Explosions that left one dead and injured occurred on Tuesday at an ammunition depot on the site of a military airfield on Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia, which has stopped oil deliveries via Ukraine.
The Russian army claimed that no shooting or bombardment had been the cause of these explosions, first reported by the authorities of this peninsula unilaterally attached to Russia in 2014 and on the front line in the Russian offensive against Ukraine launched on February 24.
“Several munitions intended for aviation exploded in a depot located on the territory of the Saki military airfield, near the town of Novofyodorovka,” the Russian army said in a statement.
Videos posted on social media showed a fireball forming after a loud blast, as thick billows of black smoke rose into the sky and panicked holidaymakers left the nearby beach.
Crimean leader Sergey Aksionov said one person was killed in the blasts and his health minister, Konstantin Skoroupsky, said five people were injured, including a child.
“Tourists are not in danger. We ask you to keep calm, ”said a Russian deputy elected in this peninsula, Alexei Tcherniak.
Despite the conflict, Crimea has remained an important vacation spot for many Russians who continue to enjoy summer on its shores.
“Crimea is Ukrainian and we will never give it up. We will not forget that the occupation of Crimea was the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily address on Tuesday evening. “The world is beginning to realize that it was wrong in 2014 when it decided not to respond with all its might to Russia’s first aggressive actions.”
Transit of Russian oil through Ukraine cut
On Tuesday, the Russian company responsible for transporting hydrocarbons, Transneft, announced that deliveries of Russian oil through Ukrainian territory to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Member States of the European Union without access to the sea, were interrupted on August 4.
Transneft explained that the payment for the right of transit through Ukraine for the month of August, made on July 22, was refused on July 28 because of the entry into force of certain sanctions against Russia.
These are supplies via a branch of the Druzhba pipeline crossing Ukraine and serving the three countries concerned.
Deliveries to Poland and Germany, through Belarus, “continue” on the other hand “normally”, assured Transneft.
The EU has been trying since the start of the conflict in Ukraine to reduce its energy dependence on Russia, which it accuses of using its hydrocarbon supplies as a “weapon of war”, and has opted in June for a gradual embargo on Russian oil.
In particular, crude oil imports by boat are expected to stop within six months, while the Russians have sharply reduced their gas shipments to Europe in recent weeks.
Supply via the Druzhba pipeline, on the other hand, was authorized to be extended “temporarily”, without a deadline. A concession obtained by the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, who cultivates his relations with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and on whom the country depends for 65% of its consumption on this cheap Russian oil.
At the same time, the regular rotations by the Black Sea to supply the world agricultural markets, started last week under an agreement signed on July 22 by the belligerents, continued, with the departure Tuesday from the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk of two ships loaded with 70,000 tonnes of grain.
Dollars for demining
According to the Ukrainian army general staff, the Russians continued on Tuesday to bombard several localities in eastern Ukraine, around Cherniguiv in the north, Kharkiv in the northeast, as well as the city of Mykolaiv, in the south.
In the eastern region of Donetsk, a total of more than 3,000 civilians, including 600 children, have been evacuated since authorities made such evacuations mandatory in late July, kyiv said.
There is now only “a population of 350,000 people, including 50,000 children”, about 1.3 million having now left following the outbreak of the war.
The situation remains complex at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporijjia, the largest in Europe. The site located in the southern part of Ukraine was the target at the end of last week of strikes of as yet undetermined origin, the Russians and the Ukrainians returning the responsibility.
Currently, the Russian military “are implementing the program (of the Russian group) Rosatom aimed at switching it to the Crimean electricity networks”, denounced in the evening the boss of the Ukrainian company Energoatom, Petro Kotin.
“The first condition for this is to damage the power lines connecting the plant to the Ukrainian energy system. From August 7 to 9, the Russians have already damaged three power lines. At the moment, the plant is operating with a single line of electricity output, which is an extremely dangerous mode of operation”, because if it is cut, “the plant will have to switch to diesel generators, and everything will depend on their reliability. explained Petro Kotin.
Russia also launched Tuesday, from Kazakhstan, an Iranian observation satellite which, according to the American press, could be used by Moscow to support its offensive in Ukraine, which Tehran refutes.
The American president, Joe Biden, for his part initialed on Tuesday the ratification by the United States of the accessions of Sweden and Finland to NATO, which thus responds to the Russian invasion.
The United States will also devote $ 89 million to help Ukraine destroy anti-personnel mines posed, according to them, voluntarily by Russian soldiers in inhabited areas in the north of the country before withdrawing in March.
The French President, Emmanuel Macron, and the resigning British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, for their part underlined during a telephone interview on Tuesday evening the importance of continuing to “support Ukraine for as long as necessary”.