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
The Russian security services (FSB) said Thursday they had killed a Ukrainian spy during an attempted arrest in Russia. According to the FSB, this Russian citizen was to commit a “terrorist act planned by the Ukrainian special services in the Tver region”, located 180 kilometers northwest of Moscow. This man is accused of having transmitted information to Ukraine on “military installations and energy infrastructure in the region” and planned to detonate a homemade bomb in a building of the military commissariat in the city of Tver, according to the same source. “The author put up armed resistance during his arrest and was neutralized,” added the FSB, which said it had seized “a ready-to-use improvised explosive device and a grenade” from his home.
The number of the day
70%. This is the increase in Russian military spending planned for the 2024 budget. The latter was approved this Thursday at first reading by the deputies. In the Duma, the lower house of Parliament, 320 deputies voted in favor and 80 voted against, after brief presentations and without real debate. The government has not hidden its intentions: the budget for 2024 “is aimed at our main goal: ensuring our victory,” Finance Minister Anton Silouanov declared Thursday to MPs before the vote. “Everything for the front, everything for victory!” », Launched for his part Leonid Sloutski, president of the ultranationalist LDPR party and of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Duma.
Sentence of the day
We consider aid to Ukraine only as humanitarian and civil aid, we will no longer supply weapons to Ukraine. »
kyiv expected it but the announcement still remains painful. The new Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, reputedly pro-Russian, announced on Thursday the cessation of arms deliveries to Ukraine. “The war in Ukraine is not ours, we have nothing to do with this war,” he added. According to him, “an immediate cessation of military operations is the best solution for Ukraine. The EU should move from being an arms supplier to a peacemaker. »
Today’s trend
Ukrainian authorities on Thursday ordered the evacuation of children from ten communities located near the city of Kupiansk, in the northeast of the country. In total, some 275 minors will be affected by this measure, including in Kupiansk itself, a town which had some 25,000 inhabitants before the war, said the Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration of Occupied Territories.
The Ukrainian authorities had already carried out the first evacuations of civilians around Kupiansk in August, faced with the advance of Moscow’s forces, whose positions are around ten kilometers from the city. If the Russian army has so far not made a breakthrough in this sector, its troops are on the initiative there, as near Avdiïvka further to the South, which they have been trying to encircle for several weeks, in price of heavy losses according to observers. The head of the military administration of Avdiïvka, Vitaly Barabach, once again reported on Thursday a “not easy situation” with Russian strikes “24 hours a day” on Ukrainian positions and the city.