Ukrainian troops withdraw from the eastern city of Severodonetsk. A Russian occupation official killed in an attack. Franceinfo looks back on what to remember from the day.
Ukrainian forces ordered to withdraw from Severodonetsk
“It no longer makes sense to stay in positions that have been constantly bombarded for months”, explained the governor of Luhansk, Serguiï Gaïdaï, on Telegram messaging. Although the withdrawal was expected, it is the hardest blow to kyiv since the official launch of Moscow’s offensive in Donbass, eastern Ukraine, on April 19.
Severodonetsk is relentlessly bombarded by the Russians for weeks.According to Sergey Gaidai, “all essential infrastructure has been destroyed. 90% of the city is damaged, 80% of the houses will have to be destroyed”. “There are 568 civilians left in shelters in Azot”the industrial zone of Severodonetsk which is also the only sector of the city still remaining in the hands of Ukrainian troops, he specified.
A Russian occupation official killed in Kherson, a city under Russian control, in an attack
“It was a targeted attack on a collaborator of the civil and military administration, which killed him”confirmed Kirill Stremoussov, a member of the administration interviewed by the Russian agency Ria Novosti (in Russian). The Izvestia site broadcast a picture of the place (in Russian), where we can see the car still smoking, in a street planted with trees. The attack happened after 8 a.m., when the official was leaving his home to go to work. The victim, Dmitri Savlutchenko, in charge of sports and youth in the Kherson region, was a member of the party of the Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, imprisoned in April.
Attacks targeting occupation officials have multiplied: Wednesday, the pro-Russian official of the town hall of Tchornobaivka thus escaped the explosion of his car on an explosive device. On the same day, in the neighboring region of Zaporizhia, thehe mayor of Energodar Andrey Shevchik and two of his bodyguards were injured in the explosion of a device placed at the entrance to his home.
Moscow reacts to European Union decision to grant Ukraine candidate status
the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov initially called the move a“domestic affair” to the European Union. But then he said it was “important” for Moscow that “all these processes do not bring more problems for Russia”.
Later, it is the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry which saw in the choice from the EU “a geopolitical grab” space of the former USSR, which aims to “contain Russia”. She claimed that Brussels was using “methods of political and economic blackmail” and pressured candidate states to take “illegitimate sanctions” against Moscow.