War in Ukraine: on the 118th day, the deadly bombardments intensify

Europe 1 with AFP 06:38, June 21, 2022

THE ESSENTIAL

Ukraine on Monday accused Russia of further stepping up its deadly bombardment in the east, where its troops are fiercely resisting, and according to Moscow, hit back at oil rigs in the Black Sea off Crimea (south) , annexed in 2014. In eastern Ukraine, several towns are preparing for an advance by Russian troops.

"The front has come closer in recent weeks, up to 15-20 kilometers", explained to AFP Vadym Lyakh, mayor of Sloviansk, in the oblast of Donetsk, who hopes that "the new weapons which our army has need will come soon".

Information to remember:

• Ukraine accuses Russia of stepping up bombing

• Russia accuses Ukrainians of hitting three oil rigs

• The 27 EU countries are to debate this week whether to grant Ukraine and Moldova candidate status to join the Union

• The Russian editor of the independent investigative newspaper 

  Novaya Gazeta,

   Dmitry Muratov, auctioned his Nobel Peace Prize medal on Monday

In the village square, the distant sound of artillery was already audible, according to AFP journalists on the spot.

"So far, everything is fine here, but it's very hard psychologically when you see on television what is happening in other cities," added Svitlana, 48, a butcher at the market in Kramatorsk, another city. which could soon become a hot spot of fighting as Moscow's troops advance from the north.

Russian shelling increases in Kharkiv region

The Ukrainian presidency said on Monday that the Russian bombardments were increasing in the region of Kharkiv (northeast), the second city of the country, which has resisted pressure from Russian forces since the start of the offensive on February 24.

In the Donetsk region (east), the intensity of the shelling "is increasing all along the front line", added the presidency, reporting one dead and seven injured including a child.

In Severodonetsk, "the Russians control most of the residential areas", but "more than a third of the city remains controlled by our armed forces", according to the head of the local administration, Oleksandr Striouk.

Fighting is raging around this key agglomeration to control the whole of Donbass, an industrial basin in eastern Ukraine partially controlled since 2014 by pro-Russian separatists supported by Moscow.

Serguiï Gaïdaï, the regional governor, confirmed the fall of the village of Metolkine, on the south-eastern outskirts of Severodonetsk, announced the day before by the Kremelin.

Russians accuse Ukrainians of hitting three oil rigs

In an initial Kremlin comment on the two Americans captured in Ukraine while fighting with kyiv's armed forces, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that the pair must "be held accountable for the crimes they committed. ", without giving details of these crimes.

The Russians accused the Ukrainians of hitting three drilling rigs at their oil and gas complex off the coast of Crimea on Monday morning, leaving three injured and seven missing, according to the governor installed by Moscow after the 2014 annexation of the peninsula. , Sergei Aksionov.

According to him, 94 people were evacuated.

The Ukrainian army has already struck several times, with cruise missiles fired from the coast, Russian ships in the Black Sea, in particular the cruiser Moskva (Moscow), flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, sunk mid- april.

Russia, however, retains control of this area of ​​the Black Sea, and its blockade has the effect of preventing the export by cargo ships of millions of tonnes of cereals, of which Ukraine is one of the world's main producers.

>> READ ALSO

- Cereals blocked in Ukraine: Macron proposes to go through Romania

Moscow argued on Monday that the rise in grain prices was "the fault of Western regimes, which act as provocateurs and destroyers", according to the spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova.

The Ukrainian President, in a videoconference speech to members of the African Union (AU), deplored that "Africa (is) the hostage of those who started the war", and indicated that "negotiations difficulties" were underway to unblock Ukrainian ports, with no progress so far.

The European Union, through the voice of the head of its diplomacy, accused Moscow of committing "a real war crime" by blocking these exports.

"Twenty million tons of wheat remain blocked in Ukraine. This creates hunger or even famine. This is a deliberate attempt to use food as a weapon of war", denounced Josep Borrell.

The 27 countries are due to discuss the candidate status of Ukraine and Moldova in the EU

The 27 countries of the EU are due to discuss this week the possibility of granting Ukraine and Moldova candidate status for entry into the Union, European Council President Charles Michel said on Monday.

This proposal, in line with what the European Commission recommends, will be expressed at the summit of European leaders, Thursday and Friday in Brussels, who will have to take this decision unanimously.

The Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, on Monday ratified the Istanbul Convention, the first international treaty to set legally binding standards to counter gender-based violence, "a historic event that will bring us into the EU even faster", according to its first vice-president, Oleksandr Korniyenko.

"President Volodymyr Zelensky and all the deputies who voted in favor of the ratification have cut yet another cord which had anchored Ukraine to the + Russian world +", welcomed for his part Serguiï Kyslytsya, the Ukrainian ambassador to the 'UN.

>> READ ALSO

- Ukraine's accession to the EU: why does the question divide the Member States?

Further north, Lithuania, a former Soviet republic member of the EU and NATO, which has troops there, has restricted the transit of Russian freight by rail to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

Tension rose sharply, with the Russian Foreign Ministry saying that if transit "is not restored in full, then Russia reserves the right to act in defense of its national interests".

Josep Borrell said that Lithuania applied European sanctions on the transit of certain types of exports between Russia and Kaliningrad, but did not impose any blockade on the Russian enclave.

Moscow has not specified the nature of its threat, but Kaliningrad, the former Prussian city of Königsberg that has become a Russian enclave in the EU, is a strategic bridgehead for Moscow, which has installed Iskander ballistic missiles there capable of carrying nuclear strikes in Western Europe and anchored its military fleet there.

Dmitry Muratov auctioned off his Nobel Peace Prize medal on Monday

Russian editor of the independent investigative newspaper

Dmitry Muratov auctioned off his Nobel Peace Prize medal in New York on Monday for $103.5 million to benefit Unicef's Ukrainian children's program displaced by war.

"People need to understand that a conflict is going on and that we need to help the people who are suffering the most," he said.