War in Ukraine, day 346 | Western military aid intensifies

(Kyiv) Ukraine has been promised longer-range Western weapons, military aid its President Volodymyr Zelensky is counting on to end “Russia’s brutal aggression”.

The new US military aid, amounting to 2.2 billion dollars, includes in this regard rockets which could almost double the range of the Ukrainian strike force, according to the Pentagon.

These are in particular GLSDB (Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb) bombs, small-diameter devices fired from the ground that can reach a target 150 km away and therefore threaten Russian positions behind the front lines.

“The handover of the GLSDBs will not take place for several months,” however, said a Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Garron Garn, citing production and delivery schedules. He was also unable to specify the number for “security reasons”.

“If the delivery of weapons accelerates, especially long-range weapons, not only will we not withdraw from Bakhmout, [mais] we will begin to put an end to the occupation of Donbass”, an eastern region partly in the hands of the Russians, affirmed the Ukrainian president.

The army will defend “as long as it can” this key eastern city which Russian soldiers have been trying to seize for months, “no one will abandon” this “fortress”, hammered Mr. Zelensky .

Almost a year into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Bakhmut has become the epicenter of the fighting and Moscow’s forces have in recent weeks secured small territorial gains in the region at the cost of heavy losses. .

Paris has announced that France and Italy will provide a MAMBA medium-range surface-to-air defense system in the spring to help Ukraine “defend against attacks by Russian drones, missiles and aircraft”.

And Portugal, said on Saturday it is willing to send German-made Leopard 2 heavy tanks to Ukraine but said it must first work with Berlin to restore some of its armor to working order.

In addition, the US Justice Minister announced on Friday the first transfer of confiscated Russian funds from an oligarch in the amount of $5.4 million, with the aim of helping Ukraine, according to CNN.

Russian bombings

AFP journalists noted on Friday the violence of the clashes which reduced certain neighborhoods on the outskirts of Bakhmout to ruins.

According to the authorities, this town now has around 6,500 inhabitants compared to around 70,000 before the war.

Shelling also continued in Kherson, a major southern city taken and then abandoned by the Russians, where one person was killed and another injured on Friday, authorities said.

On Saturday, the major port city of Odessa suffered major power cuts following a technical incident at an electricity station, which has been the constant target of Russian bombardments in recent times, Prime Minister Denys Chmygal announced.

“The situation is complex, the scale of the accident is significant, it is impossible to quickly restore the power supply, in particular to critical infrastructure,” admitted the head of government.

“Considerable efforts”

On Friday in Kyiv, European Council President Charles Michel, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other senior EU officials met with Zelensky.

The latter affirmed that his country would not lose “a single day” in moving towards entry into the European Union and deemed it “possible” to initiate discussions on this subject as early as this year.

European leaders hailed “the progress” in the creation of “independent and effective” institutions responsible for fighting the corruption that plagues this country.

Ukraine has officially been a candidate for membership of the European Union since June 2022, an arduous process requiring many reforms that could last for years.

Oil products

M^me von der Leyen assured that he was working on new sanctions against Russia for February 24, the first anniversary of the invasion, judging that it should “pay for the destruction it caused”.

She said the punitive measures taken over the past year have already set back the Russian economy by “a generation”, noting that capping the price of Russian oil exports at $60 a barrel costs Moscow 160 million euros a year. day.

It will be superimposed on a cap on the price of refined petroleum products, which the ambassadors of the EU member states approved on Friday, before final adoption by the European Council.

A European embargo on these same petroleum products sent abroad by sea must already come into force on Sunday, the Kremlin having castigated a “negative” measure which will “further unbalance” the markets.

European leaders have also said they want to “intensify” their efforts “to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine’s reconstruction and for reparations purposes.

Freed Russian and Ukrainian POWs

Dozens of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war have returned home after a prisoner exchange, officials on both sides said on Saturday.

The chief of staff of the Ukrainian president, Andriy Yermak, indicated in a message on Telegram that 116 Ukrainians have been released.

He claims the released prisoners of war include troops who defended Mariupol during the siege of Moscow that reduced the southern port city to rubble. Among the freed prisoners of war there are also fighters from the Kherson region and snipers captured during the fierce fighting in Bakhmout.

Russian defense officials, meanwhile, said 63 Russian soldiers had returned from Ukraine after the exchange, including ‘special category’ prisoners whose release was secured after mediation by the Arab Emirates. United.

A statement released Saturday by the Russian Defense Ministry did not provide details of these “special category” captives.

At least three civilians have been killed in Ukraine in the past 24 hours as Russian forces struck nine regions in the south, north and east of the country, according to reports broadcast on Ukrainian television by regional governors Saturday morning.

Two people have been killed and 14 others injured in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region by Russian shelling and missile strikes, Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in an update on Telegram on Saturday morning.

Among the victims, a man was killed and seven others injured on Friday after Russian missiles hit Toretsk, a city in the Donetsk region. According to Mr. Kyrylenko, 34 houses, two day care centers, a medical clinic, a library, a cultural center and other buildings were damaged in the strikes.

Seven teenagers were hit by shrapnel after an antipersonnel mine exploded late Friday in the northeastern city of Izium, local governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram. He said they were all hospitalized, but their lives were not in danger.

Separately, regional Ukrainian officials reported Russian night bombardments of border settlements in the northern Sumy region, as well as the industrial town of Marhanets, neighboring the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Kyiv has long accused Moscow of using the plant, which Russian forces seized early in the war, as a base to launch attacks into Ukrainian territory across the Dnieper River.

Associated Press