08:44
What about the new American sanctions?
Joe Biden announced further aid for Ukraine and new sanctions against Russia on Monday in Kiev. According to the Wall Street Journal, the United States will blacklist about 200 Russians and Russian companies. Among them: several Russian governors and family members of high-ranking Russian officials, as well as companies associated with Russia’s defense industry.
08:33
Four radio stations are broadcasting an air alert in Russia
Warnings of impending airstrikes were broadcast by four Russian radio stations – Relax FM, Avtoradio, Humor FM and Comedy Radio – and broadcast and heard in several cities including Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan (each with a population of 1.2 million), as well as Belgorod. “Attention, an air raid warning has been given. Strike threat from any cover immediately,” read the message.
The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations assures that the servers of the radio stations have been hacked. “This information is wrong. We kindly ask you to follow news from official sources,” the ministry said on Telegram.
08:20
70,000 residents would have returned to Mariupol
According to reports, 50,000 to 70,000 residents have returned to Mariupol in the past six months, says Russian official Dmitry Berdnikov. The former mayor of Irkutsk in Siberia was appointed head of the occupied city’s Russian administration in the autumn. “The census hasn’t been documented, but we’re looking at indirect signs: how many kids are enrolling in school, how long is the nursery line-up. We see today: around 50-70,000 people are already coming back. It’s incredible, the city comes alive,” he told RIA Novosti.
According to him, six months ago the population of Mariupol was 210 thousand people. When the city fell into Russian hands, it was estimated that close to 100,000 residents were unable to flee.
A set of new buildings pictured in Mariupol a week ago. Portal/Alexander Ermoshenko
08:17
Air sirens are sounding in Kiev, says a British journalist
08:10
Ukrainian drones attack in Mariupol
Russian authorities in the city of Mariupol, where 11 blasts were heard overnight, say they are echoes of Russian air defenses. Two drones were destroyed, they claim.
For their part, Ukrainian forces claim to have destroyed a Russian ammunition depot.
08:00
US ‘has plunged the world into a state of conflict’
“By defaulting on its commitments and rejecting our country’s proposals on global security issues, the United States has destroyed the architecture of international stability. They have plunged the world into a state of conflict and challenge,” Duma spokesman Vyacheslav Volodin told Telegram. The Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, is due later today to consider Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend the application of the New START treaty on mutual control over nuclear weapons.
07:50
Strikes on Kherson: the toll worsens
Shells fired by Russian forces in Kherson yesterday hit residential buildings, a shop and a bus station. Five people died and sixteen were injured.
07:40
A Russian frigate in South Africa for military exercises
Admiral Gorshkov left Russia on January 4 and arrived in the South African port city of Richards Bay for military exercises with South Africa and China. According to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, the frigate carries Zircon missiles, which travel faster than sound and have a range of 900 km.
The South African government has called these exercises routine.
07:30
Putin, a year full of setbacks and mistakes
A year ago, Russia launched its offensive. The lord of the Kremlin thought he would conquer the country and take Kiev in seventy-two hours. Twelve months later, Ukrainians are still resisting. Putin and Biden clashed this Tuesday through intermittent speeches. Verbal escalation before an escalation at all? Our analysis.
07:23
Eleven explosions sound in Mariupol
The city hall of Mariupol, a Russian-held city, and residents reported hearing 11 blasts in the center and northeast of the city, the first at 10:33 p.m. last night. “There is preliminary information about two safe detonations – in area AS-2 (central district) and Stan-3000 (Kalmius district). Probably in places where enemy forces are concentrated.” After these explosions, there were problems with lighting and communications.
07:10
In Bakhmout and Lyman “Battles of Principles”
In his daily address last night, President Zelenskyy recalled the difficulties faced by the Ukrainian armed forces in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. “We are doing our best to repel enemy attacks there, intense and constant attacks that Russia does not stop, even if it suffers huge losses there,” he said. In Bakhmout and Lyman, “there are bitter struggles going on, struggles over principles,” he said. In Avdiivka, another Donbas hotspot, “the intruders used the full range of weapons against our men, including CS gas grenades,” cluster gas grenades commonly used by law enforcement at events.
07:00
Xi Jinping soon in Moscow to promote a Chinese peace plan?
As part of the dialogue it is urging, China will soon release details of a plan to pacify Ukraine. According to The Wall Street Journal, Chinese President Xi Jinping could visit Moscow in the coming months to promote multi-party peace talks. The possible visit has been discussed for months, with Putin telling Xi in a video call in December that he looks forward to welcoming the Chinese leader to Russia in the spring.
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin during their video interview on December 30. Via Portal/Sputnik/Mikhail Kuravlev
Xi has not spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy since the invasion began, although he has spoken to Putin four times in one year.
06:50
Zelenskyi does not mention Putin’s speech
In his particularly lengthy daily address last night, President Zelenskyi made no mention of Vladimir Putin’s speech. For almost two hours on Tuesday morning, the Russian President presented his goals for the coming year and developed his rhetoric about the West’s destruction of Russia in front of the solemnly assembled Russian parliamentarians. Zelenskyy alluded to this only briefly and at the end scoffed at “the confusing complaints from Moscow”, which were “further proof of our efficiency”.
06:41
Sino-Russian relations ‘rock solid’
China-Russia relations are “rock solid and will withstand the tests of the changing international situation,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi assured at a meeting with Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev in Moscow. Wang will meet his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov today.
Wang Yi meets Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday. Portal/Bernadett Szabo
06:34
Moscow reportedly fired an ICBM during Biden’s visit to Kiev
CNN quotes two US officials as saying Russia tested an intercontinental ballistic missile while US President Joe Biden was in Ukraine Monday morning. In the same way that Washington informed Moscow about this visit, Moscow would have informed Washington about his trial through the Deconfliction wires. That explains why one of the officials asserts that the United States is not afraid of an escalation.
However, according to the American broadcaster, the test could have failed, otherwise Vladimir Putin would have mentioned it in his State of the Union address yesterday morning.
A Sarmat rocket was launched on April 20 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region. About Portal
06:30
Russia protests against UN resolution
Russia urged UN members to vote against an “unbalanced and anti-Russian” resolution tabled by Kyiv and other countries at the General Assembly.
“There is no talk of dialogue or negotiations,” writes the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vassili Nebenzia, in a letter to the member states of the UN, which Portal was able to consult. “If the text remains unbalanced and anti-Russian, as it is now, we ask member states to vote against it. »
06:26
Wagner’s bossR accuses the Russian General Staff of “treason”.
The head of Russia’s paramilitary group Wagner on Tuesday accused his country’s general staff of “treason” for refusing to provide equipment to his mercenaries on the front lines in eastern Ukraine. While businessman Yevgeny Prigoyine has repeatedly criticized the Russian high command in the past, this time he targeted Chief of Staff Valery Guerassimov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, two of President Vladimir Putin’s most important power figures.
Portal/Igor Russak.
Russia’s Defense Ministry responded in the evening with a statement detailing the number of munitions supplied for “volunteer assault squadrons,” as the military seem to call Wagner’s men.
These tensions also illustrate the difficulties encountered by Russian forces three days before the anniversary of the start of the offensive against Ukraine, which was soon to end with the capture of Kiev and is now deadlocked.
On Tuesday, Yevgeny Prigoyine accused the high command of even forbidding Wagner’s fighters to supply “shovels for digging trenches.”
06:20
Thousands of displaced children in Russia, the specter of a crime against humanity
At least 16,000 Ukrainian children presented as war orphans or held in pseudo summer camps are currently being “deported” to Russia, according to authorities in Kiev. Only 307 have been able to return so far. Our on-site report.
06:15
NATO ‘united’, Putin ‘autocratic’…which should be remembered from Biden’s response to the Kremlin
Just hours after his Russian counterpart’s overwhelming speech justifying the invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden took the floor to reiterate support from Poland for many Western forces in Kiev. We take stock.
06:08
Paris monitors the “activities” of Chinese companies
“There are private Chinese companies whose activities we are closely monitoring,” said Catherine Colonna, when asked by the public broadcaster France 5 about a possible strategic partnership between China and Russia, the foreign minister replied that they “are not necessarily on the ground “ be. The minister also assured that France had expressed to Beijing “completely diplomatically and very clearly” its desire that China “not shake hands with Russia” and stressed that it prefers “to maintain China’s commitment to stability, from which it benefits in the long term”.
Westerners should see more clarity about China’s position in New York, she said at the UN Security Council meeting on February 24, a date that will mark the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
06:00
Hello everyone !
Welcome to this Direct Edition dedicated to the war in Ukraine and its aftermath on the 364th day of the Russian invasion.