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 says what? Where are we ? The answer below.
The fact of the day
For the first time since the start of the conflict, Ukraine has claimed responsibility for a drone strike from Russian territory as the counteroffensive to liberate the occupied territories is in full swing.
On the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, Ukrainian drones targeted the airport in Pskov, a Russian city near the border between Estonia, Latvia and Belarus, almost 700 kilometers from Ukraine. “The drones used to attack the Kresty air base in Pskov were launched from inside Russia,” the head of military intelligence Kyrylo Budanov assured on Telegram, again referring to an article from the publication The War Area, to which he gave an interview.
This is the first time that Kiev has admitted to operating on Russian territory, where, in addition to armed attacks, there have been not only several drone attacks, but also suspected acts of sabotage.
The number of the day
3,750. Like the number of schools destroyed since the beginning of the war “by Russian rockets and bombs,” according to Andriï Iermak, the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration. A message that appears this Friday, the start of the school year for almost four million Ukrainian schoolchildren. Police have also reported bomb threats at schools in Kiev and claimed to be inspecting the facilities without carrying out a general evacuation.
Underground shelters have been set up in some major cities to allow teachers to continue teaching in the event of air raid warnings of possible bombings. “Schoolchildren and teachers are forced to adapt to these realities,” Ukrainian Army Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny also said on Telegram.
quote of the Day
I understood why we won in the Great Patriotic War: it is impossible to defeat a people with such an attitude. We were absolutely invincible and still are today. »
These are the words of Vladimir Putin that he said this Friday at a meeting with teenagers at the start of the school year. Russia is portraying its offensive against its neighbor as an existential struggle, accusing Ukraine of power being in the hands of anti-Russian neo-Nazis who serve a West determined to destroy Russia. To this end, she has also revised history textbooks for graduate students. The Russian attack on Ukraine is portrayed as a consolidation of society in Russia and the heroic deeds of its soldiers are given an important place.
Today’s trend
Given that the counteroffensive was considered too slow, criticism mounted and Kiev fell into despair. For a month, American media have been quoting military officials in Washington requesting anonymity on the grounds that they are critical of Ukraine’s strategy.
They criticize Kiev for a degree of dispersion that would prevent its army from deploying enough forces in the right places to push back Russian troops. “Recently, a new narrative has taken hold, particularly among Pentagon officials, that the offensive is actually proving to be a real disappointment,” Lawrence Freedman of King’s College London wrote in late August. “There are questions about whether Ukraine can ever win.” On Thursday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba bristled. “Criticizing the slowness of the counteroffensive is tantamount to a slap in the face to the Ukrainian soldier who is sacrificing his life,” he said on the sidelines of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Spain.