Emmanuel Macron said Thursday, December 15, that he intended to call his counterpart Vladimir Putin, in particular about the bombings and Russian drone attacks in Ukraine. “The most urgent subject today is to continue to call for a truce in bombings and drone attacks”he said at a press conference after a European summit in Brussels. “These attacks (…), for a good part of them, they are war crimes”, he said. Follow our live.
New European sanctions against Russia. A 9th sanctions package has been adopted, which still needs to be detailed. It will be added in particular to the total embargo on imports of Russian oil transported by sea, and to the global cap on the price of Russian crude.
Washington sanctions a close associate of Putin. The United States has announced that it will impose financial sanctions against Vladimir Potanin, former Deputy Prime Minister of Vladimir Putin and one of Russia’s richest men. The Rosbank bank, bought by Vladimir Potanin this year, is thus the first target of these sanctions.
The pope makes his mea culpa. The Vatican has confirmed that an apology has been made to Russia after comments by Pope Francis on the alleged cruel behavior of Russian ethnic minorities in the conflict in Ukraine. The sovereign pontiff had affirmed at the end of November, in an interview, that some of the fighters “the most cruel” in the Russian offensive in Ukraine “are not of Russian tradition”but belong to minorities like “Chechens, Buryats”.