• On the 128th day of the war between Ukraine and Russia, fighting continues, especially around the strategic city of Lyssytchansk (East), and in the South where a missile strike killed at least 19 people near Odessa , according to the Ukrainian authorities.

  • NATO, led by the United States, promised on Thursday unwavering long-term support for Ukraine, which, while having regained possession of Serpents' Island, a strategic island for the control of maritime routes, is in a very perilous situation facing the Russians in a key city in the east.

  • While Moscow threatens on all fronts, even on that of gastronomy,

    20 Minutes

    returns to the key elements of the war in Ukraine and the major turning points of the week in infographics.

Symbolically at least, the victory is major: this week the Russian forces announced their withdrawal from Serpents' Island, a strategic position in the Black Sea conquered by Moscow and subject for weeks to Ukrainian bombardments.

Still, since Monday kyiv has aligned the good points.

At the top of NATO first, since it received the unfailing support of the allies, then on the gastronomy front by winning the battle of borsch, then on the ground of Donbass again, where the Russian forces advanced only two kilometers in several days.

However, for its part Moscow does not let anything go to Lyssytchansk, Odessa or Kremenchouk.

In these big cities of the East and the South, Vladimir Putin's army is advancing with missiles,

The Battle of Lysychansk

The situation in Lyssytchansk, a city in the industrial basin of Donbass, a region in eastern Ukraine where most of the fighting is concentrated, "remains extremely difficult", Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged on Thursday.

"We have no more electricity or gas, and it's been three months already," testified a resident of Seversk, about twenty kilometers away.

"It bombs day and night," said another.

These “very powerful” bombardments make it impossible to evacuate, lamented regional governor Serguiï Gaïdaï, estimating that there are still 15,000 civilians there.

Serguiï Gaïdaï has in the process denied the allegations of the pro-Russian separatists who declared Thursday to control half of this city located opposite Severodonetsk, conquered last week by the Russian army.

The number 2 of the general staff, Oleksiï Gromov, even declared that the Ukrainian forces had "no intention of retreating".

Lyssytchansk is the last major city not yet in Russian hands in the Lugansk region, one of the two provinces of Donbass, which Moscow intends to fully control.

The symbolic victory of Serpents' Island

The victory is of great symbolic significance.

The Russian army said Thursday to withdraw "as a sign of goodwill" from Serpents' Island, its objectives having been "achieved".

Moscow added that the withdrawal would facilitate Ukrainian grain exports from Ukraine through the Black Sea.

This militarized island is indeed located southwest of Odessa, the largest Ukrainian port where millions of tons of grain have been collected, and facing the mouth of the Danube.

The version of the Ukrainian military is radically different: the Russians abandoned Serpents' Island because they found themselves "unable to resist the fire of our artillery, our missiles and our air strikes".

"The enemy fled in two speedboats", leaving "on fire" this islet where "explosions are still heard", they added, specifying that they were now going to restore "direct physical control" there. .

NATO accused of imperialism

The NATO summit opened on Wednesday in Madrid.

If the subject of the day was the Russian invasion, with in particular the establishment of "a comprehensive assistance program for Ukraine to help it enforce its right to self-defence", there was another great news on the menu.

Early in the morning, Turkey lifted its veto on Finland and Sweden's bid to join the Western alliance.

The organization therefore officially launched the membership of two countries by signing the membership protocols.

A decision deemed "deeply destabilizing" by Moscow.

NATO did not stop there, since on Thursday the Atlantic Alliance reaffirmed its massive support for Ukraine.

Its new roadmap now identifies Russia as "the most significant and direct threat to the security of the allies".

“The iron curtain is coming down,” Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister, immediately reacted.

As for Vladimir Putin, he affirmed – taking up a leitmotif of the Russian narrative – that NATO had “imperialist ambitions” with regard to Russia.

"It is rather Putin who has made imperialism the goal of his policy" by saying that the neighboring countries were "part of his country", hammered German Chancellor Olaf Scholz,

Extensions of several million

Several NATO member states have announced new military aid to Ukraine: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pledged an extension of one billion pounds (1.16 billion euros), Joe Biden on $800 million more.

At the same time, the US Treasury has made public the freezing of assets in excess of a billion dollars of a company based in the United States and controlled by the Russian oligarch and politician Souleiman Kerimov, already sanctioned by Washington.

Our file on the war in Ukraine

As for French President Emmanuel Macron, he has planned the revision of his country's military programming, stressing that "we must now, entering a period of war, know how to produce certain types of equipment faster, stronger".

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