Canada summons Russian ambassador to Ottawa
Canada sent a summons to the Russian ambassador in Ottawa on Wednesday to show him the “shocking” images of murders committed in Boutcha, Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said she had “charged [son] deputy minister to summon the Russian ambassador to Ottawa to ensure that he is shown the images of what happened in Boutcha”.
Several Western countries have expelled hundreds of Russian diplomats in recent days because of this massacre, but not Canada. “I’m just not sure that the symbolic gesture of excluding Russian diplomats […] worth losing our diplomats in Moscow,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Towards years of war?
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not given up on his goal of “controlling all of Ukraine”, and the war is likely to last “for months or even years”, the secretary general of the NATO, Jens Stoltenberg.
“We have to be realistic. War can last a long time, several months or even years. And that is why we must also be prepared for a long journey, both in terms of supporting Ukraine, maintaining sanctions and strengthening our defenses,” he said. before the start of a meeting of Atlantic Alliance foreign ministers.
These remarks were repeated by the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, during an intervention in front of the press.
The war is concentrated in the east
kyiv on Wednesday called on residents of the east of the country to evacuate the region “now”, in the face of the threat of a major offensive by the Russian army on the Donbass.
Shells and rockets fell on Wednesday at regular intervals on Sievierodonetsk, the easternmost city held by the Ukrainian army.
In Vougledar, 50 km southwest of Donetsk, four civilians were killed and four injured in the shelling of an aid distribution center, according to the governor of the region. The nearby town of Ocheretyn was also hit by gunfire, which resulted in one victim.
Ukrainian logistics are still targeted, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, which said on Wednesday that five fuel depots had been destroyed overnight by missiles.
Death of a Russian ultranationalist
Ultra-nationalist and veteran Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky has died aged 75. The leader of the LDPR party had been in agony by several Russian media for weeks after he contracted COVID-19.
His anti-Western ideas, which seemed extreme in the 1990s, gradually imposed themselves as dominant in public life, including in the Kremlin. His last feat dates back to December 22, when he predicted that 2022 “would not be a peaceful year, it will be the year when Russia will become a power again”, calling to “wait until February 22”.
For the team of the most famous opponent of the Putin regime, Alexei Navalny, Zhirinovsky’s party served as a front opposition to Russian power. “Zhirinovsky was one of the pillars of the Putin system,” Lyubov Sobol, an ally in exile of Navalny, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. According to her, the Kremlin will try to keep the LDPR party, but, without Zhirinovsky, “it will not be easy”.
With Agence France-Presse