War in Ukraine | Russian tanks at the gates of Kyiv, EU expects millions of refugees

(Kyiv) Moscow promised on Thursday the daily opening of humanitarian corridors to allow Ukrainians fleeing the fighting to reach Russia, even as its army continued its maneuver to encircle Kyiv.

Ukraine, where the population of cities besieged by Russian troops is forced to live in hiding because of the bombardments, is calling for the establishment of secure passages for the evacuation of civilians within its borders.

“We officially announce that humanitarian corridors for the Russian Federation will now be opened unilaterally, without coordination, every day from 10 a.m.”, while those going “in other directions will be negotiated with the Ukrainian side”, the Russian Defense Ministry said in the evening.

A decision made public shortly after the end of the first high-level direct talks between the belligerents since the start, on February 24, of the invasion of Ukraine.

But in the evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Russian military of a tank “attack” on a humanitarian corridor towards the surrounded city of Mariupol, calling it an act of “brazen terror, on the part of terrorists experienced”.

He also added that around 100,000 people had left other Ukrainian towns plagued by fighting in the past two days, including 40,000 people on Thursday alone, through humanitarian corridors.

On the ground, having previously reached the northern and western outskirts of Kyiv, Russian tanks arrived near its northeastern entrance on Thursday.

AFP journalists saw columns of smoke rising from the village of Skybyn, a few hundred meters from the last checkpoint of Ukrainian forces on the axis leading to the capital in this area.

At the end of the morning, a shower of Russian Grad rockets fell on the deserted town of Velyka Dymerka, about five kilometers from the limits of Kyiv, some of which landed about twenty meters from the AFP team.

According to the Ukrainian general staff, the Russian forces, while continuing their “offensive operation” to encircle the capital, are attacking on other fronts, in the east, the towns of Izium, Petrovske, Hrouchouvakha, Sumy and Okhtyrka or in the Donetsk and Zaparojie regions.

No ceasefire

For their part, the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers Sergei Lavrov and Dmytro Kuleba stuck to their guns during their discussions under the auspices of their Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Antalya, a seaside resort in southern Turkey popular with tourists. Russians.

“We have talked about a ceasefire, but no progress has been made in that direction,” Kuleba said.

The head of Ukrainian diplomacy revealed that Sergei Lavrov had assured him that Russia “will continue (its) aggression until we accept its request to capitulate”. But “Ukraine has not surrendered, is not surrendering and will not surrender,” he said.

The Russian minister, according to whom Russia does “not plan to attack other countries” and has “not attacked Ukraine”, spoke out for the continuation of dialogue with Ukraine, but above all via envoys of the two camps in Belarus, therefore at a lower level.

Three rounds of talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators have already taken place in this Moscow-allied state since the start of the invasion, resulting in several local ceasefires and the drip opening of humanitarian corridors for evacuate civilians from encircled towns.

But the Russians have repeatedly been accused of violating these agreements.

Ukraine and Russia are also “ready” to discuss to guarantee the security of Ukrainian nuclear sites, each day more compromised by the war, declared Thursday the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear policeman. This announcement comes as Kyiv “lost all communication” with the Chernobyl power plant, according to information received by the IAEA.

French and German leaders Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, in a telephone interview with Mr. Putin, “insisted that any solution to the crisis must pass through negotiations between Ukraine and Russia” and demanded “a ceasefire”. -immediate fire”.

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, criticized for his close ties to Russia, was in Moscow on Thursday for a “mediation effort” at the request of a Ukrainian official, according to the Politico news site citing “well-known sources”. informed”.

Bombings

For the time being, the Russian army is maintaining its siege of major cities and a bombing campaign, like the one that hit on Wednesday an establishment housing a children’s hospital and a maternity hospital in Mariupol, a strategic port on the sea. of Azov (southeast) besieged by Russian forces for ten days.

Three people, including a girl, perished there, announced in a new report Thursday the town hall, which reported the day before of 17 wounded.

Wednesday’s attack drew a wave of international condemnation, and the United States and its European allies were considering additional sanctions against Russia in response to what appeared to be “escalating” atrocities against Ukrainian civilians.

“The alleged airstrike is a total stage set-up for the purpose of provocation in order to maintain the anti-Russian agitation of the Western public,” retorted the Russian Ministry of Defense.

In total, since the beginning of the invasion, 71 children have been killed and more than 100 injured in Ukraine, said Thursday Liudmyla Denisova, responsible for human rights at the Ukrainian Parliament.

Half of the population of the Kyiv agglomeration fled in two weeks, announced its mayor, Vitali Klitschko, affirming that, now, “a little less than two million inhabitants” were there.

The pessimistic IMF

The damage caused by the war is currently estimated at 100 billion dollars by Ukraine.

Faced with this situation, the Americans and their allies are trying to help this country while avoiding the direct military involvement of NATO member states.

The United States, estimating on Thursday that Ukraine did not really need combat aircraft to counter Russian attacks, considered providing it with more surface-to-air defense systems.

In Turkey, Mr. Lavrov considered “dangerous” the supply of weapons by the West to the Ukrainians, denouncing in particular the sending of portable surface-to-air missiles.

Speaking at a two-day summit of the 27 in Versailles, near Paris, Emmanuel Macron judged that the European Union would “change faster and stronger under the impact of the war”, while , from Warsaw, the American vice-president Kamala Harris considered that NATO had become “stronger” and Russia “weaker”.

However, there is “no rapid procedure for joining the EU”, recalled Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, for whom the integration of Ukraine is a “long-term question”.

In the meantime, hosting millions of Ukrainian refugees is a “very, very big challenge”, but European Union member countries are showing “unprecedented” solidarity, noted Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson. .

After two weeks of conflict, Western sanctions continue to rain down on Russia, including the freezing in the United Kingdom of the assets of seven Russian oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, a decision which involves the suspension of the sale of the Chelsea football club .

Facebook for its part announced Thursday to make exceptions to its rules on violent and hateful content, by not deleting messages hostile to the army and Russian leaders.

To deal with the sanctions, Moscow banned the export of certain previously imported goods and equipment.

“All our obligations in terms of energy supplies” will be fulfilled, Vladimir Putin nevertheless promised.

The G7 states have for their part called on the gas and oil producing countries to “increase their deliveries” to cope with the rise in energy prices and the risk of shortages.

As a result of the war in Ukraine, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that it would lower its global growth forecasts, further warning that a Russian default was no longer “unlikely”.