The United States and the European Union announced measures in Brussels on Friday to reduce European dependence on Russian gas, shortly before the departure for Poland of American President Joe Biden, the second leg of a trip to Europe devoted to the Russian invasion in Ukraine.
Thousands of kilometers away, the town hall of Mariupol, a strategic Ukrainian port on the Sea of Azov, whose theater was bombed on March 16, claimed on Telegram that around 300 people died there, according to witnesses. . Hundreds of people, “mainly women, children and the elderly”, took refuge in this theater.
More than 2,000 civilians have been killed in the besieged city, according to a latest report from the town hall, and some 100,000 people are still stranded and without everything, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In Brussels, Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in a statement the creation of a working group aimed at reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels.
In this context, the United States will strive to supply Europe with an additional 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) this year, according to the press release.
At the same time, Germany, which before the Russian invasion imported a third of its oil and some 45% of its coal from Russia, announced that it would do without Russian coal by the fall and would drastically reduce its dependence on Russian oil by the end of the year.
For gas, Germany could be “largely independent […] by mid-2024,” the German economy ministry said in a statement. The country has already reduced its gas imports from Russia in recent weeks, which now represent only 40% of the total.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure for its part asked the EU, on Telegram, to “completely block land and sea links with Russia and Belarus” to prevent the supply of goods that could be used for military purposes.
Fuel reserve destroyed
In Ukraine, the Russian offensive, which is entering its second month, continues and is increasingly turning into a war of attrition. On Friday, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have destroyed with cruise missiles the largest fuel reserve of the Ukrainian army near kyiv, which was used according to Moscow “to supply the units in the central part of the country”.
For its part, the Ministry of Emergency Situations confirmed that a depot of petroleum products located in Kalynivka, about thirty kilometers south-west of kyiv, had been hit Thursday evening by a bombardment and that a fire there was still raging Friday morning.
“The operation (in the whole country) must continue until it achieves its goal of demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine,” Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday. , in an interview with the RIA-Novosti news agency, using the rhetoric dear to President Vladimir Putin.
In the east, four civilians were killed and three others injured when rocket launchers fired at a medical center in Kharkiv, according to regional police, while in Rubizhne, a town near Lugansk, two residents were killed in bombardments the night of Thursday to Friday, according to the governor of the region Serguiï Gaïdaï.
The previous night, at least four people including two children had already died there and the Ukrainian authorities had accused Moscow of having used phosphorus bombs.
Asked about these accusations, the Kremlin on Friday denied any violation of international law and accused Joe Biden of wanting to “divert attention” from the “chemical and biological weapons development programs that the United States has set up in several countries, including in Ukraine”.
In addition, a military unit on the outskirts of Dnipro, in the center of the country, was hit Thursday evening by two missile strikes, said regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko without giving a death toll. “Important destruction. Rescuers are clearing the rubble and looking for people,” he wrote on Telegram.
On the front of the Ukrainian capital, the battle intensifies.
“Our soldiers hold the city of Cherniguiv and hinder the advance of the enemy in the direction of kyiv. We continue to repel the enemy offensive on kyiv,” says the latest bulletin from the Ukrainian army general staff, published at dawn on Friday.
“There were a lot of shots, they hit my house. The windows, the doors, the ceilings are destroyed”, tells AFP Yaroslava Delichevska, 58, who fled, with the five dogs of the family, her suburb of kyiv, transformed into a theater of fierce fighting.
The Ukrainian army also claims that in the Sea of Azov, the Russian ship “Saratov”, intended for a “landing” operation, “was destroyed during the attack on the occupied port of Berdiansk”.
Two other Russian landing ships, the “Caesar Kunikov” and the “Novocherkassk”, were also “damaged”, according to kyiv.
In his latest video posted on Facebook, overnight from Thursday to Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, entrenched in kyiv, paid tribute to “the heroic opposition of the Ukrainian people to the Russian military invasion”.
In a month of war, thousands of Ukrainians have been killed, 6.5 million have had to leave their homes, of which more than 4,300 have been destroyed, according to a latest assessment by President Zelensky. The general prosecutor’s office reported on its side at least 135 children killed and 184 others injured.
Joe Biden is expected early Friday afternoon in the Polish city of Rzeszow, about 80 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, the second leg of his trip to Europe.
Arriving from Brussels, he will be received by Polish President Andrzej Duda at the airport of this Polish city located two and a half hours by road from Lviv, the main city in western Ukraine, where refugees are flocking.
He will then receive a briefing on “the humanitarian response in order to alleviate the suffering of civilians in Ukraine and to respond to the increasing flow of refugees fleeing the war that (Vladimir) Putin has chosen”, specified the White House.
2.2 million Ukrainian refugees in Poland
Since February 24, more than 2.2 million people fleeing the conflict in Ukraine have entered Poland, Polish border guards have announced.
Joe Biden will meet American soldiers positioned in this region, who are part of the more than 100,000 American soldiers currently present in Europe.
He will then travel to Warsaw, where he will deliver a speech “about the united efforts of the free world to support the Ukrainian people” and “holding Russia accountable for its brutal war,” according to the White House.
These two days of visit to Poland come after an extraordinary diplomatic marathon in Brussels, where Joe Biden has multiplied summits – NATO, G7, EU – to praise Western unity in its response to Russia, a month to the day after the start of its invasion of Ukraine.
Joe Biden promised Brussels on Thursday for the first time a NATO “response” to the conflict in Ukraine if Russia resorted to chemical weapons there, a threat he considered “credible”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also expressed Thursday evening its “concern” after being informed by the Ukrainian authorities of the bombing of the city where the staff of the Chernobyl site live.