Catherine Colonna’s visit to Odessa
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna is visiting Odessa today. Arriving a little later than expected due to bombing, she was to be met on the spot by her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba. While Germany and the United States on Tuesday announced the dispatch of heavy tanks to Kyiv, this trip, the fourth by the chief of French diplomacy to Ukraine, is intended to show support for France amid fears of a new Russian offensive. “The very clear goal for Russia is to get in position from the spring, activate the steamroller and play the clout of numbers to break the Ukrainian resistance,” we say, following Ms. Colonna.
The French minister should go to a center for displaced Ukrainians from the Kherson region. A website supported by the Quai d’Orsay Crisis Center and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded by France. She will visit electrical infrastructure destroyed by Russian bombing on January 14th.
The minister also has to stroll through the old town of Odessa, which was added to the list of World Heritage in Danger by Unesco the day before. Finally, she will visit the premises of shipowners CMA CGM and Louis Dreyfus in the port of Odessa, two French groups involved in the export of Ukrainian grain under the agreement negotiated this summer under the aegis of the United Nations.
Nearly a year after the Russian invasion erupted, Paris considers Odessa, on the Black Sea coast, a strategic city: “If Russia’s goal is really to deprive Ukraine of all access to the sea, it will one day have to go to Odessa , knowing moreover that this is the gateway to an even greater destabilization of Moldova, Romania and European territory in his force. »
The French minister was then to set off on the Chisinau road to meet Moldovan President Maia Sandu. She will travel to Romania on Friday to meet Head of State Klaus Iohannis, among others, and to visit French troops stationed in the country alongside her Romanian and Dutch counterparts.
Philip Ricard