Did you miss the latest events on the war in Ukraine? Don’t 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
Russia claims to have repelled a Ukrainian offensive on Thursday in the Soledar sector, near Bakhmout, on a line “over 95 kilometers long. Ukrainian army units carried out 26 attacks involving more than 1,000 soldiers and up to 40 tanks,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. That is an average of ten men per kilometer, which seems very low for a counter-offensive…
sentence of the day
There was simply an escape of the units of the Ministry of Defense on the flanks”
These are the words of Yevgeny Prigojine. The boss of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner has accused Russian regular troops of “fleeing” their positions near Bakhmout in Ukraine, where Kiev has claimed a breakthrough, saying the defenses are “collapsed” and the Russian general staff ” waters down” the situation. “Attempts by the Ministry of Defense in the informational field to sugarcoat the situation are leading and will lead to a global tragedy for Russia,” he said. During the day, kyiv claimed a two-kilometre advance around Bakhmout.
The number of the day
92. This is, in millions of euros, the amount of new aid released by the Belgian government to Ukraine. Half of the funds allocated will be in the form of armored vehicles, weapons, ammunition, with first deliveries planned “very quickly”, he said in a press release. The other half is intended for the civilian population, for humanitarian aid provided in major cities in coordination with the UN, and for the “consolidation” of the Belgian diplomatic presence in the region, with two posts open in Moldova and in Armenia.
To finance this aid, Belgium will draw from the taxes levied on frozen Russian assets, a windfall which has totaled 625 million euros since the start of the war.
The trend of the day
Eurovision will take place without Volodymyr Zelensky. While the competition, which Ukraine should have organized this year, will take place in Liverpool, the Ukrainian president was to speak there by video message. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), organization of broadcasters which oversees the competition, finally rejected its request on Thursday evening in the name of “the non-political nature of the event”: “This principle prohibits political or similar statements during the contest,” EBU said in a statement.
This decision sparked a controversy, while Russia has been excluded from the competition since last year. “The values and freedoms for which President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people are fighting for in Ukraine are not political, but fundamental”, regretted a spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, saying that the government was “disappointed” by this decision .