Did you miss the latest developments on the war in Ukraine? 20 minutes gives you an update every evening. Between strong statements, advances on the front and the results of the fighting, here is the essential news from this Sunday, July 21.
Today’s news
Russia said on Sunday it had scrambled fighter jets to prevent two US strategic bombers from crossing its border over the Barents Sea in the Arctic. “Russian fighter crews identified the air target as two US Air Force B-52H strategic bombers,” it added.
“As the Russian fighters approached, the American strategic bombers corrected their flight path, moving away from and then away from the Russian border,” he added. The US military regularly conducts flights over international waters, operations it says are conducted in neutral airspace and in accordance with international law.
The number of the day
2. The Russian army claimed Sunday the capture of two small towns in eastern Ukraine, continuing to gain ground in parts of the front despite heavy losses, facing fewer Ukrainian forces.
“Units of the Western Group have liberated the settlements of Rozovka (Andriyevka in Ukrainian) and Peschanoe Nizhnye (Pishchane in Ukrainian),” the Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily report. These small settlements, very sparsely populated before the large-scale Russian attack in February 2022, are located respectively in the Lugansk and Kharkiv regions, about fifteen kilometers from each other.
Quote of the day
” Concrete solutions, based on the existing possibilities for changing the situation, were proposed by the Belarusian side. »
Belarus and Germany are holding talks on the fate of a German national accused of “terrorism” and “mercenarism” and sentenced to death by a Belarusian court, a spokesman for the country’s diplomacy said on Saturday. On X, the spokesman for Minsk’s diplomacy, Anatoly Glaz, indicated that “consultations are being held on this subject” between the diplomacies of the two countries.
The mystery of the day
An unknown person has decapitated a bust of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in a park near Moscow with a sledgehammer, Russian media and police sources reported on Sunday. “On Saturday, in a park in Zvenigorod, a man in an abnormal state cut off the head of a bust of Stalin with a sledgehammer,” an unnamed police source told the Ria Novosti news agency.
Our file on the war in Ukraine
The press service of the Moscow region police told Ria Novosti that the suspect was on the run and was being sought by law enforcement. A Telegram channel covering local news posted a video showing the alleged perpetrator approaching a monument with a blunt object and striking it hard. Laughter and shouts in Russian can be heard in the video, although they are not clearly understood.