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
This is a first since the start of the war in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered his forces to implement a ceasefire on January 6 and 7 on the occasion of Orthodox Christmas. “In view of the appeal of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, I instruct the Russian Minister of Defense to introduce a ceasefire regime along the entire line of contact between the parties in Ukraine from 12 p.m. on January 6 of this year until midnight on January 7,” the Russian president said in the Kremlin statement. He further called on the Ukrainian forces to respect this truce.
On the kyiv side, this ceasefire is considered “hypocritical” and Moscow is accused of wanting to “buy time”. “Russia must leave the occupied territories, only then will there be a ‘temporary truce’. Keep your hypocrisy, ”wrote an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mykhaïlo Podoliak, on Twitter. “Russia is trying by all means to at least temporarily reduce the intensity of the fighting and the strikes on its logistics centers in order to buy time,” he continued. No truce had been established for the Catholic Christmas on December 25, let alone for the New Year, during which the capital of Ukraine was heavily targeted by the Russian army.
sentence of the day
Don’t drink too much, don’t take drugs, don’t rape women, don’t do stupid things. »
A first group of Russian prisoners has been granted amnesty and released for agreeing to fight in Ukraine, the head of the paramilitary group Wagner, whose men are present on the front alongside the Russian army, announced on Thursday. Evguéni Prigojine, a sulphurous businessman known to be close to Vladimir Putin, appeared in a video in the company of men with blurred faces.
He called on Russian society to “treat with the utmost respect” these men who fought for six months in exchange for their freedom. “Don’t drink too much, don’t take drugs, don’t rape women, don’t do stupid things,” they could still be heard telling them Evguéni Prigojine, himself a former convict turned businessman.
The number of the day
Between 300 and 400 dead. Some have questioned the veracity of the death toll put forward by the Ministry of Defense of 89 Russian soldiers killed by the Ukrainian strike on Makiivka. It could be heavier in view of the total destruction of the building and the possibility of the presence of ammunition stored on site.
The strategic communications department of the Ukrainian army thus put the toll at 400 dead and 300 wounded. This claim, however, has not been confirmed by the Ukrainian General Staff.
The trend of the day
It’s a refrain that comes up regularly since Russia lost ground in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin affirms once again that Russia is open to a dialogue with Ukraine but on condition that the latter accepts the “new territorial realities” born of the offensive.
In a telephone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the head of the Kremlin “repeated that Russia is open to a serious dialogue, provided that the authorities in kyiv comply with the well-known and repeatedly expressed demands and take into account new territorial realities,” according to a statement from the Kremlin.
Moscow claimed in September the annexation of four regions occupied at least partially by its army, despite a series of military setbacks on the ground, and on the pattern of that of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in March 2014.