Six months after the start of the conflict in Ukraine, Russia wants to increase the pressure on Westerners in terms of energy. The Russian giant Gazprom thus announced, on Monday, July 25, a sharp reduction in gas deliveries to Europe, via the Nord Stream gas pipeline. For its part, kyiv expects a resumption of grain exports “from this week”.
Moscow further reduces gas deliveries to Europe
Moscow announced on Monday a new drastic cut in gas supplies to Europe, reigniting the gas battle between Russia and the West. The Russian gas giant Gazprom will drastically reduce from Wednesday, to 33 million cubic meters daily, deliveries of Russian gas to Europe via the Nord Stream gas pipeline, arguing the need for maintenance of a turbine.
The German Ministry of Economics, however, claimed that there is no “no technical reason” to further reduce deliveries. According to Berlin, this is a “pretext” and a decision “Politics” to influence Westerners in the context of the conflict in Ukraine.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky considered that Russia was carrying out a “open gas war against united Europe” and called on her to “fight back” by increasing the penalties. Westerners accuse Moscow of using the energy weapon in retaliation for the sanctions adopted after the offensive against Ukraine.
kyiv wants to resume grain exports as soon as possible
Grain exports blocked in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24 are expected to resume “from this week”declared the Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandre Kubrakov, in the wake of an agreement concluded on July 22 in Istanbul between kyiv, Moscow and Turkey, under the aegis of the UN.
According to him, the main obstacle to the resumption of exports is the risk of Russian bombing, as illustrated by the strike that targeted the port of Odessa on the Black Sea, vital for this trade, on Saturday.
Russia said on Monday that its strikes on Odessa targeted military targets and did not hinder the resumption of grain exports. Moscow claimed to have destroyed in this port of southern Ukraine a warship and missiles supplied by the United States.
German guns expected on the ground
On the ground, the war knows no respite on the fronts of Mykolaiv, in the south of the country, in the Kharkiv region, in the northeast, the second largest city of Ukraine, in that of Kherson, in the south , and in the two pro-Russian breakaway territories of Donetsk and Lugansk in the east.
In Kherson, which the Russians captured on March 3, the situation “remain critical” with shortages of medicine, food and hygiene products, said Dmytro Boutry, head of the regional military administration, on Monday. He also assured that Ukrainian forces had regained control of 44 villages in the region and targeted three bridges to complicate Russian logistics.
In this context, Germany began delivering Gepard anti-aircraft guns to the Ukrainians on Monday. “We are expecting 15 Gepards. Three of them arrived in Ukraine today”Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiï Reznikov announced on Monday, quoted by the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office opens an investigation into Russian assets in France
The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that it had opened an investigation on July 1 for “organized laundering of corruption offences, embezzlement of public funds and aggravated tax evasion”. The investigation was entrusted to the Central Office for the Suppression of Serious Financial Crime.
Five months after the intensification of the war in Ukraine, this investigation follows the complaint filed last May by the association Transparency International France, concerning Russian assets in France.
The investigations aim to understand under what conditions certain Russian oligarchs were able to accumulate real estate worth several tens of millions of euros in France, between 2003 and 2018, on the Côte d’Azur, the Basque coast, the west of Paris or in ski resorts in the Alps. Businessmen, senior civil servants, billionaires are targeted by this investigation.