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 dramatic results of the fighting, here is the gist of the day.
The fact of the day
Russia accused Ukraine on Friday of targeting a nuclear power plant in the Russian border region of Kursk the day before using drones. “On the evening of 10/26/2023, an attack by three enemy drones on the Kursk nuclear power plant was stopped. This event did not affect the operation of the plant,” the site operator said on Telegram. “The background radiation at the Kursk power plant and in the area where it is located is at the level of natural values,” continued the operator, specifying that the attack caused “neither casualties nor damage”.
The number of the day
15%. This is the new key rate of the Russian Central Bank (BCR) after the announcement this Friday of a fourth increase in just over three months. For comparison, the European Central Bank rates are between 4% and 4.75%. “It is necessary to further tighten monetary policy”, justified the BCR, with the aim of “bringing back” inflation, currently at +6%, towards “the objective […] by 4% in 2024. This new increase also aims to counter the weakening of the ruble. On Friday, it took 92.6 rubles to get a dollar and 97.8 to a euro, levels almost as low as those of March 2022, after the launch of the Russian assault on Ukraine.
Sentence of the day
What I ask […] is that, in the situation we are in with Russia, we do not use these bilateral contacts to negotiate things […] which would weaken our unity. »
Emmanuel Macron indicated on Friday from Brussels that he did not intend to “judge” the meeting between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin. But he was not enthusiastic about it, fearing that this would weaken the European Union in its support for Ukraine.
Today’s trend
Russian justice is increasingly repressive towards opponents. The Russian prosecutor’s office will in fact request three years in prison on appeal against the dissident Oleg Orlov, his organization, the NGO Memorial, said on Friday. However, this same prosecution only requested a fine of 250,000 rubles at first instance, with Oleg Orlov ultimately ordered to pay 150,000 rubles (around 1,400 euros). A (relative) leniency which was surprising and which the prosecution had justified by the age of the opponent, 70, and his state of health.
But the prosecution finally appealed this sanction and is now demanding “three years in prison”, announced Memorial, an NGO co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. In its new requisition, it justifies this change of position by supporting that the sanction was “excessively light” and did not correspond to the “public danger” that the accused represented.
Oleg Orlov is accused of having demonstrated against the Russian offensive in Ukraine and of having signed a vitriolic column against the Russian authorities entitled “They wanted fascism, they got it”, published by Mediapart. A biologist by training, Oleg Orlov joined the Memorial association from its creation at the end of the 1980s, which became a pillar of the quest for truth about the crimes of the USSR and the defense of human rights in post-Russia. -Soviet.