its strikes, increasing the risk of civilian casualties.”
Ukrainians bomb Serpent Island
The Ukrainian army claimed to have bombed Russian positions on Serpents’ Island in the Black Sea, which has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance since the start of the invasion by Russian forces on February 24. A “checkpoint” and an anti-aircraft system were reportedly destroyed. Russia has not confirmed these firings.
Moldova strengthens its security
Authorities in the pro-Russian separatist republic of Transnistria have announced that a village bordering Ukraine hosting a major Russian army ammunition depot came under fire after being overflown by drones. “Last night, several drones were spotted over the village of Kolbasna,” Transnistria’s “Ministry of Interior” said in a statement, adding that on Wednesday morning, “shots were fired in the direction of Kolbasna from Ukraine” without causing any casualties.
Moldova called for calm the day before and announced that it would strengthen its security after explosions in the separatist region of Transdniestria, kyiv accusing Moscow of seeking to “destabilize” it. The United States has warned against attempts to “escalate tensions” in this pro-Russian Moldovan separatist region, bordering Ukraine after a series of explosions. Without going so far as to attribute responsibility for the explosions to Moscow, as Kyiv does, State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States “remains concerned about any potential attempt to escalate tension”.