Did you miss the latest events on the war in Ukraine? Do not 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
Volodymyr Zelensky recognizes it: the Ukrainian counter-offensive is slipping. According to him, it is because of Russia’s air superiority. “If we are not in the sky and Russia is, they are stopping us from the sky. They are stopping our counter-offensive,” the Ukrainian president declared at a conference in kyiv. He denounced “processes which are becoming more complicated and slower, when it comes to sanctions or the supply of weapons” from the West. “The war is slowing down, we recognize this fact,” he said.
The Ukrainian president once again stressed that if the West delivered long-range munitions more quickly, which make it possible to pound Russian defenses, rears and logistics, the Ukrainian army would also advance more quickly. “A specific weapon has a specific impact. The more powerful and long-range it is, the faster the counter-offensive will go,” he stressed.
The number of the day
1. Like the number of deaths after a new bombing on Kryvyï Rig, hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky, targeting an administrative building. According to the emergency services, 44 other people were injured, three of whom are in serious condition. According to the Ukrainian police, a police officer was killed and nine of his colleagues were among the injured. Three civilians were killed and four injured by a bomb dropped from a plane on Odradokamianka, in the southern region of Kherson, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko also indicated on Telegram.
sentence of the day
He killed Prigozhin”
It’s a heavy accusation, though not surprising. Ukrainian President accused Vladimir Putin of killing Yevgeny Prigojine. “He killed Prigozhin, at least this is information that we all have, we have no other information,” Volodymyr Zelensky said at a conference in Kiev.
The leader of the Russian mercenary group Wagner died in August in a plane crash on a flight between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, a few months after an attempted mutiny.
The trend of the day
Finally transparency on the salaries of civil servants in Ukraine? In a context of corruption scandals, which led the powerful Minister of Defense Oleksiï Reznikov to leave his post and a former ally of Volodymyr Zelensky to face justice, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have signed a petition posted online to demand transparency regarding civil servants’ asset declarations. “At present, hiding these statements from Ukrainians amounts to covering up the widespread corruption in the country,” reads the text published Wednesday.
Posted online on the presidency website dedicated to citizen initiatives, it received more than 83,000 votes, far more than the 25,000 needed for Head of State Volodymyr Zelensky to respond. He is asked to send a bill back to parliament, thanks to his right of veto. Adopted on Tuesday by deputies at second reading, this amendment is supposed to restore the obligation for civil servants to declare their assets, but it maintains secrecy for an additional year. “Citizens and journalists have been deprived of a tool for controlling the decisions of state agents which remains the main guarantee against corruption,” the petition states. According to a survey published at the end of July by the kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), 89% of Ukrainians consider corruption to be a serious problem.