Did you miss the latest events on the war in Ukraine? 20 minutes takes stock for you every evening at 7:30 p.m. Between the strong declarations, the advances on the front and the results of the battles, here are the main points of the day.
The fact of the day
This is the third air attack on the capital in five days. Ten people were injured this Monday by debris from Russian missiles shot down in kyiv. The bombing was observed around 9:30 a.m. Emergency services released photos of seriously damaged buildings, as well as a crater near a house.
“The enemy launched two ballistic missiles from the territory of temporarily occupied Crimea. The two enemy missiles were destroyed” by air defense, said the head of the Kiev military administration, Sergiï Popko, on social networks.
At the same time, a 65-year-old man was killed by artillery fire against the village of Vovchansk, in the Kharkiv region (north-east). Eleven people were also injured in a nighttime Russian drone attack in the southern regions of Mykolaiv and Odessa.
Russia has increased bombings of its neighbor in recent weeks, particularly targeting energy infrastructure, in retaliation for Ukrainian attacks on its border regions.
Today’s statement
“ I felt it was absurd to discuss this subject without evidence being provided. » »
Sergei Andreyev, Russian Ambassador to Poland, explains why he did not attend the official convocation of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday. The government of Poland wanted an explanation after the violation of Polish airspace by a Russian cruise missile on Sunday. The device, which had apparently been launched against towns located in western Ukraine, had flown over part of Poland for around forty seconds. He had been spotted by military radars.
Sergei Andreyev said he had “not received a clear answer” to his question whether Poland “intends to provide us with evidence of these allegations”. “We wonder whether the ambassador is (thus) following the instructions of the Foreign Ministry in Moscow and whether he is able to correctly represent the interests of the Russian Federation in Warsaw,” the ministry spokesperson said. Polish Pawel Wronski.
The number of the day
Billions “. This is the assessment, for the moment very imprecise, of the amount of damage inflicted on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure last week after the “biggest attack” by Russia against this network since the start of the invasion.
On Friday, heavy Russian strikes on the Ukrainian energy network led to large-scale power cuts, plunging the country’s second city, Kharkiv, into darkness. “The real figures will only be known after the (final) assessment of the damage, but I think they are in the billions, that’s for sure,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Gerashchenko said without comment. specify what currency he was talking about.
In mid-February, the World Bank, the UN and the European Union estimated Ukraine’s needs for recovery and reconstruction after two years of conflict at $486 billion.
Russian forces “continue these attacks every day,” deplored German Gerashchenko, referring to the latest strikes which targeted the Odessa region during the night from Sunday to Monday. In the winter of 2022-2023, Russia had already carried out a strategy of massive attacks against the Ukrainian energy system, plunging millions of Ukrainians into darkness and cold.
The trend
The Kremlin timidly commented on Monday on the claim of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) for the attack near Moscow, which left at least 137 dead on Friday, contenting itself with arguing that the attack had been committed by “Islamists radicals.” On the other hand, Vladimir Putin once again insisted that the attackers had been arrested while they were “heading towards Ukraine”. “It is important to answer the question why the terrorists, after their crime, tried to leave for Ukraine? Who was waiting for them there? “, declared the Russian president during a government meeting.
Should we see in this reference to Ukraine a risk of reprisals against the country already in the grip of war? This is the big question that all observers are asking themselves. “The Ukrainian authorities have every reason to fear an acceleration of the offensive and a form of legitimization of an intensification of bombings on Ukrainian cities and their infrastructure,” considers Anne Le Huérou, lecturer at Paris Nanterre University. and specialist in Russia.
“There is an instrumentalization (of the attack) because Vladimir Putin’s obsession is Ukraine,” underlines Sylvie Bermann, a former French ambassador to Russia. “Putin is in his war logic and the Ukrainians are responsible for everything,” she adds, without however commenting on the possibility that Moscow could intensify the conflict on this occasion. Ukraine has fiercely denied having any “link with the incident”.