Last-minute of the war in Ukraine, live | Mariupol manages
The port city exhausts the Russian ultimatum with no signs of surrender | The president of the European Council believes that "sooner or later" the sanctions will also affect Russian oil and gas.
The port city of Mariupol is not giving up. The Ukrainians who resist in the town have exhausted the new ultimatum launched this Wednesday by Russia, the second in a week. The Ukrainian authorities today announced the agreement to evacuate some 6,000 civilians from the city. The Donetsk regional governor, Pavlo Kirilenko, has reported without specifying figures that the number of evacuees has been lower than expected. Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced a new intercontinental missile system "unique in the world for a long time" and that will give food for thought to those who "in the heart of frenetic and aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten Russia". German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has announced that the country will stop importing Russian oil by the end of the year. "We will cut the oil in half by the summer and be at zero by the end of the year, and then gas will follow," she explained. Along the same lines, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, has expressed in Kyiv his conviction that "sooner or later" the sanctions of the European Union will also affect Russian oil and gas. He has been at a joint press conference with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky as part of the surprise visit. More than five million people have left Ukraine since the beginning of the war, according to the latest balance published by UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency.
- Canada will provide heavy artillery to Ukraine to fight Russia
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed on Wednesday that Canada will provide Ukraine with heavy artillery to respond to the Russian offensive in the east of the country, although he did not offer details of when the delivery of the military material will take place. During a press conference, the Canadian president said that the decision comes after the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, requested this specific material from Ottawa. The Canadian prime minister added that he has to be careful with the information but that he is confident that in the coming days he will be able to provide more details "about what is being sent and what has already been sent." (Eph)
Russia controls 80% of the territory in Lugansk, according to the head of the regional military administration
Serhiy Gaidai, head of the Lugansk military administration, has said in an update posted on his official Facebook account that 80% of the territory of that city is under Russian control. "The fighting continues," Gaidai said, adding that morgues and hospitals in the temporarily occupied territories are overcrowded. "The land of Luhansk is littered with the corpses of enemies," he concluded.
- The G7 expects to give economic support to Ukraine of 24,000 million
The G7 finance ministers said they have provided and pledged together with the international community additional support to Ukraine over $24 billion by 2022, adding that they were prepared to do more as needed. In a statement, the ministers said they regretted Russia's participation in international forums, including meetings of the G20, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank that took place this week. "International organizations and multilateral forums should no longer conduct business with Russia as usual," the ministers said. (Reuters)
- The US retracts the claim Ukraine had received planes
The US Department of Defense has retracted the claim that Ukraine had received more planes to bolster the Air Force, saying instead that parts had only been delivered to allow Kyiv to field more planes in the fight against Russia. . Pentagon spokesman John Kirby retracted his statement on Tuesday. "I was wrong. They have not received complete aircraft from another nation," the spokesman told reporters on Wednesday. have been able to put more fixed-wing aircraft into operation in their fleet than two or three weeks ago,” he added.
The EU and the United States boycott a meeting of the G20 due to the presence of Russia
The heads of Finance of the European Union (EU), the United States, France, and Canada, among other countries, left a G20 meeting on Wednesday in protest at the presence of Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, US sources told the Efe agency. , Community and French. The representatives left the hybrid meeting in Washington just as Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov began speaking.
The European Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, the US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, the French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, and the head of the same portfolio in Canada, Chrystia Freeland, are among the leaders who came out of the room where the meeting was held. Others who were connected virtually turned off their computer cameras as a sign of repudiation of Russia.
- The US sanctions the Russian bank Transkapitalbank and a network of oligarchs
The US Treasury announced on Wednesday sanctions against the Russian bank Transkapitalbank and a network around the oligarch Konstantin Malofeev that would have served to circumvent the sanctions imposed on Moscow. The measures against Transkapitalbank are intended to prevent this private establishment from accessing global financial networks by prohibiting US institutions and individuals, or those with activities in the United States, from transacting with that bank.
According to the Treasury, the bank has established its own online financial transfer system and offers access to banks in China, the Middle East, and elsewhere, to allow payments in US dollars to bypass the global SWIFT system and bypass the US banking system. Transkapitalbank's system could allow other institutions to bypass US sanctions on Russia, which have been tightened since the Russian military invaded Ukraine.
The Treasury has also blacklisted a network of some 40 individuals (including Malofeev) and entities accused of facilitating sanctions circumvention, as well as several Russian companies involved in cryptocurrency mining. According to the Treasury, Malofeev has long supported separatists in Ukraine on behalf of the Russian government and has sabotaged stability and democracy in several countries. The US State Department, for its part, banned the issuance of visas for more than 650 people, mostly Russians, but also Belarusians and Ukrainian separatists. (France Presse)
- Johnson: Negotiating with Putin is like negotiating with a crocodile
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he wants more territory in Ukraine and that he may well attempt a new assault on the capital, Kyiv, and has warned of the difficulty negotiating peace with a leader "manifestly lacking in good faith". "The difficulty that the Ukrainians face is how to negotiate with a crocodile that has your leg in its jaws," he said. Johnson has also indicated that the best Western countries can do is continue to arm Ukraine. The British Prime Minister made these statements on a plane to India, where he will carry out a two-day official visit in which, among other things, he intends to discuss oil purchases with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Russia that New Delhi has done (at a discount) since the beginning of the invasion. (Reuters).
- The Kyiv Symphony Orchestra reunites for a European tour
The musicians who make up the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra are going to give concerts again. His European tour Voice of Ukraine will start this Thursday in Warsaw (Poland). "Ukrainian musicians must become the voice of Ukraine and the voice of those Ukrainians who, due to Russia's military aggression, no longer have it. For all of them, we have to protect and spread Ukrainian culture," says a statement from the orchestra.
As reported by The Guardian citing AFP, some of the symphony musicians fled their country as refugees and others remained in it after the start of the Russian attack and have been practicing in bomb shelters. The program they will perform will focus on Ukrainian works, from 1770 to the 20th century. Authors such as Maksym Berezovsky or Borys Lyatoshynsky will be included in the repertoire and international Ukrainian violinists Diana Tishchenko and Oleksii Semenenko will perform together with Myroslav Skoryk's Melodie orchestra. After Warsaw, the tour will continue in other cities, such as Lodz, Berlin, Hamburg, or Dresden. (THE COUNTRY)
- Podolak and Arajamía offer to go personally to Mariupol to negotiate the future of the city's defenders
Ukraine's chief negotiator in its peace talks with Russia, Mikhailo Podoliak, has personally offered to participate in a "special round of negotiations" to discuss the future of the Ukrainians who are besieged in Mariupol. As announced this Wednesday on his Twitter account, Podoliak is willing to participate "without any conditions", "one by one or two by two" in the port city, "to save our boys, Azov, military, civilians, the living and the wounded, all of them, because they are ours". Another negotiator, David Arajamía, has indicated his intention to go with him, has indicated that the proposal has been sent to Moscow and that they are awaiting a response.
This Wednesday, an attempt to rescue 6,000 civilians from Mariupol has been frustrated, according to Ukraine, by the lack of buses and the Russian lack of control over the ceasefire. The result has been that the number of evacuees has been "much lower than expected." According to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, there are about a thousand civilian refugees in the Azovstal steel plant, where the last Ukrainian units in the city are resisting. Moscow has stated this Wednesday that no one has used the corridor enabled for the resisters to surrender or, if there are civilians, to seek refuge.
