Russian forces claimed responsibility for capturing some towns in eastern Ukraine on Friday after a series of bitter setbacks on several fronts, but Kyiv appears to be keeping the initiative, calling on Russian soldiers to choose surrender.
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The Ukrainian army has taken over nearly 2,500 km2 of territory from Russian forces since the end of September, including nearly 800 km2 and 29 localities “just this week”, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday evening in his daily address.
At the same time in Oslo, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the imprisoned Belarusian activist Ales Beliatski, the Russian NGO Memorial and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties, a highly symbolic prize in the midst of the war in Ukraine.
Major Western capitals hailed the move, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres underscored “the power of civil society to advance peace.”
US President Joe Biden, who warned of a risk of “apocalypse” for the first time since the Cold War, praised winners who stood up to “intimidation and oppression”.
But in Russia, as a reaction, justice ordered the seizure of the offices of Memorial.
- Listen to the interview with Fabrice de Pierrebourg, investigative and conflict coverage journalist and former war correspondent in Ukraine on Philippe-Vincent Foisy’s program broadcast live every day at 6:50 a.m. via QUB-radio :
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced on Friday that it would release $1.3 billion in emergency financing for Ukraine, via its new aid instrument to deal with food shocks.
This new envelope aims to “support Ukraine in meeting its urgent needs in terms of balance of payments” but also to “play a catalytic role for future financial support from donors and creditors of Ukraine”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the IMF aid earlier in the day, adding that “the funds will arrive in Ukraine today”.
Call for surrender
On the ground, a sign of the confidence won by the Ukrainians after the success of their counter-offensive, Defense Minister Oleksiï Reznikov promised to “guarantee life, security and justice” to Russian soldiers who choose to surrender .
“You can still save Russia from tragedy and the Russian army from humiliation,” he said, as defeats prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to mobilize several hundred thousand people in the ‘army.
Moscow, for its part, announced that it had gained some ground – three villages in eastern Ukraine – after having lost thousands of square kilometers of territory on several fronts, further north and south in recent weeks.
The three villages taken are located south of the city of Bakhmout which is under Ukrainian control. The Russian army has been trying to take the area for months, so far without success.
“Street fights”
In Bakhmout on Friday, AFP journalists heard heavy artillery and multiple rocket launchers fire in the town, which had a population of 70,000 before the war.
Occasional bursts of machine gun fire were also audible. A civilian volunteer from the humanitarian group Vostok SOS, Edouard Skorik, 29, told AFP that “street fighting” had taken place near his house, on the other side of the Bakhmouta river.
To the south of the city, towards the villages captured by the Russians, columns of black smoke rose from the explosions of shells, startling and sometimes plunging civilians to the ground.
In the occupied region of Kherson (south), at least five civilians were killed and five injured by a Ukrainian strike that hit a bus of civilians on their way to work crossing a bridge, according to pro-Russian official Kirill Stremoussov.
kyiv has targeted bridges in this region on multiple occasions in order to disrupt Russian logistics.
The Ukrainian presidency reported a new Russian strike on the region of Zaporijjia (south), for the second consecutive day, injuring one person. “Infrastructure was destroyed in two districts. The occupier used drones for the first time,” she said.
The day before, 11 people had been killed in Russian strikes on Zaporizhia, according to the Ukrainian emergency services.
Risk of “apocalypse”
The leader of the pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk region (east), Denis Pushilin, noted that the “most difficult” situation was near Lyman, a railway junction recently taken over by Ukrainian forces, and where Russian troops escaped from accuracy in encirclement.
According to him, the latter are fortifying a new line of defense near the Kreminna, further east, which the Ukrainian forces are “testing day and night”.
“I think we have every chance of accumulating forces and starting to liberate territories with new reserves,” he added, announcing the dispatch of reinforcements.
Russia claimed last week the annexation of four regions it controls at least in part in Ukraine, following “referendums” denounced by the UN, kyiv and its Western allies.
As for the nuclear threat, it is going crescendo.
After Vladimir Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons to defend the territories that the Kremlin considers Russian, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday spoke of the need, if necessary, for “preventive strikes” against Russia.
If the Ukrainian presidency quickly backtracked by saying that Mr. Zelensky was talking about preventive “sanctions” and not strikes, Russian officials castigated his remarks.
The Kremlin denounced a “call to start a new world war” and the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, considered that such declarations confirmed the validity of the Russian invasion.