Almost five months after the start of its offensive, Russia on Wednesday widened its objectives to territories other than those of eastern Ukraine, kyiv for its part asking its allies for more weapons and new sanctions against Moscow.
To overcome the fall in Russian gas supplies, Brussels has proposed a plan to reduce European demand by 15%, which includes limiting the heating of certain buildings, postponing the closure of nuclear power plants and encouraging companies to reduce their needs. But Spain has already indicated its opposition.
On the military level, the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, affirmed that the objectives of Russia were no longer limited only to the east of Ukraine, but also concerned “other territories” and could still be further extended. ‘extend.
Part of the assault on February 24, Russia said it wanted to focus on the Donbass basin, a mining region partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, after notably failing to take kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
“It is no longer just the people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk [deux territoires séparatistes de l’est de l’Ukraine]these are also the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia [dans le sud] and a series of other territories, and this process continues, steadily,” Lavrov told the Ria Novosti news agency and the RT television channel.
Lavrov also said that holding talks with Kyiv would make “no sense in the current situation”, saying that previous contacts had “only revealed the lack of will on the part of the Ukrainian side to seriously discuss whatever it would be “.
Ukraine responded to the Russian announcement by calling for more weapons and additional sanctions against Moscow. “The Russians want blood, not negotiations. I call on all partners to strengthen sanctions against Russia and to speed up arms deliveries to Ukraine”, wrote the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kouleba.
The first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, visiting the United States, for her part delivered a stirring plea before the American Congress: “I ask you for more weapons […] to protect everyone’s homes and the right to wake up alive in those homes. »
Russian advances
The Russian army has made gains in recent weeks in the Donbass, including breaking the double lock of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, two cities in the Luhansk region, which cleared the way for it to try to advance towards the cities. from Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, further west in the Donetsk region.
Heavy fighting continues to unfold in this part of Ukraine, with kyiv able to count on recent deliveries of more capable Western artillery pieces.
Mr. Lavrov also said that if the West continued to supply Ukraine with weapons capable of long-range strikes, such as the American Himars multiple rocket launchers, Russia’s geographical objectives would still evolve.
In the south, new bombings left at least two dead and nine injured in the city of Nikopol, deplored its mayor, Oleksandre Saïouk.
In Kharkiv, in the northeast, shelling killed at least three people, local authorities said. Among the victims is a 13-year-old boy, killed near a bus stop, whose body Agence France-Presse journalists saw and relatives in shock, kneeling near him, in the middle glass shards.
Concerns for gas
In the immediate future, Europe is suspended on Moscow’s decision whether or not to reopen the valves of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which mainly supplies Germany and which has only been delivering at 40% of its capacity since mid-June. .
Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted that the pipeline could restart on Thursday morning, but that if Russia did not receive a missing turbine, it would only operate at 20% capacity. “A pretext”, immediately let Germany know.
The German operator Gascade assured to foresee a recovery as of Thursday at the level of “before maintenance”, or 40% of the capacity. At the start of the evening, the president of the German Network Agency, Klaus Müller, estimated that the delivery could finally be Thursday only “about 30%” of the capacity of Nord Stream 1.
In Brussels, the European Commission is preparing people’s minds for gas shortages which could slow down economic activity and lead to heating problems during the winter. Russia was the source of 40% of Europe’s gas supply until last year.
But the European plan is not unanimous. The Spanish government has said it is opposed to the reduction in gas consumption by at least 15% desired by Brussels for all the Member States of the European Union, judging that this measure was not necessarily “fair”. nor “efficient”.
Madrid also regretted that this measure was not discussed beforehand. This plan must be discussed on July 26 during a European Council.
Supplementing the six sets of sanctions adopted since the beginning of the war, the European Union has also approved an embargo on gold exports from Russia. It will also freeze the assets of the Russian bank Sberbank and add several personalities and entities to its blacklist.
But for President Volodymyr Zelensky, “this is not enough”. “Russia must pay a higher price for the war which would force it to seek peace,” he stressed in a video.
On the diplomatic level, the Ukrainian head of state suffered a setback with the refusal of the South American economic bloc of Mercosur, made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, to authorize him to deliver a speech at his heads of state summit on Thursday.
All decisions of the economic bloc are taken unanimously. The name of the state or states that opposed the intervention of the Ukrainian president has not been revealed.
In the aftermath of the outbreak of war, Brazil and Argentina refrained from supporting a statement by the Organization of American States that condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.