Did you miss the latest events on the war in Ukraine? Do not panic, 20 minutes takes stock for you every evening at 7:30 p.m. Who did what ? Who said what? Where are we ? The answer below:
news of the day
It’s the end of an ordeal that lasted nine months for Brittney Griner. The American basketball star detained in Russia was released on Thursday as part of a prisoner exchange with Moscow that included Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, imprisoned for ten years in the United States. The exchange took place at Abu Dhabi airport in the United Arab Emirates, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Telegram.
“A few moments ago I spoke with Brittney Griner. She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way to the United States,” US President Joe Biden said during a brief address at the White House. The basketball player is expected in the next 24 hours in the United States. She has “good morale” despite the “trauma” endured, added Joe Biden, who thanked the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia also participated in the exchange procedure, according to a joint statement from the two countries, adding that “the mediation was conducted” by the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, and by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
sentence of the day
A rude awakening for many of us”
“We face real threats. […] We would prefer not to have to face them, but they are there, close and likely to get worse. I don’t want to be Cassandra announcing the bad news, but it’s the reality, ”said the head of European diplomacy, the Spaniard Josep Borrell in an intervention before the European Defense Agency (EDA). Russia’s war on Ukraine was “a wake-up call for many of us”, he added. “We lack the capabilities we need to defend against a higher level of threat” because of “years of underinvestment”, he said, insisting on the lack of “essential defense capabilities” of Europe to protect themselves in the event of conflict.
The number of the day
Russian forces have fired a total of more than 1,000 rockets and missiles at Ukraine’s electricity grid, which is still functioning despite significant damage, according to the Interfax Ukraine news agency, which quotes a senior official, Volodymyr Kudrytsky, general manager of the operator. network Ukrenergo.
Vladimir Putin also warned that these bombings against Ukrainian energy infrastructure would continue. According to Ukrenergo, the electricity system was still the victim of a “significant deficit” on Thursday after the latest Russian strikes on Monday.
The trend of the day
These bombardments are a response to the attacks of Ukraine against Crimea, justified Vladimir Putin. Moscow has admitted to being vulnerable to attacks in Crimea, an admission that comes after several strikes, attributed to Ukraine, on Russian targets far from the front. In recent days, several Russian military bases, including two located some 500 kilometers from Ukraine, as far as the Russian capital Moscow, have been targeted by attack drones.
Also on Thursday, a drone was shot down by the Russian fleet in Sevastopol in Crimea, local authorities said, a sign of the risks that continue to weigh on the annexed peninsula that kyiv has sworn to take back. These attacks, combined with a series of Russian retreats in Ukraine, seem to testify to the fact that, nine months after the start of the offensive, Russia is struggling not only to consolidate its positions but also to protect its rear bases far from the front.
In Crimea, “there are risks, because the Ukrainian side continues to follow its line of organizing terrorist attacks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday. But the fact that the drone was shot down “shows that effective countermeasures are being taken,” he said.