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
She dares to challenge Putin. An independent Russian politician, Ekaterina Dountsova, submitted her candidacy for the March 2024 presidential election on Wednesday. But this is only a first step: the candidate must now gather at least 300,000 signatures of support, which will not be an easy task. Optimistic Ekaterina Dountsova, 40, said there was “always a 50/50 chance”.
“We have a rather positive program, we are not opposed to anything, we are for peace and for democratic processes,” she said. This former journalist and municipal deputy estimated that “people want an alternative and regain confidence in the electoral process”. Not saying that the Russian authorities will let her campaign in complete peace. Moreover, Ekaterina Dountsova was summoned by the prosecutor’s office just after announcing her intention to run in the election.
Sentence of the day
We hope to find a common position this week. »
The Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure, Oleksandr Koubrakov, expressed confidence this Thursday about the outcome of his meeting with his recently appointed Polish counterpart. At the heart of the discussions, “the unblocking of the border”, which weighs on Ukraine’s economy. “We presented key figures and analytical data which prove: the problems mentioned by the Polish protesters do not exist in reality,” assured the Ukrainian minister.
Polish truckers, who denounce “unfair competition” from their Ukrainian colleagues, have been blocking the border since the beginning of November, creating endless queues. Ukraine relies heavily on road transport with European Union (EU) member Poland for its exports and imports, especially since the Russian invasion almost two years ago.
The number of the day
16. This is the number of years in a strict regime penal colony to which Alexander Tsepelev, a Ukrainian citizen, was sentenced on Thursday by a court in Saint Petersburg. He and his “accomplice” Alexandre Pankratïev were found guilty of manufacturing mephedrone, a synthetic drug, in an apartment from November 2021 to early March 2022.
The aim of the operation, according to the court, was to send “the proceeds from the production of mephedrone” to the Pravy Sektor group, a Ukrainian ultranationalist movement. In total, they transferred around $10,800 through a Ukrainian intermediary until February 24, 2022, the date the Russian offensive was launched, Russian justice said.
Today’s trend
Russian strikes continue to cause civilian casualties in Ukraine. This Thursday, “Russians bombed Toretsk mines in the Donetsk region, killing three civilians and injuring five others,” Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on Telegram. According to him, the bombing of one of the mines in this industrial city in Donbas left one dead and two injured. That of another caused the death of two people while three others were injured.
Further south, two women died and a man was injured in Russian bombings in Nikopol, regional authorities announced. “The Russian army bombarded Nikopol with heavy artillery in the morning,” the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serguii Lyssak, said on Telegram. The strikes caused the deaths of two women, aged 46 and 60, and an 86-year-old man was injured, he added, specifying that seven buildings had been damaged. His message was accompanied by photos, including a house with gutted walls.