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.
The fact of the day
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Friday that he had transferred the first nuclear weapons to Belarus, concretizing the deployment announced in March by Moscow. “The first nuclear warheads were delivered to the territory of Belarus. These are only the first, by the end of the summer, the end of the year, we will completely, fully complete this work,” he said at an economic forum in St. Petersburg ( northwest), broadcast live on Russian television.
He recalled that the “deployment of tactical nuclear weapons” in Belarus was the result of an agreement announced in March with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who lent his country’s territory to Russia to attack Ukraine. According to him, it is a deterrent to “those who think of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia”.
sentence of the day
The tanks are burning. So will the F-16s.”
This is a warning from Vladimir Putin. The Russian president believes that these devices, if delivered by NATO, “will burn”. Last month, the United States, which has long refused to deliver fighter jets to avoid an escalation of the conflict, gave the green light to authorize the delivery of F-16s that Kiev had tirelessly demanded. The delivery schedule of these American-made aircraft and their number are not fixed at this stage.
The number of the day
12. This is the number of Russian missiles that Ukraine claimed to have shot down on Friday. According to the Ukrainian Air Force on Telegram, its forces destroyed six Kinjal hypersonic missiles, six Kalibr cruise missiles and two reconnaissance drones. This attack, which targeted the capital kyiv, occurred during a visit by a delegation of African leaders.
The trend of the day
For the first time, the Russian army half-heartedly admits having ceded territories. Moscow acknowledged on Friday that fighting was underway for control of the localities of Rivnopil and Ourojaine, on the southern front in Ukraine. “In the area of the Vremivka salient, the most active fighting is taking place in the districts of the localities of Rivnopil and Urozhaine,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday, claiming to have repelled five attacks there in the past 24 hours, with the help of its air force and its artillery.
The fact that fighting is taking place for these towns means that the Russian lines have retreated a few kilometers to the south and to the east around this exposed area of Vremivka, on the border of the Zaporozhye and Donetsk regions, partially occupied by Russia.
The Ukrainian army has once again indicated that it is advancing, despite the “powerful resistance” of Russian troops. The Vremivka area is however located more than ten kilometers north of the main Russian fortified lines, made in particular of trenches and anti-tank traps.