Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered Russian forces to continue their offensive in eastern Ukraine, the day after the capture of Lysytchansk. For its part, kyiv now estimates the cost of the future reconstruction of the country at 750 billion dollars.
The latter will be “the common task of the whole democratic world”, underlined the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking from a distance at the opening of an international conference organized in Lugano, Switzerland, to prepare the immense project . Its Prime Minister, Denys Chmygal, who was able to make the trip, presented a plan “already estimated at 750 billion dollars”.
The conference is due to end on Tuesday, and is taking place as the outcome of the war sparked on February 24 by the Russian invasion of Ukraine remains uncertain.
In Moscow, during a meeting with his Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, the Russian President for his part gave the order to the Russian troops to “carry out their mission” in application of the “already approved plans”.
“Gradual overflow”
On Sunday evening, the staff of the Ukrainian army announced the withdrawal of the units engaged in Lyssytchansk, the last bastion of kyiv in the region of Luhansk, which Moscow now says it fully controls.
For the Ukrainian forces, the urgency is now to contain the Russian advance towards the west and two major cities in the neighboring region of Donetsk: Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
After the capture of Lysytchansk, a centerpiece of the plan to conquer Donbass, an industrial basin partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, “the enemy’s main effort […] aims at a gradual overflow” of the Ukrainian military on this axis, the Ukrainian general staff said on Monday.
According to the governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kirilenko, ten people, including two children, died on Sunday in Russian strikes in Sloviansk and its surroundings. The front line approaching this city, the Ukrainian authorities are calling on its population to leave.
The streets of Sloviansk were almost deserted on Monday morning, according to AFP journalists on the spot. In the downtown market, ravaged by a fire caused by a Russian strike, a few vendors offered basic necessities while others cleared charred debris.
Vendors and residents expressed their concern for the days and weeks to come, while you could hear the explosions due to the bombardments. “I think what awaits us is going to be even worse, I have already thought of leaving,” said Andriï Gerassimenko, 38, who picks up the debris from the market. “Nothing good is going to happen. The best thing is to leave,” added Viktoria Koloty, a 33-year-old woman who said she had already sent her children away.
In Siversk, between Lyssytchansk and Sloviansk, the Ukrainian soldiers seem to want to hold a line of defense between this city and Bakhmout, further south. Its inhabitants interviewed by AFP evoke increasingly intense bombardments in recent days. “The enemy has intensified its shelling of our positions in the direction,” confirmed the Ukrainian army general staff.
The Russian army, for its part, claimed to have destroyed “seven Ukrainian command posts” in the past 24 hours, “including that of the 25e airborne brigade in the Siversk region”. Statements impossible to verify from an independent source.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, in the northeast of the country, three civilians died in shelling that occurred before dawn on Monday, according to local authorities.
Billions of dollars for reconstruction
In Boutcha, a martyr city in the suburbs of kyiv, the population does not yet dare to think of reconstruction as the outcome of the war is uncertain. Here, the scars of the fighting are still visible everywhere: broken windows, bullet holes, gutted walls… “We’re going to bed without knowing if we’ll wake up tomorrow,” sighs Vera Semeniouk, 65. “Everyone has come back, is starting to repair the houses, many are putting up new windows. It would be terrible if it started again and you had to leave everything again. »
In this context, the Lugano conference must try on Monday and Tuesday to draw the outlines of the future reconstruction of Ukraine.
The “task is truly colossal”, if only in the liberated territories, Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged on Sunday. The organizers of the conference hoped for his physical presence, but he participated, as he is now used to, by videoconference in this meeting bringing together the leaders of Ukraine’s allies, international institutions, but also the private sector. The conference had been planned long before the war and was initially to focus on reforms in Ukraine, including the fight against corruption.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Chmygal and Speaker of Parliament Rouslan Stefantchouk arrived in Lugano on Sunday. They met the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in order to lay the foundations of a “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine. The urgency is to help the population affected by the war before, in a second step, to finance thousands of reconstruction projects and, in the long term, to prepare a European, green and digital Ukraine, explained Mr. Chmygal.
Robert Mardini, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, judged on the Swiss public television channel RTS that it was vital to give Ukrainians “a positive perspective” now.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is to propose the creation of a new fund for Ukraine, which could reach 100 billion euros, according to informed sources. And for Mr. Chmygal, Russian assets frozen in Western countries alone are valued at between 300 and 500 billion dollars.