Russia opened Tuesday, with a series of strikes on eastern Ukraine, a “new phase” of the war, at a time when Western countries are preparing to impose “new sanctions” on it.
The day after kyiv announced the start of the “battle for Donbass”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that a “new phase of the Russian military operation” had begun. Moscow Air Force fired “high-precision missiles” and neutralized 13 Ukrainian army strongholds, the Russian Defense Ministry said, calling on the Ukrainians to surrender.
On the ground, Russia has also reported dozens of other missile strikes in southern Ukraine, another front line.
Moscow, which already occupies the city of Kherson, “concentrates its forces” to advance towards the Mykolaiv region, further west, where the bombardments have intensified, communicated Tuesday Natalia Goumenyuk, spokeswoman for the southern command of the forces. Ukrainian armies.
“Everyone was expecting an offensive like February 24 with a great terrible force”, however underlined Tuesday the adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Oleksiy Arestovych. “However, it is proceeding cautiously. These are Russian units trying to advance. In the south, they are trying to encircle us, it started the day before yesterday. »
Faced with these raised guns, Western countries promise to toughen theirs through economic sanctions.
The allies have thus reached “a broad consensus on the need to increase pressure on the Kremlin, in particular by adopting new sanctions”, declared the Italian government on Tuesday evening. The Italian announcement has been confirmed on Twitter by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. “We will again strengthen our sanctions against Russia,” she said, without specifying their nature.
These statements followed a videoconference which brought together French leaders, Emmanuel Macron, British, Boris Johnson, German, Olaf Scholz, Romanian, Klaus Iohannis, Polish, Andrzej Duda, Italian, Mario Draghi, Japanese, Fumio Kishida, as well as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Representatives of NATO, the European Commission and the European Council also took part in the call.
According to the French presidency, Westerners are determined to “strengthen their support for Ukraine in every way in the face of Russian aggression”. The allies also agreed on “the need to convince [leurs] partners, among the countries outside the G7 and the EU, of the fact that this crisis threatens international peace and security and is not only a regional crisis or one only of interest to Westerners”, explained the Élysée , with particular reference to China.
Canada sanctions Putin’s daughters
At the same time, Canada on Tuesday sanctioned the two daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as other countries have done in recent weeks.
These Ottawa punishments concern 14 “close collaborators”, including “the two adult daughters of President Putin”, according to a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The wife and daughter of the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, as well as Russian oligarchs and members of their families are also now on the list of personalities prohibited from dealing with Canada and its nationals.
In the same vein, Canada will send heavy artillery to Ukraine for the first time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed on Tuesday. This decision was taken following the “most recent request” of the Ukrainian government to this effect. The details of these reinforcements will be communicated in the coming days, tempered Mr. Trudeau. The Canadian Armed Forces have about 150 heavy howitzers, according to open data that “appears” to be accurate, according to a military source from the To have to.
Almost at the same time, on Tuesday, the United States confirmed the delivery of new fighter jets to the Ukrainians after weeks of negotiations.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby clarified that the United States does not want to appear as a belligerent country in this conflict. They therefore facilitated the sending of “spare parts” to Ukrainian territory without sending planes there. ” Today, [les Ukrainiens] have at their disposal more fighter planes than two weeks ago”, he summarized, leaving the innuendos floating. These are probably Russian-made MiG-29s, which kyiv had been asking for since the start of the conflict.
And according to American media, the United States is about to approve a new military aid package for Ukraine amounting to 800 million dollars, less than a week after a previous announcement of a tranche of the same amount.
Economic impact
Western sanctions are beginning to weigh heavily on Russia’s economic future: the country’s gross domestic product is expected to contract by 8.5% this year, according to the latest forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), published on Tuesday.
For the Russian economy, “it’s a very, very important shock”, explained Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, in an interview with AFP.
That said, “there are two reasons why, in a sense, this shock is not more significant.” “The first is that the Russian authorities have put in place support programs […] to try to stabilize the economy […]and secondly, we must bear in mind that the sanctions do not yet affect the energy trade and therefore Russia continues to sell oil and gas to the rest of the world,” he explained. .
Russia is thus still earning income that it can use to support its economy. “So the sanctions have a very significant effect, but the impact could be much more. »
With Agence France-Presse