France offers its services. She said she was ready on Friday, June 10, to help lift the blockade of the Ukrainian port of Odessa, in order to unblock the cereals at the origin of a world food crisis, while deadly fighting continued in the south and eastern Ukraine.
Franceinfo takes stock of this new day of war.
France offers to help unblock Odessa
“We are at the disposal of the parties so that, basically, an operation is put in place which would allow access to the port of Odessa in complete safety, that is to say to be able to allow boats to pass despite the fact that the sea is mined”, said an adviser to President Emmanuel Macron. These statements come as the French president received Senegalese President Macky Sall, current chairman of the African Union, on Friday. The latter had called on Thursday for the demining of the port of Odessa, and indicated that he had received assurances from Vladimir Putin that the Russians would not take advantage of it to attack, as the Ukrainians fear.
The Russian invasion launched on February 24 paralyzed cereal exports from Ukraine – a major player in this sector – and caused a spike in cereal and fertilizer prices, threatening a food crisis in many countries, especially in Africa and the Middle East. orientals. The French president is due to travel to Romania and Moldova on Tuesday and Wednesday, pending a visit to Ukraine, the date of which has not yet been set, according to the Elysee.
Ukrainian bombardment of Kherson
On the ground, Ukrainian forces said on Friday that they had bombed Russian positions in the occupied region of Kherson (south), of which they fear an upcoming annexation by Russia. For several days, the Ukrainians have reported fighting in this region, almost all of which has been occupied by Russian troops since the first days of the Russian invasion launched on February 24.
The local authorities put in place by Moscow are loudly calling for annexation. One of the Russian negotiators in the conflict mentioned on June 1 the forthcoming organization of a referendum in the occupied territories on this question, which could take place in July. A project qualified as“illegal” by kyiv, and which recalls the referendum that Russia organized in Crimea in 2014, before annexing the peninsula in the process.
The fighting is also intense in the region of Mykolaiv, close to Odessa. “The Russians are targeting us with heavy artillery, whether in town or in the villages”Vitali Kim, the governor of this region, told AFP, while welcoming that the Russians have retreated in recent days. “They won’t come back, we won’t let them come back”he assured.
The Battle of Sievierodonetsk continues
In the Donbass, the battle for the key city of Sievierodonetsk and its twin Lyssytchansk continues, increasingly deadly. “Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, and other towns in Donbass, which the occupiers now see as their targets, are holding their own”President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address Thursday evening.
But the fighting continues in the city and the shelling is constant, said Friday Serguiï Gaïdaï, governor of the region. He pointed out in particular that the Palace of Mirrors, one of the symbols of the city, had been destroyed in a fire resulting from a Russian bombardment. After claiming three days ago that Moscow had set itself the goal of taking the city by June 10, he was glad they hadn’t “not completed”on Telegram.
Taking Severodonetsk would open up Moscow’s route to another major Donbass city, Kramatorsk, an important step in conquering the entire Donbass basin, a predominantly Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine partly held by pro-Russian separatists since 2014.
The death sentence of three foreign fighters denounced by the Europeans and the UN
Thursday, the authorities of the “Republic” pro-Russian separatist in Donetsk, the death sentence for mercenary action of two Britons and a Moroccan who fought on the Ukrainian side – Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner and Brahim Saadoun. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said to himself “dismayed” by this conviction, Downing Street said on Friday, saying it was working with kyiv for their release. “Clearly they were serving in the Ukrainian armed forces and are prisoners of war” not mercenaries, Johnson’s spokesman said.
Berlin also called “shocking” this condemnation, while the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern. “Since 2015, we have observed that the so-called judicial system of these self-declared republics does not meet the essential guarantees of a fair trial”said a spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, from Geneva.