The day after Volodymyr Zelensky’s rejection of his offer of mediation, the African delegation is heading for Saint Petersburg (north-west of Russia), where it is expected on Saturday June 17 by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The delegation led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday offered to mediate peace in the conflict, saying from the Ukrainian capital that there should be “a de-escalation on both sides”. She was met with an end of inadmissibility from the Ukrainian head of state, who denounced “a deception” of Moscow in full counter-offensive of its armed forces. Follow our live.
kyiv claims to obtain “tactical successes” in the south. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense claims to have liberated a handful of localities and a hundred square kilometers, mainly on the southern front. “Ukrainian forces continue to conduct both offensive and defensive operations with relative success”, said Friday evening Ganna Maliar, Deputy Minister of Defense. In the south, “our units achieve tactical success in virtually every area and direction in which they advance”she added.
According to Putin, the Ukrainian counter-offensive has “no chance” of succeeding. From Saint Petersburg, Vladimir Putin for his part assured that the Ukrainian counter-offensive had not “no chance” to succeed, and that Western countries would be obliged to come back to him, on his terms. “And we will see when and what we can talk to them about”, he launched. At the same time, the Russian president announced on Friday that he had transferred the first nuclear weapons to Belarus, concretizing the deployment announced in March by Moscow.
France condemns the bombings in kyiv. Shortly after the African delegation arrived in Kyiv on Friday, the capital region was targeted by a Russian missile attack that triggered anti-aircraft sirens followed by explosions, and injured at least seven, according to police Ukrainian. France condemned in the evening the bombardments which “constitute war crimes and cannot go unpunished”.