Did you miss the latest events on the war in Ukraine? 20 minutes takes stock for you every evening. 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
Vladimir Putin did not pull any punches to fire Sergei Shoigu, his Minister of Defense, although he had been in office since 2012. The person concerned was dismissed on Sunday evening during a surprise in-depth reshuffle. From there to holding him responsible for the Russian military failure in Ukraine?
Sergei Shoigu was replaced by Andreï Beloussov, an economist who has never worked in the defense sector. Considering his profile, he should not have the upper hand over military decisions but he will be the manager of the colossal budget of the armies, in particular investments in the military industry, and the guarantor of the good treatment of veterans and the wounded .
According to analysts, this appointment shows that Vladimir Putin is preparing for a long confrontation in Ukraine and banking on the war economy to win. Vision shared by the secretary of the Ukrainian Security Council. “This suggests that Putin is planning a war for a long time to come. A war not only against Ukraine but also against the West as a whole, a war against NATO,” he said in an interview with AFP.
Sentence of the day
“ Currently, the enemy is experiencing tactical successes. » »
On Monday, the Ukrainian General Staff acknowledged in a statement published on Facebook that Russian soldiers had advanced in the Kharkiv region, where “more than thirty villages” were “hit by enemy artillery and mortar fire” . Nearly 6,000 residents have been evacuated from these areas since the fighting began. Around 1,600 other people were also expected to leave this Monday, despite a “fairly complicated situation”.
Russian forces have crossed the border since Friday to carry out an offensive in the directions of Lyptsi and Vovtchansk, two localities located respectively around twenty and around fifty kilometers northeast of Kharkiv, the country’s second city. In the first, Russian soldiers managed to occupy a strip of approximately 70 km². And another of 34 km2 in the second.
“About 50,000 [soldats russes] were at the border. Now there are well over 30,000 attacking” in the region since Friday, estimated the secretary of the Ukrainian Security Council.
The number of the day
4. Four people were killed in a strike on the town of Krasnodon, in the occupied Ukrainian region of Luhansk (east). Three others were injured, Russian authorities said, blaming the strike on the Ukrainian army.
Today’s trend
A former employee of Russian tech gem Yandex has been arrested for “high treason”. An investigation has been opened. The Russian security services (FSB) suspect him of having financed the activities of the Ukrainian armed forces. In other words, he would have “made a transfer of his own financial means to the account of a foundation registered in Ukraine” so that it could “acquire armored vehicles, ammunition, equipment and medicines” intended for the Ukrainian army, says the FSB press release.
Furthermore, the Russian security services also announced Monday that five “Ukrainian special service agents” had been sentenced to sentences ranging from 11 to 16 years in prison for espionage in Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.