Lrussian forces are stepping up the pressure in Donbass, in eastern Ukraine, which they have turned into “hell”, according to Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian president also considered that the massive aid announced by Washington in kyiv constituted an investment for the security of the West.
The US Congress has released a gigantic envelope of 40 billion dollars to support Ukraine’s war effort against Russia. And the G7 finance ministers have started to count the billions that each country could pour into Kyiv. The new American aid should in particular allow Ukraine to equip itself with armored vehicles and to strengthen its anti-aircraft defence.
READ ALSOFaced with Putin, the awakening of the West must also be economic
20,000 dead in Mariupol
Moscow seeks to completely conquer the Donbass, a Russian-speaking region partially controlled since 2014 by pro-Russian separatists. Russian bombardments left 12 dead and 40 injured on Thursday in Severodonetsk, in the Lugansk region (east), according to local governor Serguiï Gaïdaï. This industrial city has been transformed for several days into a battlefield and crushed under artillery fire. Severodonetsk and Lyssytchansk constitute the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the Lugansk region. The Russians surround these two localities, separated by a river, and bombard them relentlessly.
Russian soldiers on Thursday killed five civilians in the Donetsk region, also in Donbass, according to Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. Russia announced on Thursday that nearly 800 Ukrainian servicemen entrenched in the bowels of the Azovstal steel complex in the port of Mariupol had surrendered in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to 1,730 since Monday. According to kyiv, this city-martyrdom was 90% destroyed and at least 20,000 people died there.
READ ALSO“The United States wants to rebuild the unity of the old countries behind them”