War in Ukraine: Russia intensifies its bombardments, kyiv strikes its drilling platforms – Le Figaro

UPDATE ON THE SITUATION – On the threshold of a week described as “historic” by the Ukrainian president because of the possible obtaining of the official status of candidate to the EU, kyiv accused the Kremlin of intensifying its deadly attacks in ballast. Ukraine on Monday (June 20) accused Russia of further intensifying its deadly bombardments in the East, where its troops are resisting fiercely. Moscow for its part accuses kyiv of having hit drilling platforms in the Black Sea off Crimea, annexed in 2014. To read also Ukraine: the unity of Europe at the challenge of a long war threshold of a week described as “historic” by President Volodymyr Zelensky with a summit in Brussels which could grant kyiv the status of candidate for entry into the European Union, tension has risen sharply, further north, between Russia and Lithuania, which restricted the transit of Russian freight by rail to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Russian threats Russia has denounced a “hostile” act. If transit “is not restored in full, then Russia reserves the right to act to defend its national interests”, threatened the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Kremlin deemed the situation “more than serious”. Moscow did not specify the nature of its threat, but Kaliningrad, the former Prussian city of Königsberg annexed in 1945, which has become a Russian enclave in the European Union, is a strategic bridgehead for the Russians, who have installed missiles there. Iskander ballistic missiles capable of carrying out nuclear strikes in Western Europe, and anchor their military fleet there. Read alsoFrancis Fukuyama: “I don’t think we should bury Russia. The West must not be presumptuous” Lithuania, for its part, a former Soviet republic with strained relations with Moscow, is a member not only of the EU but also of NATO, which positions troops there permanently. The head of European diplomacy said that if the Baltic country applies European sanctions on the transit of certain types of exports, it does not impose any blockade on the Russian enclave. “Transit by land between Russia and Kaliningrad has not been stopped or prohibited,” said Josep Borrell, “the transit of passengers and goods continues. There is no blockade”. On the Ukrainian side, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba wrote on Twitter to “firmly support our Lithuanian friends”. More bombs In this context of tensions, Ukraine has accused the Kremlin of further intensifying its deadly attacks in the East, where its troops are resisting fiercely. The presidency indicated on Monday morning that the Russian bombardments increased in the region of Kharkiv (North-East) and Donetsk (East), where the intensity of the bombardments “is increasing all along the front line”. kyiv reports one dead and seven injured, including a child. In Sieverodonetsk, fighting is still raging, although “the Russians control most of the residential areas”, local administration chief Oleksandr Striouk said. But “if we talk about the whole city, more than a third of the city remains controlled by our armed forces,” he added. This agglomeration is key to having control over the whole of Donbass, the industrial basin in the east of the country partially controlled since 2014 by pro-Russian separatists supported by Moscow. Read alsoIn Kamianske, the last Ukrainian checkpoint before the Russian hell: the story of the special envoy of Le Figaro Serguiï Gaïdaï, the regional governor, confirmed on television the fall of the village of Metolkine, on the south-eastern outskirts of Sieverodonetsk, which the Russian Minister of Defense announced on Sunday the capture. “We are ready”, the Ukrainian army “is holding up” on the eve of a decisive week, President Zelensky said Sunday evening in his daily video address, stressing however that the armed forces had suffered “significant losses” against the firepower of Russian artillery and aviation in the positional war of recent weeks. Oil rigs hit The Russians, for their part, have accused the Ukrainians of having hit the drilling platforms of their gas and oil complex off the coast of Crimea. “This morning the enemy attacked the Chernomorneftegaz drilling platforms. I am in contact with our colleagues from the Ministry of Defense and (from the special services) of the FSB, we are trying to save people, ”said on Telegram the governor installed by Moscow after the annexation in 2014 of the peninsula, Sergei Aksionov. According to him, a total of 109 people were on three platforms and 21 of them in all were evacuated. Read alsoWar in Ukraine: an audio recording of the sinking of the Moskva cruiser revealed It indicates that it was the first platform that was hardest hit: “There were 12 people on it, five of them were injured, the search for others continues. The Ukrainian army has repeatedly struck with cruise missiles fired from the coast of Russian ships in the Black Sea, including the cruiser Moskva (Moscow), flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, sunk in mid-April . SEE ALSO – Russia accuses Ukraine of having fired on drilling platforms at sea Blocking grain exports Russia, however, retains control of this area of ​​the Black Sea, which also has the effect of preventing the export by cargo ships of millions of tons of cereals, of which Ukraine is one of the world’s leading producers. The European Union, through the voice of the head of its diplomacy Josep Borrell, accused Moscow on Monday of committing “a real war crime” by blocking these exports “when the rest of the world’s population suffers from hunger”. Read alsoUkrainian cereals: the Danube and the port of Constanta, alternative routes to the blockade of Odessa “Russia must stop playing with hunger in the world”, also declared the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna. The German government is organizing an international conference in Berlin on Friday on the food crisis linked to this war, in the presence in particular of the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken, the German executive announced on Monday. Leaving the “Russian world” This war could last “for years”, said Sunday in the German daily Bild the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, calling on Western countries to support kyiv over time. Switzerland, which is hosting the first Ukraine reconstruction conference on July 4 and 5, expects a “long and complex” reconstruction, which will have to be accompanied by reforms. “The war is still going on, but we also know that the time will come for a reconstruction which will be long and complex,” declared Swiss President Ignazio Cassis, during the presentation of the Lugano conference. Finally, in the midst of the Russian invasion and on the eve of the EU summit which must decide whether or not to grant him candidate status, the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, ratified on Monday the Istanbul Convention, the first international treaty to be fixed legally binding standards to address gender-based violence. “A historic event that will bring us into the EU even faster,” applauded Oleksandr Korniyenko, first vice-president of the Rada, on Twitter. To read alsoNicolas Baverez: “Ukraine facing the divisions of the West” “President Volodymyr Zelensky and all the deputies who voted in favor of ratification have cut yet another rope that had anchored Ukraine to the Russian world”” , welcomed for his part Serguiï Kyslytsya, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN. SEE ALSO – Chechen fighters join the Ukrainian army to fight Russia