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
Unsportsmanlike conduct for Decathlon. The French sporting and leisure goods group Decathlon continued to deliver clothing to the Russian buyer of its stores, notably through a “shell company” in Dubai, according to an investigation published Tuesday by the media Disclose. While most Western groups left the country after the start of the war in Ukraine, Decathlon, for example, delivered Kalenji jogging jackets, Wedze ski jackets and Quechua pants and shoes to Russian Desport stores, for a total of of at least 12 million dollars (around 11 million euros). These products were transported in November by plane from Bangladesh, where they are produced, via Dubai, where a front company bought the products, according to internal documents and testimonies collected by Disclose.
A few weeks after the start of the war, Decathlon announced that it was suspending the commercial activities of its stores and its website in Russia. More than a year later, in the summer of 2023, the distributor finally received approval from local authorities to resell 36 stores to a Russian company, ARM. But when they reopened in November, Decathlon products were available in these stores, according to images seen on Russian social media.
According to documents consulted by Disclose, the group urgently ordered goods from its Asian suppliers. To avoid the shipments being blocked at customs, a Decathlon subsidiary based in Singapore purchased them and transported them through Dubai. Decathlon “does not operate any stores in the Russian Federation, does not employ any employees and does not hold any stake in companies operating in this territory,” management responded to AFP. “Decathlon is also doing everything possible to stop the resale, on the territory of the Russian Federation, of products purchased in Europe by third parties. »
Sentence of the day
The situation in Ukraine seems to have added to a litany of continuing suffering, and the world’s attention seems jaded by the multiple crises we face. »
We owe this somewhat disillusioned suggestion to Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The evidence assembled by his office “continues to document flagrant violations of international human rights law, serious violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes, primarily committed by the forces of the Russian Federation,” he said. also denounced Volker Türk in Geneva during a debate this Tuesday on the invasion of Ukraine. “In the occupied territories, we have reported widespread torture and ill-treatment of detainees, including sexual violence, as well as a large number of enforced disappearances,” he said. War, in all its horror.
The number of the day
14. This is the number of members of a spy network for Russia convicted this Tuesday by a Polish court. The defendants were indicted last month for acts including planning to derail trains carrying aid to neighboring Ukraine and monitoring military installations and critical infrastructure in Poland. The judge imposed sentences ranging from one month to six years in prison on the convicts.
The 14 defendants were not present in the courtroom, having all pleaded guilty. The members of the network are “Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian,” the spokesperson for the Lublin court told AFP. Among the condemned is Maxim S., a Russian ice hockey player playing in a Polish club in Sosnowiec, whose arrest in June had prompted Moscow to express its “strong protest” and demand “full explanations” from from Poland.
Today’s trend
This is not a festive time for Ukraine. Around Kupiansk, a city in the north-east of the country liberated in the summer of 2023 by Kiev forces, “the situation is complicated”, judged Oleksandr Syrsky, commander of the Ukrainian army, on Tuesday. “We must fight while the enemy is superior, both in terms of weapons and numbers,” he explained on Telegram, ensuring however that his men were holding on.
For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had repelled eight Ukrainian attacks around Kupiansk. He also claimed that his soldiers were increasing their pressure around the town of Bakhmout, taken by Moscow in a bloody battle in the summer. According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a think tank based in the United States, Ukrainian forces are forced to ration ammunition, which puts them in difficulty facing Russian forces showered with North Korean shells.