Did you miss the latest events on the tensions 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:
news of the day
The Ukrainian president spoke, by videoconference, before the American Congress. The elected officials first gave him a particularly warm welcome, with a standing ovation, and the President of the House of Representatives launched a “Slava Ukraina” (“Glory to Ukraine”). Volodymyr Zelensky used this moment to once again call on the West to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine, but he mostly sought to concern US officials by evoking their own national narrative.
While showing a video of the bombings on kyiv, the former actor drew several parallels between the war in Ukraine and the most traumatic events in American history. “In your great history, you have pages that allow you to understand Ukrainians,” he said. “Remember Pearl Harbor, that terrible morning of December 7, 1941, when your sky was darkened by the planes attacking you”, “remember September 11, that terrible day in 2001”, he said. added. “This terror, Europe has not experienced it for eighty years”, he hammered, before launching: “to be the leader of the world is to be the leader of peace” at the attention of Joe Biden.
sentence of the day
“The operation is proceeding successfully, in strict accordance with pre-established plans. »
Vladimir Putin affirmed, in remarks broadcast on Russian television, that his military operation was a success, while ensuring that he did not want to occupy Ukraine. The head of the Kremlin took the opportunity to castigate the “odious” attitude of Westerners. “Parallels are obvious with the anti-Semitic pogroms”, denounces the Russian president, while explaining that the Western economic “Blitzkrieg” against Russia has failed.
The number of the day
100. According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, the bar of 100 children who have died since the start of the Russian invasion has been crossed, a “tragic and bloody line”. A terrible episode also marked the day: ten people queuing in the middle of the street in Cherniguiv for bread were killed by Russian fire, according to the prosecution.
The trend of the day
Even if the fighting and the bombardments continue, particularly affecting civilians, the diplomatic channel seems to remain open. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, thus indicated in the morning that the option of Ukraine’s neutrality on the Swedish or Austrian model was “currently being discussed” and constituted a possible “compromise”. The Ukrainian negotiators, however, rejected this possibility, indicating that their country being in a “state of direct war”, “the model can only be Ukrainian”. kyiv has also emphasized “absolute security guarantees” against Moscow.
But in the absence of a ceasefire, the outcome of these discussions seems unlikely. The differences between the official discourse of Moscow, always tougher in its repression of public opinion with more than 15 news sites suspended in one day, and the calls of President Zelensky are difficult to reconcile. In addition to the Chernigiv deaths, the Ukrainian military said a convoy of civilians leaving Mariupol had been targeted by Grad rocket launchers. “According to an initial assessment, there are deaths,” she added. At the start of the evening, the town hall of Mariupol announced that a theater housing “hundreds” of civilians had been hit by a Russian air strike.