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
Neighbor and ally. The new head of Polish diplomacy, Radoslaw (or Radek) Sikorski booked his first foreign visit to kyiv in order to show his country’s support, despite some tensions. “In this titanic fight, Mr. Minister, Poland is on your side,” declared Radek Sikorski to his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kouleba, castigating a Russia which “bombs cities, destroys entire provinces, deports children and prepares to destroy a neighbor who has done nothing wrong.”
“Russia must lose and Ukraine must win. And on this issue, regardless of who will be in power in Poland, as you can see, we are united,” he said. Poland is one of Ukraine’s main supporters in Europe, but relations between the two neighbors have been cold in recent months amid trade disputes. This page seems to have been turned with the recent arrival to power of pro-Europeans in Warsaw.
The minister visited Ukraine to try to “find a solution to the problem of the excessive influx of agricultural products [ukrainiens] in the European Union, and in particular in Poland,” explained Polish Minister of Agriculture Czeslaw Siekierski on Friday. Another thorny issue between kyiv and Warsaw concerns the blocking of the Ukrainian-Polish border by Polish truck drivers, which has continued since the beginning of November creating endless queues. Dmytro Kouleba also indicated that he hoped to find a “solution” to the “unacceptable and harmful” blockage of the border.
Sentence of the day
The Putin regime has clearly decided to take a further step in its transformation from a police and autocratic state into a totalitarian state. »
Russian writer Boris Akunin, in exile since 2014, expressed concern about the future of his country in an interview with AFP. Russia placed the novelist on its list of “terrorists and extremists” and an investigation into him was opened because of his criticism of the war in Ukraine. “When repression extends to the sphere of literature in a country like Russia, where literature is so central, it is an important sign,” observes the dissident.
Born in 1956 in Georgia, then a Soviet republic, Boris Akunin, whose real name is Grigori Tchkhartishvili, is known for his historical detective novels, notably the successful saga The investigations of Eraste Fandorine, a hero living in the Tsarist era. He spoke out in 2014 against the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, before going into exile in Europe. On February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, he deplored on Facebook the outbreak of “an absurd war.” “Madness has won,” he said then.
The number of the day
18. This is the number of F-16 fighters that the Netherlands will deliver to Ukraine, the Dutch government announced on Friday, without specifying the delivery date. With the support of the United States, Denmark and the Netherlands formalized in August their commitment to provide up to 61 combat aircraft once Ukrainian pilots have been trained. “The delivery of the F-16s is one of the most important elements of the agreements reached on military support to Ukraine,” said outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, claimed on X that he had spoken with Mark Rutte and thanked the Netherlands for their “decision” regarding the F-16.
Today’s trend
Providing more munitions and drones to Ukraine is an “urgent necessity”, noted the president of the Defense committee of the French Senate, Cédric Perrin, returning from a study mission to kyiv. “The Russians seek to wear them down permanently by firing thousands of 155mm shells every day onto the battlefield […] and they sometimes sacrifice a thousand drones per day” against the Ukrainians, argues the senator.
“By fighting for their land, Ukrainians are also fighting for the security of all of Europe. History is written by the victors. If Vladimir Putin wins, he will impose his rules of the game,” warns Cédric Perrin. “France produces 20,000 155 mm shells per year, we cannot be satisfied with that,” he added, while Paris asked manufacturers to adopt a “war economy” logic to be able to supply ammunition to Ukraine and replenish French stocks. At the same time, in terms of drones, “we need mass, expendability. We are in the process of changing software but it is urgent,” he stressed.