France said on Friday it was ready to help lift the blockade of the Ukrainian port of Odessa in order to unblock the cereals at the origin of a world food crisis. In the south and east of the country, deadly fighting continued to rage.
“We are at the disposal of the parties so that, basically, an operation is put in place which would allow access to the port of Odessa in complete safety, that is to say to be able to allow boats to pass despite the fact that the sea is mined, ”said an adviser to President Emmanuel Macron.
These statements came as Mr. Macron received the Senegalese President, Macky Sall, current President of the African Union, on Friday. Mr. Sall had called on Thursday for the demining of the port of Odessa, and indicated that he had received assurances from President Vladimir Putin that the Russians would not take advantage of it to attack, as the Ukrainians fear.
The Russian invasion launched on February 24 paralyzed grain exports from Ukraine – a major player in this sector – and caused a spike in grain and fertilizer prices, which threatens a food crisis in many countries, especially in Africa and middle easterners.
The French president is due to travel to Romania and Moldova on Tuesday and Wednesday, pending a visit to Ukraine, the date of which has not yet been set, according to the Elysee.
Bombings on Kherson
On the ground, Ukrainian forces said on Friday that they had bombed Russian positions in the occupied region of Kherson, in the south, of which kyiv fears an upcoming annexation by Moscow.
For several days, the Ukrainians have reported fighting in this region, almost all of which has been occupied by Russian troops since the first days of the invasion.
The local authorities put in place by Moscow are loudly calling for annexation. A Russian negotiator mentioned the 1er June the forthcoming organization — perhaps in July — of a referendum in the occupied territories on this issue.
A project described as “illegal” by kyiv and which recalls the referendum organized by Russia in Crimea in 2014, before it annexed the Ukrainian peninsula in stride.
The fighting is also intense in the region of Mykolaiv, close to Odessa. “The Russians are targeting us with heavy artillery, whether in town or in the villages,” Vitali Kim, governor of this region, told AFP, while welcoming that the Russians have retreated in recent days. “They won’t come back, we won’t let them come back,” he said.
In the Donbass, the battle for the key city of Severodonetsk and its twin Lyssytchansk continues, increasingly deadly. “Severodonetsk, Lysychansk and other cities in Donbass, which the occupiers now see as their targets, are holding their ground,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech late Thursday.
A little later, in his usual daily evening message, he reported “very heavy fighting” in the Donbass. “Russia wants to devastate every city in Donbass, every one, without exaggeration. Like Volnovakha, like Mariupol,” he noted.
“The Ukrainian military is doing everything to stop the attacks of the occupiers,” he said.
But the fighting continues in Severodonetsk, and the shelling is constant, said Friday Serguiï Gaïdaï, governor of the region. He pointed out in particular that the Palace of Mirrors, one of the symbols of the city, had been destroyed in a fire resulting from a Russian bombardment.
After claiming three days ago that Moscow had set itself the goal of taking the city by June 10, he said he was pleased that the opposing forces had “not succeeded”.
Ukraine could retake Severodonetsk “in two, three days”, as soon as it has “long-range” Western artillery, Mr. Gaïdaï assured Thursday.
The Ukrainians keep asking their Western allies for new, more powerful weapons. The delivery of multiple rocket launcher systems, including Himars with a range of about 80 km, slightly longer than Russian systems, has been announced by Washington and London, but it is unclear when the Ukrainians will be able to start using them.
Western weaponry is trickling in as allies want to ensure kyiv is able to safely absorb it and limit the risk of bombing its ammunition stockpiles, according to US military sources.
In this context, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace made an unannounced two-day visit to Kyiv. President Zelensky thanked him for London’s leading role in Western support for Ukraine.
“Words turn into actions. This is the difference between the relations between Ukraine and the United Kingdom and those between Ukraine and other countries, ”said Mr. Zelensky when receiving him, in an apparent pique against others. European countries, which he did not name. “The British are showing real leadership in defense matters,” said the Ukrainian president in his evening message.
At 107e day of the war, the heads of state of nine countries of central and eastern Europe (Romania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Slovakia) met on Friday in Bucharest to ask for a reinforcement of the eastern flank of NATO in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine, less than three weeks before an Alliance summit in Madrid.
“In the face of heightened security risks in Romania and the Black Sea, consolidating NATO on its eastern flank […] becomes all the more urgent and crucial,” said Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, opening the meeting, co-chaired by his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda.