Emmanuel Macron will visit China from April 5 to 8, the Elysée announced on Friday.
Friday March 24 was marked by fresh strikes in eastern Ukraine and announcements from the west. Two days after the end of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s official visit to Moscow, Joe Biden assured that Beijing “did not supply arms to Russia” at that time. Franceinfo takes stock of this new day of conflict.
New bloody offensives in the Bakhmout region
Three people were killed in a Russian attack on the town of Kostyantynivka, about twenty kilometers west of Bakhmout in eastern Ukraine. A fourth died in another attack in the village of Bilozerka in the south of the country, according to an official report.
“The bodies of three women were pulled from the rubble of a damaged building in the city,” the State Emergency Situations Service said in a telegram. Houses, power lines and gas lines were damaged by this bombardment, the Attorney General’s Office also specified.
Emmanuel Macron in China in early April
The French President will pay a state visit to China on April 5-8. Aim: to “work” with Xi Jinping “toward a return to peace” in Ukraine, “and to do so in compliance with international law,” announced the Elysée. He will be accompanied by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
China has not supplied Russia with weapons, says Joe Biden
This is one of the fears of Westerners. Joe Biden said from Ottawa (Canda) that China “did not supply arms to Russia” at that time. “That doesn’t mean they won’t do it, but they haven’t done it yet,” Trump said. “I don’t take China lightly. I don’t take Russia lightly,” he added, adding that reports of their rapprochement were likely “exaggerated”.
Washington opens the door for border negotiations
Would a negotiation on Ukraine’s borders be possible? In any case, the head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, has opened the door to possible negotiations on the contours of Ukraine. However, he reiterated that the decision rests with the Ukrainians. Speaking to a parliamentary committee in Washington, he stressed that a possible peace with Russia must be “fair and lasting”, that is, respect the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine.
The United Nations accuses Kiev and Moscow of having executed prisoners of war
The UN sounds the alarm. The United Nations has accused Ukrainian and Russian forces of carrying out dozens of summary executions of prisoners of war since the Russian invasion began.
“We are deeply concerned by the summary executions of 25 Russian prisoners of war and those incapacitated” as well as that of “15 Ukrainian prisoners of war,” said Matilda Bogner, head of the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission Ukraine.
An initiative for kidnapped Ukrainian children
The European Union will organize a conference to locate the children kidnapped by Russia in Ukraine and bring them back to their country. “We want to exert international pressure so that all possible measures are taken to track down these children,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.