- Russia launched its “military operation” in Ukraine on Thursday, February 24, 2022. Every evening, 20 Minutes brings you a summary of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which is causing deaths, injuries and thousands of refugees.
- Who did what? Who says what? And who supports whom and why? You will learn everything about the progress of the negotiations and the events of this crisis that is shaking Russia, Ukraine, Europe and even the United States.
- This Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky realizes that Russia’s air superiority is blocking the counteroffensive and asks the West for weapons. A petition is circulating in Ukraine calling for more transparency from officials.
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
Volodymyr Zelenskyy recognizes it: the Ukrainian counteroffensive is faltering. According to him, it is due to Russia’s air superiority. “If we are not in the sky and Russia is, then they are keeping us out of the sky.” They are stopping our counteroffensive,” the Ukrainian president said during a conference in Kiev. He denounced “processes that are becoming increasingly complicated and slow when it comes to sanctions or the supply of Western weapons.” “The war is slowing down, we are aware of that,” he said.
The Ukrainian president reiterated that the Ukrainian army would also advance faster if the West delivered long-range munitions faster, making it possible to destroy Russian defenses, supply depots and logistics. “A certain weapon has a certain effect. “The stronger and more far-reaching it is, the faster the counteroffensive will be,” he stressed.
The number of the day
1. Such as the number of deaths after another bomb attack on Kryvy Rig, the birthplace of President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which an administrative building was targeted. According to the emergency services, 44 other people were injured, three of whom were in serious condition. According to the Ukrainian police, one police officer was killed and nine of his colleagues were among the injured. Three civilians were killed and four injured by a bomb dropped from an aircraft on Odradokamianka in the southern Kherson region, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko also said on Telegram.
Sentence of the day
He killed Prigozhin”
It’s a serious accusation, although not surprising. Ukrainian President accused Vladimir Putin of killing Yevgeny Prigoyine. “He killed Prigozhin, at least that’s information we all have, we don’t have any other information,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a conference in Kiev.
The leader of the Russian mercenary group Wagner died in a plane crash on a flight between Moscow and St. Petersburg in August, a few months after an attempted mutiny.
The trend of the day
Finally transparency about the salaries of civil servants in Ukraine? Amid corruption scandals that have seen powerful Defense Minister Oleksiï Reznikov oust from office and a former ally of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s prosecution, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have signed an online petition demanding transparency in officials’ asset declarations. “Hiding these statements from Ukrainians is currently tantamount to a cover-up of widespread corruption in the country,” said the text published on Wednesday.
It was published on the website of the Presidential Office for Citizens’ Initiatives and received more than 83,000 votes, far more than the 25,000 that Head of State Volodymyr Zelensky needed for an answer. Because of his veto power, he is asked to send a bill back to Parliament. This amendment, approved by MPs at second reading on Tuesday, aims to restore the obligation for civil servants to disclose their assets, but maintain secrecy for another year. “Citizens and journalists have been deprived of a tool to control the decisions of state bodies, which remains the main guarantee against corruption,” the petition says. According to a survey published at the end of July by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), 89% of Ukrainians consider corruption to be a serious problem.