Germany delivered 18 Leopard tanks to kyiv

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8:16 p.m. : “Without the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops and personnel from (the plant) and adjacent territories, any initiative to restore nuclear safety and security is doomed.”

Volodymyr Zelensky told IAEA chief Rafael Grossi that there could be no “nuclear security” in Ukraine without the withdrawal of the Russian army from the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Moscow troops for more than a year.

8:28 p.m. : Germany also delivered about 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, added the Spiegelspecifying that the government of Olaf Scholz kept “secret the route” Delivery “For safety reasons”.

8:13 p.m. : Germany has delivered Leopard heavy battle tanks to Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said. He confirmed information published by the weekly Der Spiegel, according to which 18 Leopard 2 tanks were delivered. According to the weekly, “last tanks left Germany at the end of last week and have now been handed over” to Ukraine.

4:38 p.m. : According to the Ukrainian presidency, Volodymr Zelensky also visited the command post of the operational group of troops for the Zaporizhia region. A meeting with local military officials was held there.

4:32 p.m. : After this meeting on the site of a hydroelectric plant, the head of the IAEA said he had a “rich exchange” with Volodymyr Zelensky on “protection” of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, still occupied by Russian forces.

4:34 p.m. : Another visit outside kyiv for the Ukrainian president. Volodymyr Zelensky and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, met at a hydroelectric station in the Zaporizhia region.

(Efrem Lukatsky/AP/SIPA)

1:50 p.m. : “Avdiïvka looks more and more like a place taken from post-apocalyptic films.”

Also in the east of the country, the administration of the city of Avdiïvka announces the evacuation of municipal employees from this locality located in the northern suburbs of Donetsk.

1:45 p.m. : The governor of the Donetsk region adds that the town of Druzhkivka was also targeted by an attack, without causing any casualties according to initial information. “Two S-300 missiles hit the Druzhkivka orphanage and almost completely destroyed it”he says.

1:39 p.m. : A Russian bombardment left at least two dead and 29 injured in the city of Sloviansk, in the east of the country, this morning, announces the regional governor. “Administrative buildings and offices suffered damage, as well as five buildings and seven houses”says Pavlo Kyrylenko.

(LIBKOS/AP/SIPA)

1:32 p.m. : Starter dish dessert. On this midday, here is the slate of our recommendations for the day:

• We present to you Marie Buisson, Céline Verzeletti and Olivier Mateu, the main candidates for the succession of Philippe Martinez during the CGT congress, which opens today.

• In kyiv, Thibault Lefèvre attended the reunion between Ukrainian families and their children who had been deported to Russia. These describe life in “re-education camps” in Crimea.

• Before Ireland-France this evening, our special correspondent in Dublin Denis Menetrier tells you how Brexit has revolutionized Irish football by turning youth training upside down.

12:16 p.m. : No questioning in the Kremlin. Despite criticism from Western countries, the Russian presidency makes it known that international reactions will not have “no impact on plans” of Moscow aiming to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus, a country neighboring Ukraine and an ally of Russia.

12:05 : The children met by our journalist, originally from the Kherson region then occupied, left of their own free will last October for a summer camp in Crimea. But at the planned end of the stay, “they took our phones from us, then told us that our parents didn’t need us, that they had abandoned us”, says Vitali, 16 years old. For six months, he says he followed a “re-education” program, including being forced to sing the Russian national anthem. It was the intervention of an NGO that made it possible to bring these children back to their parents.

11:55 a.m. : It is a policy that has earned Vladimir Putin an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court: since the start of the offensive in Ukraine, Russia has been deporting Ukrainian children and placing them with Russian families . Our journalist Thibault Lefèvre attended the reunion of some of them with their Ukrainian parents and collected their testimonies.

(THIBAULT LEFEVRE / RADIOFRANCE)