DIRECT. War in Ukraine: Ukrainian forces ordered to withdraw from Sievierodonetsk

On Twitter, the US State Department assures that “recently declassified intelligence suggests that Russian forces are destroying grain terminals and Ukrainian silos, including an attack on Ukraine’s second largest terminal”.

For the MoDem deputy from Hauts-de-Seine invited this morning from RFI, Ukraine’s candidacy for the EU is a strong signal. “We had to show that the future of Ukraine lies in the West. (…) For this candidacy to materialize, we must reach a peaceful settlement, we must move as quickly as possible. But this faster will not be less slow. Because the Russians have no intention of negotiating,” he warns.

According to Russian agencies, “a Russian occupation official was killed in Kherson in an attack”. According to AFP, such attacks are on the increase. “It was a targeted attack on a collaborator of the civil and military administration, which killed him,” the administration told the Russian agency Tass. The victim, Dmitry Savluchenko, was in charge of sports and youth in the Kherson region.

The European Union should stop to pile up the sanctions against Russia and plead for a ceasefire and for negotiations, an adviser to the Hungarian prime minister said yesterday, Victor Orban. Very dependent on imports of Russian hydrocarbons, Hungary curbs as much as it can initiatives that it deems hostile to Moscow, especially since Russia is building a nuclear reactor on Hungarian soil.

“It no longer makes sense to stay in positions that have been constantly bombarded for months,” said Sergei Gaïdaï, the governor of the Lugansk region after the announcement of the withdrawal of troops from Sievierodonetsk. The city was “almost reduced to rubble” by the continuous bombardments, he said.

“All essential infrastructure has been destroyed. 90% of the city is damaged, 80% of the houses will have to be destroyed,” he estimated.

A military cargo plane crashed today in Russia’s Ryazan region, two hundred kilometers southeast of Moscow, killing four people and injuring five.

Military planes crashed several times in June near the border with Ukraine, where Russia has been carrying out a military offensive since the end of February, the army citing possible technical problems.

As we explained earlier in this live, Serguiï Gaïdaï, the governor of the Lugansk region had mentioned this option, faced with a city “under the fire of incessant bombardments” and very significant “damages”.

The reporter for Le Monde newspaper in Ukraine reports an early morning explosion this morning. “Our day started with a very heavy explosion at 7 o’clock sharp. Like a ballistic missile,” tweeted Emmanuel Grynszpan.

This port city which borders the Black Sea has been the subject of regular bombardments since the beginning of the war.

This brings to “about 6.1 billion” the total amount of military aid provided by Washington to kyiv since the invasion of the country by Russia, and to 6.8 billion since Joe Biden, according to John Kirby, who coordinates communications from the White House on strategic issues.

This new component of assistance provides in particular for the delivery of four additional Himars (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) systems, powerful rocket launchers mounted on light armour.

The day “today marks a crucial step on your way to the EU”, “we have a future together”, declared the President of the European Council Charles Michel on Twitter, congratulating the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The latter, in his speech by videoconference to the representatives of the Twenty-Seven, welcomed a political “victory”, which his people had been waiting for, according to him, since the independence of the Soviet republic from Ukraine in 1991.

“The Ukrainian and European flags will fly together when we rebuild our country together after this war,” he insisted again Thursday evening in his daily video address to his compatriots.

But if Volodymyr Zelensky still predicted a victory “for sure” against the Russian army, Serguiï Gaïdaï, the governor of the Lugansk region, dropped the word “retreat” concerning Severodonetsk, a key city in the Donbass.

“Under the fire of incessant bombing, we have suffered too much damage and a retreat may be necessary”, warned in the night from Thursday to Friday this official whose daily updates on the situation in Donbass are a reference.

“There are 568 civilians in shelters in Azot”, the industrial zone of Severodonetsk, the only sector of the city still remaining in the hands of Ukrainian troops, said Mr. Gaïdaï.

“At the rate our soldiers are going, very soon the entire territory of the Lugansk People’s Republic will be liberated,” Lt. Col. Andrei Marotchko told AFP by video call.

Anti-aircraft alerts sounded overnight from Thursday to Friday in several major Ukrainian cities, from Donetsk to Odessa.