Follow the day’s events live:
8:47. First European sanctions decided during the day once morest Russia, announces the head of diplomacy.
8:45 a.m. “You have to be tough on Vladimir Putin. He only understands the balance of power,” hammers the former president, who criticizes the reception reserved for the Russian president in Versailles in 2017 by Emmanuel Macron.
8:40 a.m. Will the Russian president go further? “Either he will stop there, to record what he has obtained for several months. Either, he will continue his pressure, perhaps with a lull and once more the desire to destabilize what is left of Ukraine, ”analyzes François Hollande.
8:35 a.m. Inside the mind of Vladimir Putin. “If we want to understand him: he is president of Russia and he wants, following the humiliation of the end of the Soviet Union, to regain the empire. He has been in this line for years, ”assures François Hollande. “We have to introduce a balance of power to prevent it from going any further”.
8:30 a.m. “War can still be avoided”, assures François Hollande. On BFMTV, the former President of the Republic denounces “an extremely serious act” on the part of Vladimir Putin.
8:20 a.m. India begins to evacuate its nationals. A special flight left for Kiev to evacuate Indian nationals. “More than 20,000 Indian students and nationals live and study in different parts of Ukraine, including its border areas. The welfare of Indians is a priority for us,” India’s permanent representative to the United Nations, TS Tirumurti, said, according to ANI, news agency quoted by the BBC.
8:10 a.m. China calls for restraint. Beijing distinguished itself from its partners at the end of the emergency UN meeting by not explicitly condemning Russia. “All countries should resolve international disputes by peaceful means in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations”, limited itself to saying the Chinese ambassador, Zhang Jun, calling on all parties to “show detention “.
7h55. #StandwithUkraine. In a tweet, Antony Blinken, Secretary of State of the United States, condemns “in the most difficult terms possible” the decision of Putin to recognize the independence of the pro-Russian territories, and assures “to remain at the side of the Ukraine, as I told Dmytro Kuleba”, Ukrainian Foreign Minister.
7:45 a.m. “We are open to dialogue”, assures Alexander Zezyulin, Minister Counselor of the Russian Embassy in Paris. All responsibility rests with Ukraine. Guest of France Info, he assures that “if Ukraine chooses military escalation, it will bear the responsibility for the crisis”. But no question, according to number 2 of the Russian embassy, to send soldiers to Kiev, the capital.
7:30 a.m. A big void in the Ukrainian sky. As this Flightradar capture shared by a reporter shows, no planes venture into Ukrainian skies. All follow the same corridors, at the end of the Black Sea.
7:15 a.m. US diplomats in Ukraine moved to Poland. “For security reasons, State Department personnel currently in Lviv will spend the night in Poland,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
7am. Moscow always says it is “ready” for negotiations with the United States. Russian Presidents Vladimir Putin and American President Joe Biden had agreed to meet at a summit, before the Kremlin deemed this meeting “premature”. “Even in the most difficult moments… we say: we are ready for the process of negotiations, that’s why our position has remained the same (…). We are always for the use of diplomacy,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in comments posted on YouTube.
6:55 a.m. “The borders of Ukraine will not change”. Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya assured the Security Council that “the internationally recognized borders” of his country “will remain unchanged, regardless of Russia’s statements and actions. Ukraine asks Russia to “cancel its decision to recognize” Ukrainian secessionist territories, “to return to the negotiating table” and to proceed with “an immediate and verifiable withdrawal of its occupation troops”, a- he said.
6:40 a.m. Tanks in the suburbs of Donetsk. According to BFMTV, a few hours following the declarations of Vladimir Putin, armored vehicles circulate in the suburbs of Donetsk. “Dozens of tanks, artillery pieces and military vehicles were present Monday evening around midnight (10 p.m. in Paris) in the direction of Donetsk”, assures his side the Figaro.
6:30 a.m. How Putin turned the crisis around in one night and one speech. The Russian president defied the West by recognizing this Monday evening the independence of the pro-Russian separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine and ordered the Russian army “to maintain peace” in these territories. If you haven’t followed, our decryption.
6:15 a.m. New US sanctions. After an initial cautious response to President Vladimir Putin’s order to deploy Russian troops to two separatist areas of Ukraine, Washington plans to “announce new sanctions once morest Russia.”
6:10 a.m. “The next few hours and days will be critical”. Vladimir Putin’s various statements led the organization to organize an emergency meeting of the Security Council overnight to try to avoid a war with Kiev. “The risk of major conflict is real and must be avoided at all costs,” said UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo at the start of the meeting.
6h05. Cascading reactions. A “flagrant violation of the sovereignty” of Ukraine. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was the first Monday to speak out to denounce the Russian leader’s remarks while NATO “condemned” Moscow’s recognition of the independence of the separatist regions. Since then, many Western leaders have expressed their disagreement and the United States has announced sanctions once morest the separatist regions in Ukraine. On the French side, Emmanuel Macron calls for “targeted European sanctions” as well as an emergency meeting of the Security Council.
6 hours. Hello everyone and welcome to this live. It will allow you to follow, in real time, the latest news relating to the crisis in Ukraine.
