A map published Tuesday, October 4 by the Russian Ministry of Defense shows a retreat of Russian forces in the region of Kherson (southern Ukraine). After two weeks, 200,000 Russians have been mobilized into the army, Sergei Shoigu, Russian Defense Minister, reported. Franceinfo takes stock of the day’s news on the frontline of the war in Ukraine.
Washington to send Ukraine $625 million in additional military aid
Joe Biden announced in a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday a new US shipment of military equipment, worth a total of $625 million, according to a White House statement.
This shipment will include in particular new Himars for the Ukrainian army. These highly accurate and powerful rocket launcher systems have played an important role in recent Ukrainian military advances.
Russian forces retreated about 30 km in the Kherson region
A military map shown on Tuesday (October 4th) by the Russian Defense Ministry during its daily briefing shows a significant retreat of Russian forces in the northern Kherson region of southern Ukraine.
It shows that the Russian army has left a large number of localities, including Dudtchany, on the western bank of the Dnipro river, while the Ukrainian army is leading a counter-offensive in this region and is continuing its advance. after liberating the town of Lyman, in the Donetsk region.
200,000 people mobilized in the Russian army, according to the Kremlin
Two weeks after the announcement of a partial mobilization, on September 21, by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, 200,000 people have been mobilized into the army, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced on Tuesday. Officially, the mobilization should make it possible to recruit 300,000 reservists with military experience or useful skills, while the Russian army is in difficulty on the Ukrainian front.
“The training of the personnel of the (new) formed units is carried out on 80 military fields and in six training centers”, specified Sergeï Choïgou, during a governmental meeting, while ensuring that these recruits will be sent to the front with other units having already fought in Ukraine. According to him, “an important number” of people presented themselves voluntarily in military police stations of the country, before having received an official order of mobilization. However, he did not give their number.
Human rights violations further exacerbated by annexations, says UN
The annexation of Ukrainian territories by Russia will only exacerbate the human rights violations committed by Moscow, and add to the “unspeakable suffering and devastation” inflicted on Ukrainians, the UN denounced on Tuesday. Christian Salazar Volkmann, who was presenting a report on the human rights situation in Ukraine to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, pointed out that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had evidence of ‘“a series of violations of the rights to life, liberty and security”.
The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian armed forces “resulted in a disastrous human rights situation throughout Ukraine”noted the head of the High Commission’s field operations.
the Russian Federation Council approved the annexation of four Ukrainian territories
The Council of the Russian Federation, the equivalent of the Senate, unanimously approved, during Tuesday’s plenary session, the laws on ratification of the four annexation treaties of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia, in eastern Ukraine, after the referendums.
North Korea supports Russian annexation of Ukrainian territories
North Korean Foreign Minister Jo Chol Su defended these referendums as perfectly legitimate and “organized in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations establishing the principles of equality of peoples”according to North Korea’s official KCNA news agency.
The United States and other Western countries have called the referendums a sham referendum held at gunpoint and vowed never to recognize annexation.