(Kyiv) Polish President Andrzej Duda is visiting Ukraine on Tuesday, as the United States accuses Russia of wanting to intensify its bombardments in the country which will enter the seventh month of a conflict on Wednesday in which Kyiv admitted having lost nearly of 9000 soldiers.
Posted at 6:47 a.m.
“We welcome our friend to the capital! “Wrote the Ukrainian border guard service on Telegram, accompanying its message with a video showing Mr. Duda received at Kyiv station after arriving by train.
Poland is among the most unconditional supporters of Ukraine and the greatest critics of Russia within the EU, when other countries such as Germany or France display positions that are sometimes more measured and criticized by Kyiv. .
Mr. Duda intends to continue to help Kyiv, including politically by helping to “persuade other countries” to support the Ukrainians, Pawel Szrot, the head of the Polish presidential administration, explained on Tuesday.
The Polish president also calls for even more sanctioning of Moscow with “decisive restrictive measures” which, according to him, will allow Russian citizens to “understand the serious aggression committed by (their) country”, added Mr. Szrot.
His visit is part of the “Crimean platform”, an initiative bringing together the main states supporting Ukraine and which already existed before the invasion of the country by Russia on February 24. It comes as the conflict, which drags on with little movement on the ground, will enter its seventh month on Wednesday.
Alarmist Americans
The US Embassy in Ukraine has issued an alarmist message warning that Russia could intensify its bombardments “in the coming days”, and called on American citizens to leave the country “immediately” by “private ground transportation available “.
“The State Department has information that Russia is intensifying its efforts to launch strikes against civilian infrastructure and government facilities in Ukraine,” the embassy said on its website, without further details. on the places potentially concerned.
Since the withdrawal of Russian forces from around Kyiv in late March, the bulk of the fighting has been concentrated in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow slowly gained ground before the front froze, and in the south , where the Ukrainian troops say they are carrying out a counter-offensive, which is also very slow.
Russia, however, continues to regularly target Ukrainian cities with long-range missiles, though rarely targeting the capital Kyiv and its surroundings.
On Monday, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Valery Zalouzhny, admitted that nearly 9,000 of his soldiers had been killed since the start of the invasion, one of the few statements by Ukrainians about their military losses in this war.
On the same day, faced with this “war which lasts and which seems likely to last”, the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, announced that the Union was considering organizing a mission “for training and assistance” to the Ukrainian army in neighboring countries. The proposal will be discussed next week in Prague by European defense ministers.
The Ukrainian army also says it is preparing its troops for the idea of a long-term conflict.
An adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mikhaïlo Podoliak, told AFP on Monday that Moscow, despite its footy calls for Ukraine to negotiate, in reality wanted to obtain “an operational break for its army” before launching ” a new offensive.
“Death at the front”
In Russia, several hundred people gathered in Moscow on Tuesday for the funeral of Daria Douguina, the daughter of a pro-Kremlin ultranationalist ideologue and writer, killed on Saturday evening in the explosion of her car.
Daria Dugina, a 29-year-old journalist and political scientist, was like her father, Alexander Dugin, a fierce supporter of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Relatives of the family and political leaders, in particular, gathered in front of her coffin, above which had been hung a portrait of her smiling, noted AFP.
“She died at the front for the nation, for Russia. The front, it’s here,” said Mr. Dougin in a trembling voice, his eyes darkened.
The Russian security services (FSB) said on Monday that the attack was planned and carried out by Ukrainian intelligence services. As of Saturday, Russian media accused Kyiv, believing that the target of the attack was in fact Alexander Dougin.
Ukraine has denied it in its entirety. On Tuesday, its secretary of the Security and National Defense Council, Oleksiï Danilov, accused in return Russia of having started with this attack to carry out at home “a series of terrorist attacks” which will cause “mass victims”, in an attempt to remobilize a population that he believed to be less and less favorable to the war.
The death of Daria Dougina caused a shock in Russia, awakening the painful memory of the multiple assassinations which bloodied the unstable period following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.