Did you miss the latest events on the war in Ukraine? Don’t 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:
news of the day
Another mass grave about to be discovered? This Monday evening, Ukraine says it is investigating an alleged new site near the small town of Kozacha Lopan, in the northeast of the country, just two kilometers from the border. The number of corpses buried in this industrial chicken farm abandoned, strewn with debris, and with signs of fighting present all around, is not precisely known yet. But the soldiers and investigators evoke 90 to 100 bodies, without giving details, indicates AFP.
Teams of deminers arrived on the site. Forensic pathologists are to follow this week. If confirmed, the find would come just a week after one made in a forest near Izium, where Ukrainians uncovered hundreds of graves after Russian forces left. A total of 447 bodies were exhumed there, almost all of them civilians. According to the governor of the Kharkiv region, the majority of these corpses showed signs of violent death and 30 showed “signs of torture”.
The number of the day
In a report drawn up on Monday, the Finnish border guards say they have counted 17,000 entries of Russians to Finland this weekend, making it the busiest of the year. In detail, on Saturday, 8,572 Russians entered Finland via the land border – for 4,199 exits to Russia, and 8,314 on Sunday – for 5,068 exits, according to statistics published on Monday. For Mert Sasioglu, a border authority official, “the level is about double what it was a week ago”, before the mobilization order announced on Wednesday by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It’s not just Finland. To avoid the mobilization, announced on September 21, many Russians seem to have chosen to flee the country, given the increased crowds at the borders with Georgia, Kazakhstan, or Mongolia. Air links were also taken by storm.
The influx has fueled fears that Russia will ban men of military age from leaving the country. The Kremlin spokesman said on Monday that the authorities had “not taken a decision” at this stage on this subject.
sentence of the day
The era of nuclear blackmail must end”
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General, pleaded on Monday for the “elimination” of all nuclear weapons after threats from Russia about their possible use in Ukraine. “The Cold War had brought humanity within minutes of annihilation. Today, decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we hear the nuclear intimidation again,” he laments. “The idea that a country can wage and win a nuclear war is insane”, he continued, believing that “without the elimination of nuclear weapons there can be no peace” or “trust”.
The head of the UN also once again regretted the failure of the review conference ofu treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT). At the end of four weeks of negotiations by the 191 signatory countries, Russia had blocked the adoption of the joint declaration at the end of August, in particular because of paragraphs concerning the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporijjia, occupied by the Russian military.
The trend of the day
Are we moving towards historic resolutions at the UN against Russia and China? Western countries and their allies had been reluctant for several months to take on these heavyweights on the world stage, but are about to take the plunge, fearing that they will not be able to build an alliance strong enough to have the texts approved at the majority of the 47 member states of the Council. But they are about to take the plunge, with Russia and China for the first time being targeted by draft resolutions before the UN Human Rights Council.
Last week, the member countries of the European Union except Hungary presented a first text to request a Special Rapporteur on Russia for a period of one year, an initiative described by Moscow as “politically biased”. This initiative comes in a context of concern over the intensification of repression in Russia, while the war rages in Ukraine.
And this Monday, it was the United States – supported by the United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway – which launched a second text to ask the Council to discuss the situation at Xinjiang, in northwest Chinawhere Beijing is accused of committing crimes against humanity in against the Uyghurs principally.
