LIVE – War in Ukraine: Russia “profits” from delay in military aid, says Zelensky

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“What is happening on our western border, the border with Poland, cannot be considered normal or ordinary. This demonstrates the erosion of everyday solidarity,” Volodymyr Zelensky assured Monday regarding the blockade of the Polish border by Polish truckers and farmers. “In reality, it is not a question of cereals, but rather of politics,” denounces the Ukrainian president.

Emmanuel Macron “fully intends to go to Ukraine by mid-March,” his entourage assured Monday. “There were never any security issues in the visit schedule,” we also assure. Russian social networks had relayed the rumor of a planned attack during the visit.

Volodymyr Zelensky recognizes on Monday an “extremely difficult” situation at certain points of the front, “where Russian troops have concentrated a maximum of reserves. According to the Ukrainian president, Moscow is “taking advantage” of the delay in Western military aid to gain the advantage in the conflict.

Did the actions of Polish farmers on the border prevent the passage of supplies for the Ukrainian army? This is what the TF1info Verifiers team sought to find out. ⬇️

The President of the United States is “considering” additional sanctions against his counterpart Vladimir Putin’s Russia, three days after the death of opponent Alexeï Navalny. “We already have sanctions but we are considering additional ones, yes,” Joe Biden responded to journalists. He had already publicly judged President Putin “responsible” for the death of Navalny, announced Friday in an Arctic prison.

Eleven Ukrainian children were due to leave Russia for Ukraine on Monday to be reunited with their families, a new transfer carried out with the mediation of Qatar. Aged 2 to 16, these children and their relatives were welcomed at the Qatari embassy in Moscow and are due to reach Ukraine on Tuesday via Belarusian territory, AFP journalists noted.

Some children in this group, two of whom are aged five and six, suffer from chronic illnesses and have specific medical needs. A total of 59 children have already been repatriated to Ukraine through this mechanism, according to Moscow. Russia is accused by kyiv of having “deported” thousands of children to its territory from the regions it occupies in Ukraine. Moscow, for its part, assures that it transferred these children to ensure their safety in the face of fighting and to be ready to hand them over to their relatives in Ukraine if they request it.

Volodymyr Zelensky went to the front line in the Kharkiv region on Monday, the Ukrainian presidency announced.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced Monday that it was trying to “shed light on the fate of 23,000 people who disappeared” during the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

“Opened in March 2022, the Office of the Central Tracing Agency (CTA) of the ICRC for the international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine” is dedicated to the search for missing persons from both sides in this conflict, “which “They were captured, killed or separated from their loved ones” following the fighting, the ICRC said in a statement.

The head of the socialist list in the European elections, Raphaël Glucksmann, considered it “crazy” that Europe had not “gone into a war economy”, two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, warning of the medium-term risks of a Ukrainian defeat.

“What is absolutely crazy is that it has been two years since this war began (…) we still have not increased our production capacities,” he insisted on BFMTV, recalling that “Today, on the Ukrainian front, the Ukrainians can fire 1,000 shells while the Russians fire 10,000 per day.” He called for “long-term contracts with our manufacturers” and the “joint European-wide” purchase of shells on the international market.

And this, “not simply out of solidarity or morality: we would do it out of intelligence and even selfishness”. “If we do not do it now and the Ukrainian front collapses, the questions we will have to ask ourselves in a year or two years will be infinitely more painful,” warned Raphaël Glucksmann, concerned that “French soldiers will have to die” if Ukraine loses against the Russian giant.

Ukrainian forces abandoned the town of Avdiivka to Russian troops after months of fighting. According to kyiv, this withdrawal and these difficulties on this front are linked to a lack of ammunition.

Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov on Monday called the blockade by Polish farmers of the border between the two countries a “threat to Ukraine’s security”.

“Blocking the border constitutes a direct threat to the security of a defending country. Such actions have a negative impact on our confrontation with the common enemy called Russia,” denounced Mr. Koubrakov on Facebook.

• On Sunday, the Telegram channel DeepState, close to the Ukrainian army, claimed that Russian forces had shot and killed six Ukrainian soldiers, including four wounded, in a position south of Avdiika, probably on Thursday. The Ukrainian authorities have so far not commented on these assertions. kyiv’s ground forces, on the other hand, accused Russia of having executed by shooting two Ukrainian prisoners of war on Sunday in the east, but outside the Avdiivka sector.

• In the south of the country, the Ukrainian army reported Russian attacks in the Zaporizhia region on Sunday. The forces of kyiv thus repelled, according to General Tarnavsky, 13 Russian “assault attempts” near the villages of Robotyné and Verbové, one of the rare places where the Ukrainians had regained ground during their 2023 counter-offensive which largely failed. Later, spokesman Dmytro Lykhoviy downplayed the seriousness of these attacks, assuring that Moscow did not have enough forces for a breakthrough.

• Vladimir Putin assured that “what is happening” in Ukraine is a “question of life and death” for Russia, while for the West it is only a question of “improving (its) tactical position” , in an interview broadcast on Sunday. The Russian president said it was “important” for Russians and foreigners alike “to understand our state of mind, to understand how sensitive and important what is happening around Ukraine is for our country.”

• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi assured his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba that China “does not sell lethal weapons” to Russia, Beijing said on Sunday evening. China “continues to push for peace talks and does not add fuel to the fire,” Wang Yi told Dmytro Kuleba during a meeting on Saturday in Munich on the sidelines of the Security Conference.

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