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 results of the battles, here are the essentials of the day.
The fact of the day
Russia said Wednesday it had captured a village near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, a battle-ravaged area where the Russian and Ukrainian armies have clashed for more than a year. “Supported by aviation and artillery”, Russian units “liberated the locality of Artiomovskoye”, in the Donetsk region, said the Ministry of Defense in a press release, using the Russian name of the locality of Khromove.
According to satellite images, the village of Khromove, located on the western edge of Bakhmout, consisted of a few streets and dozens of houses before the Russian offensive began. Since the very difficult capture of Bakhmut in May, Russian forces had not made progress in this region, and were even losing ground in recent weeks.
Sentence of the day
The loyalty agreement is an authorization from the authorities of the Russian Federation to allow a foreign citizen to enter Russia and the agreement of a foreign citizen entering Russia to respect established prohibitions. »
The Russian Interior Ministry is working on an obligation for foreigners traveling to Russia to sign a “loyalty agreement” prohibiting them from criticizing Kremlin policies, amid repression of dissident voices since the offensive in Ukraine. According to this document, consulted by TASS, a foreign citizen signing this agreement will not have the right during his stay to “discredit, in any form, the foreign and internal policy of Russia”.
It will also be prohibited to “abuse the right to freedom of information, including by disseminating information intended to denigrate or deny important moral values enshrined in the Constitution”. These “values” not to be criticized concern in particular “the idea of marriage as the union between a man and a woman” (enshrined in the Constitution since 2020).
The number of the day
21. Like the number of drones shot down by the Ukrainian air force during a new series of night strikes. “In total, the strikes involved 21 Shahed-136/131 drones and three Kh-59 missiles,” she said on social media, claiming to have downed all the drones and two of the missiles. In return, Moscow City Hall indicated that a Ukrainian drone had been shot down over the Russian capital.
Today’s trend
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said he had received assurances from his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan that his country would ratify Sweden’s membership in NATO “in a few weeks”, after months of blockage. If Tobias Billström noted this timetable indication from his Turkish counterpart, he was also cautious. “Of course, we never take anything for granted,” he added, during a brief exchange with the press before a ministerial meeting in Brussels.
Still on the diplomatic level, the blockage at the border between Poland and Ukraine by truckers irritates within the EU. The European Commissioner for Transport, Adina Valean, denounced on Wednesday the “lack of involvement” of the Polish authorities in finding a solution, deeming the situation “absolutely unacceptable”. At the end of the afternoon, Poland announced that it would put in place “reinforced controls” for Ukrainian trucks returning to Ukraine, in order to calm the anger of truckers who point to “unfair competition”.