Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: Dominika Zarzycka / NurPhoto / NurPhoto via AFP 5:10 p.m., March 5, 2024

On the 740th day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, kyiv claimed responsibility for destroying a Russian war patrol vessel near the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

At the same time, Emmanuel Macron called on Ukraine's allies to "not be cowardly" in the face of a Russia "that has become unstoppable".

Europe 1 takes stock.

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Ukraine claimed Tuesday that it had destroyed a Russian war patrol vessel near the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia, a new snub for Moscow in this strategic area of ​​the Black Sea.

kyiv also says it has struck an oil depot in the Russian region of Belgorod, bordering Ukraine.

In recent weeks, similar attacks against oil sites have followed one another in Russia.

The main information:

  • Ukraine claims it destroyed Russian warship in Black Sea

  • The Ukrainian Air Force says it intercepted 18 of 22 Shahed explosive drones launched into the Odessa region by Russia

  • Macron calls on Ukraine's allies to "not be cowards" in the face of a Russia that has "become unstoppable"

Ukrainian Navy says it destroyed the Sergei Kotov

On the Black Sea, the Ukrainian navy claimed that a “special unit” had on the night of Monday to Tuesday “destroyed the most modern Russian patrol boat, the Sergei Kotov”, which had been “hit by Magura V5 maritime drones ".

The attack occurred "in Ukrainian territorial waters, near the Kerch Strait," she said, adding that the patrol boat had already been "severely damaged" last September during a previous attack by the forces. Ukrainians.

The attack was carried out by Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) with the cooperation of the navy.

The GUR released a black and white video on Tuesday showing the alleged nighttime attack.

In the images, we can see a naval drone approaching the Sergei Kotov - 94 meters long - then an explosion with a large flame, smoke and debris thrown above the ship.

The Russian Defense Ministry has not yet made an official comment on the attack, but Russian military bloggers close to the armed forces have confirmed the strike, with some emphasizing the Russian navy's inability to defend itself.

18 of 22 explosive drones intercepted by the Ukrainian Air Force in the Odessa region

In two years of war, Kiev's forces managed to retreat the powerful Russian fleet in the Black Sea using missiles and maritime drones, allowing the reopening of a maritime corridor to export Ukrainian grain by making ignored bombing threats.

According to the Ukrainian army in early February, around a third of Russian military ships were "put out of harm's way" in this area.

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“The Russian Black Sea Fleet is a symbol of occupation. It cannot be in Ukrainian Crimea,” the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration Andriy Iermak commented on Telegram on Tuesday, after the announcement of the destruction of the Russian patrol boat.

Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, is regularly targeted because it is important for the logistics of the Russian army for its operations on the front.

Furthermore, in the Russian region of Kursk, "the Gluchkovo railway station was targeted by strikes from Ukraine", wrote Roman Starovoit, the regional governor, on Telegram, specifying that the attack "did not no injuries."

The Ukrainian Air Force, for its part, indicated that it had intercepted 18 of the 22 Shahed explosive drones launched in the Odessa region (South) by Russia during a new night attack, which did not cause any casualties. nor destruction.

Lack of weapons and ammunition

On the ground, the Ukrainian army still suffers from a lack of weapons and ammunition to repel Russian attacks, particularly near the town of Avdiïvka, in eastern Ukraine, taken by Moscow's forces mid- February after four months of deadly fighting.

On the subject of aid to Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron is in Prague to support a Czech initiative to buy non-EU munitions for kyiv.

He called on Ukraine's allies to "not be cowardly" in the face of a Russia that had "become unstoppable", "assuming" to have called for a "strategic surge" by evoking the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine .

He nevertheless assured that he did not want "escalation" with Russia.

In Brussels, the European Commission for its part proposed on Tuesday to finance part of the arms purchases decided jointly by the 27, in order to strengthen defense capabilities on the continent in the face of the Russian threat and to depend less on the States. United.

Finally in Germany, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius attributed recent leaks in the German army on arms deliveries to Kiev to a serious "individual error", one of the officers having participated in the meeting via a " unauthorized connection".