The Ukrainian army pushes back this Saturday morning an attack by the Russian army on one of the main arteries of Kiev, a few hours after a dramatic call for mobilization launched by President Volodymyr Zelensky. The attack launched on the Avenue de la Victoire, one of the main arteries of the capital, was “postponed“, says the Ukrainian army, in a message on its Facebook account. It accompanied this message with a photo showing a large plume of smoke rising in the middle of an urban area, in the middle of the night, at the time of or Kiev fears a major attack by the Russian army to seize the city.
“Tonight they will try to seize” of Kiev, said a few hours earlier the Ukrainian president. The first Russian military units entered the northern Ukrainian capital on Friday, killing people there. For its part, the Ukrainian army indicates that the Ukrainian forces destroyed a helicopter and a Russian ground attack plane SU-25 near the separatist zones in the East, as well as a Russian transport plane IL- 76 near Vassylkiv.
Russia vetoed the UN Security Council on Friday night to a resolution deploring its “aggression”, yet supported by a majority of countries. The Atlantic Alliance, for its part, has begun to deploy elements of its reaction force to be able to quickly deal with any eventuality. With 4 Mirage 2000-5 and 700 additional soldiers, France is notably strengthening its military presence in Estonia and Romania within NATO.
New sanctions, more refugees
100,000 Ukrainians have moved inside the country to flee the fighting since Thursday. And 50,000 refugees have crossed the borders of Poland and Moldova. At the same time, the West announced yesterday new financial sanctions, a rare occurrence, they directly target Vladimir Putin and his Minister of Foreign Affairs. Their assets abroad have been frozen by the European Union, Great Britain and the United States, but Europeans are still divided on harsher sanctions, such as Russia’s withdrawal from the Swift banking network, which allows payments to be received or sent in the whole world. E