War in Ukraine, Day 144 | EU wants tougher sanctions on Moscow, shelling continues

(Kyiv) Russia continued its bombing of several Ukrainian cities on Sunday, on the eve of an EU meeting aimed at tightening sanctions and making it “pay the full price for its aggression” launched almost five years ago. month.

European Union foreign ministers will discuss tougher sanctions against Moscow on Monday, the successive tranches of which have so far isolated Russia and hit its economy hard, but have not been enough at this time. to push back the Kremlin.

EU ministers are due to consider on Monday a European Commission proposal to ban gold purchases from Russia to bring EU sanctions in line with those of its G7 partners.

Another proposal aims to put new Russian personalities on the EU blacklist.

“Moscow must continue to pay a high price for its aggression,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday after transmitting the new measures to the Twenty-Seven.

The Russian army has already lost 50,000 men, dead or wounded, and thousands of armored vehicles, according to the Chief of the British Armed Forces, Admiral Tony Radakin, i.e. “more than 30% of its effectiveness in land combat”.

“This means that 50,000 Russian soldiers died or were injured in this conflict, that almost 1,700 Russian tanks were destroyed, that almost 4,000 armored vehicles belonging to Russia were destroyed,” Admiral Radakin said, in an interview broadcast Sunday by the BBC.

However, “the challenge posed by Russia will last”, he warned, stressing that betting on a health problem for Vladimir Putin or “that he ends up being assassinated” was “pious wish”.

The master of the Kremlin claimed earlier this month that the Russian army had “not yet started serious things”, and his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered last week to “further increase” the military pressure.

Barely three days after cruise missile strikes that devastated the center of Vinnytsia, hundreds of kilometers from the front, killing at least 24 people, including children, and prompting the European Union to denounce ‘barbaric behaviour’, the shelling continues.

During the night from Saturday to Sunday, missiles hit Kharkiv, the country’s second city, close to the Russian border.

“Around three in the morning, in the Kyivsky district (of Kharkiv), one of the floors of a five-storey industrial building caught fire as a result of two missile strikes. A 59-year-old woman was injured and hospitalized,” regional governor Oleg Sinegoubov said.

“Massive bombings”

Other strikes targeted Mykolaiv, a southern city near the Black Sea.

“Around 3:05 a.m. Mykolaiv was hit by heavy shelling. At present, we are aware of a fire in two industrial enterprises,” said Vitaliy Kim, the local governor.

Villages in the region were also affected. “Three people died and three were injured in Shevchenkove,” he said, adding that a woman was killed on Saturday in a shelling in Chyrokiv, where “a residential building was destroyed.”

In eastern Ukraine, the Donetsk region in the Donbass basin has also been targeted by “the Russians (who) continue to bomb civilian infrastructure, especially educational institutions”, the official said. governor of the region, Pavlo Kyrylenko.

“Three missiles hit the community of Toretsk: one hit a residential area, two in Zalizne where a school and a kindergarten were damaged. In Konstantinovka, the Russians bombed a medical faculty. No information on casualties at this time,” he added.

Pro-Russian separatists who have held part of the same region since 2014 have accused Ukrainian forces of firing 60 rockets from Grad multiple rocket launchers at a neighborhood in Donetsk.

“Residential buildings were hit,” they said, posting images of buildings reduced to ruins, without reporting any casualties.

“Enough Deaths”

The war in Ukraine will enter its sixth month on July 24 and there is no overall civilian death toll from the conflict so far.

“Enough deaths,” chanted nearly 2,000 Ukrainian and Polish demonstrators on Sunday outside the Russian embassy in Warsaw, asking like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Russia be recognized as a “terrorist state”.

The UN has counted nearly 5,000 confirmed dead, including more than 300 children, but recognizes that the true number is undoubtedly much higher.

For the city of Mariupol (southeast), which fell in May after a terrible siege, the Ukrainian authorities evoked some 20,000 dead.

On the military level, Western security sources now speak of 15,000 to 20,000 Russian soldiers killed. Kyiv reported at least 10,000 dead in its troops.

No independent statistics are available.