As the first shipment of Ukrainian grain continues on its way to Lebanon, after being inspected near Istanbul (Turkey), the energy crisis is also at the center of Western concerns. Fighting also continues on the ground. kyiv and Moscow seek in particular to destroy the stocks of ammunition of the enemy, in order to try to take the advantage in the war of artillery.
Towards a UN investigation into Olenivka prison
The UN Secretary General will launch a fact-finding mission to shed light on the explosions that echoed in Olenivka prison last week. Antonio Guterres has announced that he will follow up on the “requests of the Russian Federation and Ukraine”during a press conference, specifying however that he did not have the authority to conduct “criminal investigations”.
The bombardment of the penitentiary had left dozens dead, in a pro-Russian separatist zone in eastern Ukraine and where Ukrainian soldiers taken prisoner in Mariupol were detained. Moscow accuses kyiv of having bombarded this prison camp, which the Ukrainian authorities refute, who affirm on the contrary that these prisoners were massacred by Russian forces.
Nord Stream turbine: Gazprom calls into question the sanctions against Russia
The return to Russia of a Siemens turbine is “impossible” because of the sanctions against Moscow, said the Russian gas giant Gazprom. “The sanctions regimes in Canada, the European Union and the United Kingdom, as well as the inconsistencies of the current situation regarding Siemens’ contractual obligations, make delivery impossible”said the group in a short message (in Russian).
These statements are likely to heighten the concern of European countries, which suspect Moscow of seeking a pretext to delay the return of this turbine and further reduce its gas deliveries, in the context of tensions around Ukraine. Visiting Siemens Energy, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said nothing was blocked, and that Moscow should simply “provide the necessary customs information for its transport to Russia”.
Russia claims to have hit a foreign weapons depot
Russia claimed to have destroyed a foreign arms depot in the Lviv region of western Ukraine, a region bordering Poland rarely hit by strikes from Moscow. “Russian high-precision missiles” destroyed, near Radekhiv, a “depot of foreign arms and ammunition which were delivered to the kyiv regime from Poland”, the Russian military said in a statement. The army did not give more elements to prove its assertions, and there is no independent source to verify them.