Did you miss the latest events on the war in Ukraine? 20 minutes takes stock for you every evening at 7:30 p.m. Between the strong declarations, the advances on the front and the results of the battles, here are the main points of the day.
The fact of the day
Several Russian strikes left at least three dead and around thirty injured this Wednesday, notably in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city. A new air offensive which pushes kyiv to demand more modern Patriot air defense systems from its Western allies.
In Kharkiv, which had nearly a million and a half inhabitants before the war, a Russian bombing left at least one dead and 18 injured, including four children, by hitting civilian targets, local authorities announced. Two high-powered bombs, dropped from a plane, damaged residential buildings, a school and a kindergarten in the middle of the afternoon.
Two other people were killed on Wednesday in strikes elsewhere in Ukraine, notably on the banks of the Dnieper River near Kherson, in the south of the country.
Today’s statement
“ Many do not understand that the defense of Ukraine is not only about providing ammunition, but also about not repeating Russian propaganda according to which the problematic drop in grain prices is due to Ukrainian deliveries. There is no proof of this! »
Cem Özdemir, the German Minister of Agriculture, showed himself annoyed by the desire of certain European states to revise the initial agreement on customs-cleared agricultural imports from Ukraine. This Wednesday, the 27 agreed to tighten the cap on certain customs-cleared agricultural imports from Ukraine by adjusting the limit levels, but without restricting the volumes of wheat as demanded by several countries, including France and Poland.
The ambassadors of the Member States adopted a slightly modified version of the agreement reached on March 20 between State negotiators and MEPs to renew for one year, from June, the customs exemption for Ukraine accompanied by restrictions. This text was the subject of divergences between the States which wished to protect their markets more strictly and the States intending to protect kyiv’s commercial revenues.
MEPs will examine the amended text before a final vote in April, with a view to its entry into force by the June 5 expiration of the current customs exemption.
The number of the day
Six. This is the number of years in prison that a Russian will have to serve who published messages on the internet denouncing the large-scale attack launched by Moscow against Ukraine, any public criticism of which is firmly repressed in Russia. Nikolai Farafonov, 35, was found guilty this Wednesday of “public calls to commit terrorist acts” by a military court in the Russian Republic of the Komi (north) this Wednesday. He will be incarcerated in an “ordinary regime” camp, local media reported.
According to the prosecution, he had published “videos and messages” calling for the burning of military recruitment offices, while dozens of fires or attempted fires targeting these buildings have been reported in Russia over the past two years.
According to the NGO Memorial, which recognized him as a political prisoner, Nikolai Farafonov lived in a small town in the region and ran a Telegram messaging channel openly hostile to the offensive against kyiv. He spoke in particular, again according to Memorial, of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine, political repression, pro-Kremlin “patriotic” education in schools, but also current events and problems in his region, the Komi Republic.
The trend
The Polish Deputy Foreign Minister said that NATO considered the possibility of shooting down Russian missiles that came too close to the borders of the Atlantic Alliance, two days after Poland reported a violation of its airspace.
Our file on the war in Ukraine
Warsaw said on Sunday that a Russian cruise missile fired towards towns in western Ukraine had penetrated Polish airspace for 39 seconds. The Polish government assured that Poland had activated all its anti-aircraft systems and that the missile would have been shot down if there had been any indication that it was heading towards a target on Polish territory.
On Tuesday, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Szejna told RMF24 radio that “various concepts are being analyzed within NATO” since this incident, “including the fact of shooting down these missiles when they are very close to the borders of NATO”, of which Poland is a member. “But this could only be done with the agreement of the Ukrainian side and taking into account the international consequences,” added Andrzej Szejna.