“We believe that President Putin is preparing for a protracted conflict in Ukraine, during which he still intends to achieve objectives beyond the Donbass” (east): Transnistria, a region of Moldova which seceded in 1990, said US intelligence chief Avril Haines.
While it is “possible” that the Russians will achieve this goal in the coming months, “they will not be able to reach Transnistria and include Odessa (southern Ukraine) without decreeing some form of general mobilization”, Haines added during the meeting. a hearing in the US Congress.
Death of Leonid Kravchuk, father of independent Ukraine
Leonid Kravchuk, who died at the age of 88 in the midst of the Russian invasion, was one of the gravediggers of the USSR who, as the first president of independent Ukraine, returned to Moscow the nuclear arsenal inherited from the Soviet Union, the third in world.
“Leonid Kravchuk was not only a politician and a historical figure, but also a person who knew how to find wise words for all Ukrainians to hear,” reacted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, paying tribute to “wisdom” of a man who “had known the Second World War and the occupation”.
“He knew the price of freedom and wanted with all his heart peace for Ukraine. We will do it, we will win”. In August 1991, the then leader of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic succeeded in a few days in persuading the Communist majority in Parliament to proclaim the independence of Ukraine. A few months later, he was easily elected in the first round as president of independent Ukraine, playing the card of compromise between the communists and the nationalists and earning on this occasion a nickname, “cunning fox”.
martial law
The Russian president “is probably counting on a weakening of the determination” of Westerners, she warned.
Believing that Putin’s ambitions exceed the capabilities of his army, she considers “likely” a “more unpredictable trajectory and potentially an escalation” in the coming months, as well as a greater likelihood of “more drastic measures, including the establishment of martial law, the reorientation of industrial production”.
“We continue to believe that President Putin will only order the use of nuclear weapons if he perceives an existential threat to the Russian state or regime,” she noted.
Ukraine’s accession to the EU
Ukraine’s accession to the EU, in the context of the country’s invasion by Russia, has become a “question of war or peace”, said the same day the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kouleba, on the occasion of the first visit to his country by a German minister since the start of the war, his counterpart Annalena Baerbock.
“One of the reasons why the war started is that Putin was convinced that Europe did not need Ukraine”
According to him, “one of the reasons why the war started is that Putin was convinced that Europe did not need Ukraine”.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who holds the rotating EU presidency, dashed hopes of Ukraine’s quick EU membership on Monday, saying it would take “decades”. In the meantime, he proposed accession to a new entity, a “European political community”, capable of welcoming other countries.
Returning Embassies
The German minister announced on Tuesday the reopening of the German embassy in kyiv, which was closed shortly following the Russian invasion on February 24. His visit was an opportunity for kyiv to welcome Berlin’s “change of position” vis-à-vis Moscow in recent weeks.
Dutch Minister Wopke Hoekstra was in kyiv on Tuesday where he announced the reopening of his embassy in the Ukrainian capital.
AFP
The German minister visited Boutcha, near kyiv, where hundreds of dead civilians were discovered following the Russian occupation in March. “We owe it to the victims not only to commemorate here, but to bring the perpetrators to justice […] this is the promise we can and must make here in Boutcha,” she said.
“We owe it to the victims not only to commemorate here, but to bring the culprits to justice”
Dutch Minister Wopke Hoekstra, also in Ukraine on Tuesday, tweeted photos from Irpin, another town near kyiv where Ukraine accuses the Russians of massacring civilians in March, before a meeting with Dmytro Kouleba. He too announced the reopening of his embassy in the Ukrainian capital.
Continuation of strikes
On the ground, following strikes on Odessa (south) on Monday which left at least one dead and five injured, the Ukrainian general staff announced that Russian artillery fire and airstrikes continued on Tuesday in the east country and the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol (south-east).
According to a senior Ukrainian government official, “more than a thousand soldiers”, including “hundreds of wounded”, are still in the underground galleries of the huge steelworks, the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in this strategic southern port of Donbass.
In the rest of the Donbass, the Russians “continue to prepare offensive operations in the Lyman and Severodonetsk regions”, according to the Ukrainian general staff.
In the Kharkiv region, the bodies of 44 civilians were found in the rubble of a building destroyed in March in Izium
In the Kharkiv region, the bodies of 44 civilians were found in the rubble of a building destroyed in March in Izium, a city under Russian control, according to the regional governor, Oleg Sinegooubov.
The Russian army says it struck 74 targets Tuesday in Ukraine, and fished out three more bodies of “Ukrainian special forces soldiers” from the Black Sea, bringing the total of bodies recovered following a Ukrainian attempt to 27, a “failure”, according to Moscow , to take over the strategic Serpents’ Island.
Residents back in kyiv
In kyiv, emptied of the majority of its residents at the start of the Russian invasion, nearly two-thirds of the capital’s 3.5 million inhabitants have returned, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Tuesday.
Although there is still a curfew, roadblocks and mines in the forests around kyiv, “if these limitations do not scare you, you can indeed return”, added the city councilor, who until here called on the inhabitants to be patient.
In the evening, he announced the death at the age of 88 of the first president of independent Ukraine, Leonid Kravtchouk (1990-1994).
Agreement of the 27 in sight on oil
US military aid, which has already amounted to some $3.8 billion since the start of the conflict, should be further facilitated by the signing on Monday by President Joe Biden of the “Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend- Lease Act”. This “lend-lease” law takes up a system adopted in 1941 by President Franklin Roosevelt (1933-1945), which gave him extensive powers to support the war effort in Europe.
In the meantime, negotiations are continuing on the proposed European Union embargo on Russian oil, currently blocked by Hungary.
