Did you miss the latest events on the tensions 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
Moscow confirms its withdrawal from the strategic city of Kherson, even if kyiv continues to be suspicious. According to the British Ministry of Defense in its daily report on the conflict, the Russian forces took advantage of their departure to complicate the task of the Ukrainian soldiers. “In withdrawing, the Russians destroyed multiple bridges and laid mines to slow the advance of Ukrainian forces,” London said.
Bridges are strategic infrastructure of war. Since the summer, the Ukrainian army, armed with Western armaments, such as Himars high-precision rocket launchers, has gradually worn down the Russian forces by pounding the bridges essential to supplying the troops on the western bank of the Dnieper.
sentence of the day
There is a “window of opportunity for trading”
“There must be a mutual recognition that military victory is probably not, in the true sense of the word, attainable by military means, and therefore one must look to other means,” Gen Milley said. , American Chief of Staff, for whom there is “a window of opportunity for negotiation”.
The number of the day
100,000. This is the number of Russian soldiers who have been killed or injured since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, according to Washington. Chief of Staff Mark Milley estimated that the losses were probably of the same order on the Ukrainian side.
The trend of the day
This Thursday, the Russian army said it had begun its withdrawal to reposition itself on the eastern bank of the Dnieper. This withdrawal, announced on Wednesday, involves a departure from the city of Kherson, the regional capital. On Wednesday, the general in charge of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, Sergei Surovikin, announced that the withdrawal would be done “very quickly” to preserve the “life of every Russian soldier”, without giving a timetable.
For its part, the Ukrainian army continued its counter-offensive. It announced that it had taken over 12 localities in the Kherson region on Wednesday and this Thursday, the forces of kyiv would be only 15 kilometers from the strategic city: the Ukrainian forces announced the resumption of the village of Kysylivka at the beginning of the day after -midday.
This retreat is a huge setback for the Russia of Vladimir Putin, who had claimed the annexation in September of the Kherson region with three other Ukrainian territories and declared that these lands would remain Russian “forever”. Strategically, without a bridgehead in Kherson, it will be difficult for Moscow to continue its offensive towards the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, then the strategic port of Odessa on the Black Sea.