At the same time, a sign of the growing tensions on the international scene since the start of the war, on February 24, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested a reduction in the Russian diplomatic presence in Western countries.
“The most important thing is that there is no work there since Europe decided to close itself to us, to suspend all economic cooperation” with Moscow, he explained, saying he wanted give priority to Asia and Africa.
The Russian army once more bombarded “the military command and energy systems of Ukraine” on Tuesday, ensuring that “all targets were hit”.
“Since October 10, 30% of Ukrainian power plants have been destroyed, causing massive blackouts across the country,” acknowledged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who reiterated his refusal to negotiate with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
“The situation is now critical,” added a presidential adviser, asking that all of Ukraine “prepare” for possible “electricity, water and heating failures”.
As winter approaches, a total of “1,162 localities remain without electricity”, counted the Ukrainian Emergency Situations Service.
Already on Monday, strikes that killed at least nine people, notably with the help of suicide drones, had caused power cuts in three regions.
And a week earlier, on October 10, Russian bombardments on an unprecedented scale for months, also on energy infrastructure, had left at least 19 dead and 105 injured.
kyiv’s Western allies then promised more air defense systems, some of which have already been delivered.
Tense situation”
Alongside these bombings, the Russian army acknowledged on Tuesday that the situation on the ground was “tense” for its troops facing the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the south and east of the country.
“The situation in the area of the special military operation can be described as tense. The enemy does not give up its attempts to attack the positions of the Russian troops,” said General Sergei Surovikin, in charge of operations in Ukraine for ten days.
“The Ukrainian regime is trying to break through our defense” by bringing together “all its reserves” for the counter-offensive, and the situation is particularly “very difficult” in Kherson (south).
Capital of the eponymous region occupied by Russia since the spring and annexed in September, the city is currently the target of Ukrainian strikes targeting its “social, economic and industrial infrastructure”, according to the Russian general.
These strikes lead to disruptions in the supply of electricity, water and food, which constitute a “direct threat to the lives of the inhabitants”.
This justifies in the eyes of Sergei Surovikin that “the Russian army will ensure above all the secure evacuation of the population”. “Further actions regarding the city of Kherson itself will depend on the military situation,” he added, saying without further clarification “not to rule out a very difficult decision-making.”
Iran in sight
The use by the Russian army of Iranian drones, according to kyiv, was also supported by figures on Tuesday.
The Russian army sent in “the last 24 hours” 43 Iranian-made “Shahed-136” drones, of which “38 were shot down by Ukrainian soldiers”, said in the morning the staff of the Ukrainian forces .
This “call for help” to Iran is “the Kremlin’s recognition of its military and political bankruptcy”, mocked President Zelensky in the evening.
“We have no such information,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied to a reporter’s question regarding Moscow’s use of such Iranian unmanned aircraft in Ukraine. “Russian technology is used, with Russian names”.
kyiv had asked the European Union (EU) on Monday to impose more sanctions on Iran, “responsible for the murder of Ukrainians”.
This country for its part repeated that it had “exported weapons to none of the warring parties”, while Washington threatened to sanction companies or states collaborating in the Iranian drone program.
In this context, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Tuesday proposed to President Zelensky to break diplomatic relations with Tehran, which, he claimed, supplied drones to Russia.
All-out bombings
The new Russian strikes hit many cities in Ukraine, both the capital kyiv and Mykolaiv (south), Dnipro (center-east), Kharkiv (north-east) or Zhytomyr (west of kyiv).
They left at least one dead in Mykolaiv and two, possibly three, in kyiv, while power outages were reported both in the capital and in other regions.
The Russians “are attacking essential infrastructure (…) which people need in their daily lives and which are not military targets”, denounced the head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, considering that “it is a sign of desperation on the part of Russia”.
The Russian army is on the defensive on most of the front in Ukraine, retreating since September in the north as well as in the east and south. The only section where it is still advancing is the area of the city of Bakhmout (east), which it has been trying to take from the Ukrainians since the summer.
The partial mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Russian reservists, decided by Vladimir Putin following his heavy losses in Ukraine, is not “for the moment” completed, said the Kremlin.
In Russia itself, the Ukrainian army shelled two villages in the border region of Kursk, according to Moscow.
In Belgorod, also neighboring Ukraine, Ukrainian gunfire hit a railway station, injuring one, according to its governor.
kyiv also denounced the “inaction” of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to help its prisoner soldiers whom the organization has not yet been able to visit.
“Unfortunately, with each exchange, we note that the inaction of the ICRC has led to our prisoners of war and civilian hostages being tortured daily by starvation, by electrocutions”, regretted the Ukrainian human rights officer, Dmytro Loubinets .
The chief of staff of the Ukrainian presidency, Andriï Iermak, affirmed to him that kyiv “demands” from the ICRC “the adequate determination to obtain access to Ukrainian prisoners at Olenivka”, a prison located in the Donetsk region (east).
