In the press - Three months of war in Ukraine: "A country turned into a field of ruins"

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On the front page of the press, the three months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where martial law and general mobilization have been extended by three months.

“Three months of horror, a country turned into a field of ruins: this is what Ukraine has been reduced to since the Russian invasion”.

notes that "Putin's armies have failed to carry out their lightning offensive but (that) they continue to pound every square centimeter, annihilating entire cities".

In an interview with the Belgian daily, Gary Kasparov, chess legend and inflexible opponent of the Kremlin, wants to be optimistic despite everything: “For the first time, the weakness of the regime is coming to light.

History has shown that dictatorships do not survive military defeats.

A final victory for Ukraine, which seems possible, could represent a mortal blow for Putin”.

If the conflict in Ukraine seems hopeless, some are already thinking about its reconstruction.

Yesterday the Ukrainian president urged Davos leaders to help fund the reconstruction of the

Ukraine after the war and to use frozen Russian assets to compensate the victims.

According to Volodymyr Zelensky, quoted by

, rebuilding Ukraine is expected to cost more than $500 billion.

In the Russia of Vladimir Poutine, the power continues to speak about “special military operation” in Ukraine.

According to the opposition daily

, banned from entering Russia, mothers of conscripts who disappeared last month in the sinking of the cruiser Moskva - officially one dead and 27 missing - were offered to admit that their sons were "deceased as a result of the disaster", the very term "special operation" being refused to them.

These mothers report declarations to be signed, in exchange for the promise of receiving 7 million rubles, around 100,000 euros.

Also on the front page, yesterday's statement by Joe Biden,

who assured that the United States will intervene militarily if Beijing seizes Taiwan by force.

This statement, to say the least martial, obviously provokes the fury of the Chinese regime, which promises to "react firmly to Biden's remarks on Taiwan" - "dangerous remarks, the purpose of which (would be) to empty the principle of one China of its substance" , according to

– in reference to the principle that Taiwan is not a state but the 23rd province of the People's Republic of China.

“After years of “strategic ambiguity”, it was high time to find out if the United States would defend the island against an attack” from Beijing, welcomes the American news agency

.

End of “strategic ambiguity”, really?

, which indicates that the White House immediately said that Joe Biden "did not mean to suggest a policy change", is more nuanced: "The president is a master of verbal confusion, and no one can be sure of the current policy of the United States” vis-à-vis Taiwan”.

The daily especially regrets that the new American economic partnership in Asia-Pacific, launched yesterday by Joe Biden, to counter the influence of China, does not include Taiwan.

"An exclusion that makes no sense at a time when the United States is trying to prove its commitment to the region," according to the American daily.

In France, an eventful return to school for the new government of Elisabeth Borne, faced, among other things, with the crisis in hospitals.

reports a "very degraded" situation, to the point that 120 services can no longer ensure continuous reception of patients, for lack of staff.

"The situation is catastrophic, it's a first to get there", alarms a member of the SAMU-Urgences de France union, who alerted the new Minister of Health, Brigitte Bourguignon, to the "health disaster" to come this summer, if nothing is done.

Faced with a myriad of hot issues, the new government must also resort to crisis communication, after the accusations of rape against the new Minister of Solidarity, Damien Abad.

judges the position of the executive “untenable”.

“The task of the government is such, the stakes of the moment so important to rebuild the hospital, to rebuild the school, to rebuild society, that this new team cannot start with soles of lead.

Damien Abad is entitled to the presumption of innocence, but he hovers above his person, a doubt which should not have been ignored, ”said the newspaper.

“Living what I'm going through is very difficult and frankly it's all really low.

It is so unfair",

responds the minister in

, who recalls that Damien Abad refuses to resign and disputes "with the greatest force" these accusations, and invokes his disability as proof of his inability to impose any constraint.

A final word on the latest episode of “Partygate”.

While senior civil servant Sue Gray's report on the case is expected in the coming days, the British press published an embarrassing new photo this morning of Boris Johnson, a snapshot taken during a leaving party in the middle of the second confinement showing him raising his glass with a group of people around a table covered in bottles.

Boris Johnson's position also seems increasingly untenable.

“I will be lucky, if I manage to get out of it”, reacts the Prime Minister in the drawing of Ben Jennings, for

, to the announcement of the imminent publication of the Sue Gray report, which should allow a new investigation, parliamentary, this time, to begin.

“Me too”, “Me too”, replies one of her compatriots, faced with the explosion in the cost of living.

Find the Press Review every morning on France 24 (Monday to Friday, at 7:20 a.m. and 9:20 a.m. Paris time).

Also follow the Revue des Hebdos every weekend in multicast.

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