Ukraine claims to be in the process of repelling Russian forces from the Kharkiv region (northeast), the second largest city in Ukraine subjected since the end of February to a deluge of fire. For their part, the pro-Russians of the Kherson region plan to demand annexation to Vladimir Putin.
Franceinfo summarizes what to remember from the day of Wednesday May 11.
The Kharkiv region soon to be resumed?
“The occupiers are gradually being pushed back from Kharkiv”President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video on Tuesday evening. “I am grateful to all of our fighters who hold their ground and show superhuman strength to drive out the invading army.”
The second city of Ukraine, about thirty kilometers from the Russian border, had been shelled since the end of February. “The localities of Cherkasy Tychky, Rusky Tychky, Rubizhne and Bayrak have been liberated” in the region of this big city, said the Ukrainian general staff on Facebook.
“Thus, the enemy was pushed even further from Kharkiv, and the occupiers had even fewer opportunities to hit the regional center”. But “the intensity of shelling in the Kharkiv district has increased”he also noted.
Drop in gas deliveries
Deliveries of Russian gas to Germany transiting through Ukraine were also down on Wednesday, by 25%, for the first time since the start of the conflict. “Due to the reduction in transit, the volumes of gas transported to Germany via Ukraine (through the Megal pipeline) have decreased by 25% compared” to Tuesday, said the German government agency responsible for energy. However, she assured that this drop was offset by larger flows from Norway and the Netherlands in particular.
Pro-Russians in Kherson call for annexation
The authorities installed by Moscow in the Ukrainian region of Kherson intend to ask Vladimir Putin for an official annexation by Russia, announced a pro-Russian regional official.
The Kherson region, located just north of the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, is essential for supplying it with water. It was conquered by the Russian army during the offensive launched by Moscow in February. Its conquest also makes it possible to constitute a land bridge linking Crimea, the pro-Russian separatist region of Donetsk, and Russian territory.
Serpents’ Island the scene of battles
Fighting continues on Serpents’ Island, a strategic point in the Black Sea which the Russians took control of at the start of the war, and where they are trying to reinforce their forces exposed to Ukrainian strikes, according to the British Ministry of Defence. If Russia succeeds in consolidating its positions on the island, “it could dominate the northwestern part of the Black Sea”adds the same source.
One dead and three injured in Russia
One person has been killed and three others injured in southwestern Russia after shelling from Ukraine, the Russian governor of the affected region has announced. He clarified that the situation was “The hardest” his region has experienced since Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine on 24 February.
This official accused Ukraine of having targeted the village of Solokhi, specifying that a house had been partly destroyed. In April, he accused Ukrainian helicopters of attacking a fuel depot in Belgorod.
More than eight million displaced
More than eight million people were internally displaced in Ukraine as of May 3, more than two months after Russia invaded the country, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday. .
In total, the IOM estimates that 13.686 million people were forced to flee their places of residence because of the attack ordered by Vladimir Putin on 24 February, of whom 8.029 million moved to other places in Ukraine, the rest having fled the country.