Did you miss the latest events on the war in Ukraine? Do not panic, 20 minutes takes stock for you every evening at 7:30 p.m. Who did what ? Who said what? Where are we ? The answer below.
The fact of the day
449th day of war in Ukraine, and new communication war between kyiv and Moscow. This Thursday, Ukraine claimed to have shot down almost all of the Russian missiles that targeted Kiev and several regions overnight, Moscow congratulating itself on the contrary for having “destroyed” all its targets.
During this latest “night attack”, Ukrainian forces managed to destroy “33 air targets – 29 missiles and 4 drones!” said Air Force Commander Mykola Olechchuk of a total of 30 missiles fired by Russia, according to the military hierarchy. The civil and military administration in kyiv judged that the Russian attacks carried out since the beginning of May were “unprecedented in their power, their intensity and their variety”.
Conversely, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have “reached” and “destroyed” all the targets of its night strikes. He did not specify what objectives were targeted, confining himself to stressing that “significant stocks of Ukrainian armaments and ammunition” had been destroyed and that troop movements had been “stemmed”.
sentence of the day
He launched into a virulent attack on Emmanuel Macron, calling him a word beginning with a C (obvious allusion to “asshole”), saying “he’s a psycho, he’s the bootlicker of Putin ” and ”we have to take off the gloves, we have to go wild against the frogs”. »
These are the words of Guto Harri, former communications director for former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Guto Harri returned to this anecdote in a new episode of his podcast “Unprecedented” posted online Thursday. Still, a spokesman for Boris Johnson declined to comment on the comments that lends him his former adviser, stating that the former Prime Minister was not involved in this podcast.
The number of the day
3,000. This is, in euros, the amount of the fine required by the Russian Public Prosecutor’s Office against the opponent Evgueni Roïzman. The 60-year-old, who pleaded not guilty during his trial which began at the end of April and which risked up to five years in prison, is one of the last great detractors of the Kremlin still present and at large in Russia. He was on trial for “discrediting” the Russian army.
The trend of the day
On the diplomatic front, Chinese envoy Li Hui concluded a two-day visit to kyiv where he held talks on the “settlement” of the conflict. The Ukrainian presidency did not wish to confirm a meeting between the diplomat and Volodymyr Zelensky, but Beijing, in a press release, assured that the two men had seen each other well, without giving further details. Unsurprisingly, the trip of Mr. Li – the most senior Chinese official to visit Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion – has not led to any breakthrough. His tour of Europe should take him to Poland on Friday, then in the days that follow to Germany, France and Russia.
At the same time, and still on the diplomatic level, the UN Security Council met on Thursday to discuss the situation in Ukraine, on the eve of the start of the G7 summit in Hiroshima (Japan) where the strengthening of sanctions to further strangle the Russian economy will be on the menu. According to an official of the European Union, an organization that participates in the G7, the heads of state and government of the member countries of the G7 (United States, Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Canada) will also discuss sanctions against the Russian diamond trade. The invasion of Ukraine launched by Russia fifteen months ago will therefore indeed dominate the agenda, with “discussions on the state of the battlefield”, said US national security adviser Jake Sullivan. .
