Perilous negotiations
The difficult negotiations for a ceasefire in Ukraine continued on Friday between Russia and Ukraine, with limited results. During the day, the head of the Russian delegation to the talks with kyiv, Vladimir Medinsky, reported a “rapproximation” of positions on the question of a neutral status for Ukraine and progress on that of demilitarization. from the country.
“The subject of Ukraine’s neutrality status and its non-membership of NATO is one of the key points of the negotiations, it is the point on which the parties have brought their positions as close as possible”, said said Vladimir Medinsky, quoted by Russian agencies.
However, the adviser to the Ukrainian presidency Mikhaïlo Podoliak for his part declared on Twitter that the declarations of Russia only represent “requests to leave” from the Kremlin, a sign that the negotiations are in fact stagnating.
Ukraine’s positions remain “unchanged” and concern a “ceasefire”, a withdrawal of Russian soldiers from the country and “security guarantees” for the country, the adviser wrote on the 23rd day. of this deadly conflict.
Attacks all over the country
The UK’s Ministry of Defense released an update on the progress of the war in Ukraine on Friday in the form of a map that shows continued shelling across the country. Russian attacks affect in particular several municipalities in the suburbs of kyiv, but also in the sector of Odessa and Mykolaiv, in the south of the country, as well as the city of Sumy in the east, in particular.
The Ukrainian army also reported six missiles fired near Lviv airport in western Ukraine on Friday morning. Two of them were reportedly intercepted by air defense systems.
In fact, 109 empty strollers were left side by side in Lviv’s market square, near the Polish border, on Friday to illustrate the number of children allegedly killed in Russian attacks. since the beginning of this conflict, according to the Ukrainian parliament. Cautious data from the UN, for their part, show that at least 59 children have died since the start of this conflict, which has claimed the lives of at least 816 civilians since February 24.
To better understand the war in Ukraine
A patriotic rally in Russia
More than 95,000 spectators gathered at Moscow’s Olympic Stadium on Friday to mark eight years since the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, according to a police count that another 100,000 people were also gathered outside the stadium. Stadium.
Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a speech there celebrating the “return” of Crimea to Russia in 2014 and saluting the heroism, according to him, of the Russian soldiers currently engaged in Ukraine.
“For a world without Nazism”, “For Russia”, displayed banners deployed in the stadium, while Russia justifies its military offensive in Ukraine by the need to “denazify” the country, which the Kremlin accuses of implementing a genocide of the Russian-speaking populations.
Joe Biden threatens China
US President Joe Biden on Friday issued a warning to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, who has maintained a neutral position in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine until now, threatening him with “consequences” if China provides “material support to Russia”, which is carrying out “a brutal attack on Ukrainian cities and civilians”. The White House, which briefly summarized this videoconference meeting between the two leaders on Friday in a press release, did not, however, detail what form these reprisals could take, in concrete terms.
The US Department of Commerce has also blacklisted around 100 Russian planes, including that of oligarch Roman Abramovich, which was also sanctioned by Canada last week. Boeings from Aeroflot, the largest Russian airline, are also in the sights of the United States. These planes would have violated a ban put in place by the White House on allowing planes built partially or totally in the United States to enter Russia,
By preventing these aircraft from accessing adequate refueling and maintenance services, including overseas, international flights on these planes from Russia could result in their grounding, the ministry said.
With Agence France-Presse