The Pentagon is now counting on a “prolonged” conflict
The refocusing of Russia’s war effort on Donbass in eastern Ukraine portends a “protracted” conflict that could last for months, a senior Pentagon official warned Thursday.
Russian forces left Chernobyl on Thursday and “abandoned” their positions near kyiv. “What we continue to believe is that these forces will be re-equipped and sent back to Ukraine […] to continue the fight in accordance with what we believe to be their objective, that is to say, globally, the east “of the country, in particular the separatist regions of Lugansk and Donetsk, this official told the press who requested the ‘anonymity.
“But just because they’re prioritizing it, building up their squad and putting more energy into it doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy for them. »
Berlin and Paris are “preparing” for a stop in gas deliveries
Germany and France are “preparing” for a possible stoppage of Russian gas imports, the governments of the two countries said on Thursday, which also reiterated their opposition to any payment in rubles for deliveries.
Contrary to the statements of his spokesman the day before, Vladimir Putin demanded on Thursday that international payments be settled in Russian currency, otherwise he will put a brake on gas exports “tomorrow”.
“There may be a situation in which tomorrow […] there will be no more Russian gas” and “it is up to us to prepare these scenarios and we are preparing them”, declared in Berlin the French Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, during a conference release with his German counterpart Robert Habeck.
Washington draws on its reserves
Joe Biden has ordered his government to tap into America’s strategic oil reserves to ease the strained market, an unprecedented move. One million barrels will thus be distributed every day for six months.
The prospect of this record spill of American black gold was already lowering oil prices on Thursday, in London and New York.
Buried in huge salt caverns along the Gulf Coast of Mexico, these reserves currently hold 568 million barrels.
Still with the idea of strengthening American energy independence, the President said he was invoking the Defense Production Act – a text inherited from the Cold War which allows it to take economic decisions by decree – to encourage the development of green energies.
A cereal harvest halved
The Russian invasion risks halving the cereal harvest in Ukraine, crucial for the supply of several countries of the world, the Ukrainian Minister of Agriculture warned Thursday. If Ukraine harvested 106 million tonnes of cereals last year, an absolute record, this year the figure will be “25% to 50%” lower, predicts Minister Mykola Solsky. “And again, that’s an optimistic prognosis. »
Because the Russian invasion has turned its agricultural industry upside down when the country was the world’s fourth largest exporter of corn, and on the way to becoming the third largest exporter of wheat. Part of the regions, especially in the south, are in the grip of hostilities and inaccessible. Another problem: many farmers have “joined the army or territorial defence”, creating a labor shortage.
In the field
At 36and day of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the bombardments continued in particular in Kharkiv, in the north of the country, and in Mariupol, in the south. Russian forces continue to hold their positions east and west of kyiv “despite the withdrawal of a limited number of troops”, said the British Ministry of Defense on Twitter.
They “maintain their positions” and continue to defend themselves against Ukrainian counter-attacks described as “limited” by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Numerous bombings took place during the first part of the night in Kharkiv, a large city located near the Russian border. The Russians “are not aiming at any military objective, [jeudi] evening it was only artillery bombardments of all kinds on residential areas, “commented a source within the 92and brigade, one of the units defending the city.
The Russian army again bombed the Donetsk region in the Donbass at night, sometimes with phosphorus bombs, denounced the head of the military administration of the sector, Pavel Kyrylenko. Two children died following strikes in the neighboring region of Lugansk, according to the emergency services.
Russia is “trying to regroup [ses forces] and to strengthen its offensive on the Donbass region and, at the same time, it maintains the pressure on kyiv and other cities,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg summed up for his part on Thursday.
With Agence France-Presse