- Friday March 18, 2022, after three weeks of Moscow’s offensive and an advance on several fronts, the lines have stabilized and all eyes are on Mariupol, a strategic city in Ukraine besieged by Russian forces.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday accused the Russian air force of having “knowingly” bombed a theater in the city of Mariupol where hundreds of people had taken refuge. According to Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, eight out of nine humanitarian corridors were in operation on Thursday and 3,810 civilians were evacuated from the city.
- Thick clouds of smoke were visible Friday morning in the area of theLviv airport, in western Ukraine, near the Polish border. From “missiles” Russians hit the airport district of Lviv, without hitting it directly, announced the mayor, Andriy Sadovy. Already on Sunday, the Russian army had bombed a Ukrainian military base in this region.
- The bombardments continue in kyiv and Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, where at least 500 people have been killed since the start of the war. But the capital slowly came back to life on Thursday after the lifting of a curfew imposed since Tuesday evening. It has been emptied of at least half of its 3.5 million inhabitants. More than three million Ukrainians have taken the road to exile, mostly to Poland, sometimes only a stage in their exodus.
- Volodymyr Zelensky implored Westerners on Thursday to help “stop this war”, when a Russian strike killed at least twenty-seven people in the east of the country. For him, “a people is being destroyed in Europe”he added, applauded by the deputies of the Bundestag, in Berlin.
- The American President, Joe Biden, and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, have planned to discuss Friday. The United States said on Thursday that China would face reprisals if it were to “support Russian aggression”. Russia gave up on Thursday evening to hold a vote in the Security Council on a resolution, for lack of support from its closest allies.
- Hit by heavy penalties, Russia has apparently escaped default for now on its debt: according to a source familiar with the matter, the JPMorgan bank has received payment of a tranche of interest of 117.2 million dollars which was due.
Read all our articles, analyzes and reports on the war in Ukraine:
Live March 17 can be found here.
Report. Today, Mariupol is an open hell
To analyse. Russia takes first step towards default
Your questions. The answers of the “World” to your most frequently asked questions
Story. Questioned by Volodymyr Zelensky, Joe Biden increases military support for kyiv
History of a concept. Siege warfare, a weapon to terrorize civilians
Chronic. “Countries considering falling out with the Western alliance may be inclined to hold fewer reserves”
