LIVE – War in Ukraine: according to Zelensky, the army “firmly” holds the bridgehead on the occupied bank of the Dnieper

A meeting between the Polish and Ukrainian governments will be held “as agreed” on March 28 in Warsaw, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday, the day after a request from kyiv for a meeting later this week.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Wednesday for rapid talks between the two governments to resolve the blockade of their shared border by angry Polish farmers.

In a video, he announced that he had asked his government “to go to the border” between the two countries “as soon as possible, by February 24”, calling on Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to do the same. The latter recalled that a meeting between the two governments is already planned for March.

In its daily report, the Russian Defense Ministry assured that the army had seized the village of Pobeda, not far from the destroyed town of Mariïnka, itself located near Donetsk, in the east of the Ukraine. The Ukrainian army did not immediately confirm the loss of Pobeda, saying it was fighting “in the area”.

Russia had already claimed on Tuesday the recapture of the village of Krynky (south), on the occupied bank of the Dnieper, where the Kiev army had difficulty built a bridgehead in October, one of its only advances after the failure of its summer counter-offensive. The Ukrainian army, for its part, denied having lost control of Krynky.

Denmark claims to have signed a ten-year bilateral security agreement with Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelensky says the Ukrainian army “firmly” holds the bridgehead on the occupied bank of the Dnieper.

Poland will include crossing points with Ukraine on the list of “critical infrastructure” to avoid disruptions that could impact the delivery of military and humanitarian aid, the head of the Polish government announced on Thursday. “To ensure a 100% guarantee that military (…), humanitarian and medical aid will arrive without delay in Ukraine, border crossings with Ukraine, certain roads and railways will be included on the list of critical infrastructure,” he said. Donald Tusk told reporters.

According to the Polish Prime Minister, a meeting will be held on March 28 between the Polish and Ukrainian governments.

The United Kingdom on Thursday gave its public support to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as head of NATO.

“Rutte is well respected within the Alliance, he has serious defense and security credentials and he will ensure that the Alliance remains strong and ready to provide defense and deterrence,” a government official said. covered by anonymity.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has had a “terrifying human cost”, inflicting immense suffering on millions of civilians, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on Thursday.

“Russia’s large-scale armed attack on Ukraine, which is about to enter its third year with no end in sight, continues to cause serious and widespread human rights violations. “man, destroying lives and livelihoods,” he said in a statement.

The Russian army claimed Thursday to have taken the village of Pobeda, in eastern Ukraine, a new claim for conquest a few days after that of the town of Avdiïvka, in the face of a Ukrainian army which suffers from weapons shortages .

“Units of the Southern grouping of forces liberated the village of Pobeda,” said the Russian Defense Ministry about this locality, not far from the destroyed town of Marinka, although this sector of the front had been largely unchanged for years. month.

Ukraine’s security services (SBU) on Thursday accused Russia of using North Korean-made missiles to carry out deadly strikes in Ukraine against civilian targets.

“We are talking about ballistic missiles of the Hwasong-11 (KN-23/24) type (…) According to our investigation, Russian troops fired more than 20 (of these) North Korean weapons at Ukraine,” he said. indicated in a press release the SBU, specifying that these strikes had killed “at least 24 civilians” and left more than a hundred injured.

The Kremlin spokesperson considered “shameful” the statements of American President Joe Biden who described Vladimir Putin as a “crazy bastard” during a meeting with Democratic Party donors.

“It is a huge shame for (…) the United States. If the president of such a country uses such a lexicon, it is necessarily shameful,” said Dmitri Peskov, in a video broadcast Thursday by a journalist for Russian public television.

• The Russian website Mediazona and the BBC’s Russian service said they had identified around 45,000 Russian soldiers killed since the start of the invasion of Ukraine two years ago, in a joint investigation published on Wednesday. The count is based on freely accessible sources such as death notices, press releases from local authorities, obituaries published in the media or on social networks. The media emphasize that the real toll is certainly much heavier. It could be twice as high, suggests the BBC Russian service. According to this source, “two thirds of the dead had no connection with the army before the invasion.” These are therefore mobilized soldiers, volunteers, fighters from private military companies or prisoners who had joined combat units in exchange for an amnesty.

• The Russian security services (FSB) on Wednesday accused the British Council, the British education and culture agency, of collecting military intelligence from Ukrainian refugees. In a statement, the FSB assured that the British Council in Great Britain, “via organizations under its control”, was collecting information concerning the Ukrainian region of Kherson, partly occupied by Russian forces. “Cases have been established of this foreign organization using Ukrainian refugees living in the United Kingdom to obtain military and political intelligence through their connections in the Kherson region,” accuses the FSB.

• A spokesperson for a Ukrainian army formation strongly denied information from the New York Times mentioning “several hundred” Ukrainian soldiers taken prisoner in Avdiivka during the capture of the town by Russian forces. “Whether deliberately or accidentally, the New York Times spread Russian propaganda,” Dmytro Lykhoviy said.

• Swedish intelligence services (Säpo) warned on Wednesday of the territorial threat posed by Russian espionage, particularly in the Arctic, in the run-up to Sweden’s likely entry into NATO. Sweden ended two centuries of non-alignment by applying to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This accession should materialize on Monday during the vote of the Hungarian parliament, the final obstacle. Russia, like China, “carries out activities that threaten security in the far north of Sweden,” writes Säpo in its annual threat assessment report.

• Joe Biden on Wednesday called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “crazy bastard” during a meeting in San Francisco (California) with Democratic Party donors, during which he also virulently attacked his rival Donald Trump. “The existential threat is climate change. There’s that crazy bastard Putin, and others, and you always have to worry about nuclear war, but the existential threat to humanity it’s climate change,” said the 81-year-old Democratic president, candidate for a second term, during a brief speech attended by a small group of journalists.

Hello and welcome to this live broadcast dedicated to events in Ukraine.