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07:52 : The European Union will not send planes to Ukraine, slice on the other hand Josep Borrell, even if he considers that the Member States can do it on their own initiative. “We must help Ukraine, but we must avoid escalation”he warns, at the conclusion of his interview on franceinfo.
07:51 : “It’s another taboo that breaks: yes, Europe is engaging in war by supplying arms to Ukraine. And we will continue to do so”says the Spaniard Josep Borrell, the head of European diplomacy.
07:52 : “They’re targeting cities. Cities are where civilians live. They’re not looking for military targets. They’re hitting shops, like they did in Aleppo [en Syrie]. They can’t beat the Ukrainian resistance, so they bomb.”
On franceinfo, Josep Borrell accuses Vladimir Putin and Russia of deliberately targeting civilians. Asked about the possibility that Vladimir Putin will one day have to answer for Russia’s actions in Ukraine, he answers in the affirmative: “I think, yes. I don’t know how.”
07:46 : Josep Borrell is in France for the EU leaders’ summit in Versailles today and tomorrow. In addition to energy, the question of European defense will be at the heart of the discussions, and makes the front page of several daily newspapers.
07:43 : The head of diplomacy of the European Union, Josep Borrell, is a guest of franceinfo. Listen to his interview live.
07:24 : Three humanitarian corridors are to open today to evacuate civilians from the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine to the city of Poltava, further from the front, announces the head of the Ukrainian military administration in the region. He also claims that three civilians, including a child, were killed by a strike last night in the small town of Velyka Pysarivka.
07:06 : Companies around the world continue to leave Russia. Sony and Nintendo, video game giants, announced last night the suspension of their deliveries to Russia. If Sony presents its decision as a support for peace in Ukraine (and announced a donation of 2 million dollars to support the refugees), Nintendo justified it by logistical questions.
07:07 : The International Monetary Fund has for its part approved emergency aid of 1.4 billion dollars for Ukraine. And the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has announced 2 billion euros to provide “targeted support for refugees, businesses and energy security”.
07:07 : The elected members of the House of Representatives of the United States have adopted a new budget which includes an envelope of nearly 14 billion dollars for the Ukrainian crisis. It includes more than 2.6 billion in humanitarian aid, more than one billion to support refugees, but also funds to equip ourselves with weapons, protect the electricity grid, fight cyberattacks… Now this aid is approved by the Senate and by Joe Biden.
06:32 : Yesterday, the spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, affirmed to observe “progress” in talks with Ukraine, and assured that Russia was not seeking to occupy the country or overthrow its government.
Ukrainians are more skeptical. “I don’t have much hope“, Minister Dmytro Kuleba explained yesterday. But Volodymyr Zelensky opened the door on Tuesday to a compromise with Russia on the subject of Crimea and the territories occupied by pro-Russian separatists, and to a renunciation of Ukraine’s plan to join NATO.
06:26 : On the diplomatic front, the heads of diplomacy of Ukraine and Russia will meet for the first time since the launch of the Russian invasion. Russian Sergei Lavrov and Ukrainian Dmytro Kuleba meet in Antalyat, in Turkey. The host country acts as a mediator.
07:24 : Yesterday evening, the mayor of Mariupol put forward an assessment of the siege of this city in the south-east of Ukraine, which has lasted for nine days: 1,207 civilians have died, says the municipality. About 300,000 inhabitants are still in this port, where the humanitarian situation is particularly worrying. The latest UN assessment for its part suggests a total of 516 civilian deaths throughout Ukraine since the start of the offensive. Balance sheets impossible to verify independently.
06:17 : In a new video message, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that at least 35,000 civilians had been able to be evacuated through several of the humanitarian corridors opened yesterday, in Sumy, Enerhodar and in the outskirts of Kiev.
07:26 : Let’s start with a point on the main news of this Thursday morning:
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been going on for two weeks. Yesterday a children’s hospital was bombed in the besieged city of Mariupol, injuring 17 people, which Volodymyr Zelensky denounced as a “war crime”. Here are the highlights of the day.
#UKRAINE The Heads of State and Government of the European Union are meeting in Versailles, until tomorrow, for a summit on “European sovereignty”where there should be a lot of talk about EU defense policy and finding alternatives to Russian energy.
#COLONNA A week after the attack on Yvan Colonna in prison, anger has risen again in Corsica. Hundreds of people gathered last night in Ajaccio, Calvi or Bastia, with again clashes, injuries and the outbreak of fire at the Ajaccio courthouse.
PSG added a new episode to its series of terrible disappointments in the Champions League: against Real Madrid, the Parisians collapsed at the end of the match (3-1) and were eliminated in the eighth. A failure that should leave traces.