This is a strong message sent to Americans. “If Congress does not help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war,” declared Sunday, in a serious tone, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a videoconference exchange with ambassadors of the lifting platform. fund of the Ukrainian government, United24.
“Without the support of Congress, it will be difficult for us to win, or even survive” as a country, he insisted, according to a video of his speech posted on his social networks.
“If Ukraine loses the war, other states will be attacked,” the Ukrainian president further warned, estimating that Russia, which invaded the neighboring state in February 2022, would then raise the nuclear threat to frighten the Western societies.
The American program of military and economic assistance to kyiv, amounting to 60 billion dollars (55.3 billion EUR), has been blocked in Congress since last year due to divisions between Democrats and Republicans, while looming the presidential election next November.
Its adoption is suspended at the goodwill of supporters of former President Donald Trump, who refuse to examine the text as it stands, due to a dispute over the regulation of immigration in the United States. Congress returns to session Monday after a spring break.
kyiv has been asking its Western allies for more munitions and air defense systems for months.
Ukrainian soldiers fire mortars during training with French soldiers in Poland, April 4, 2024 © Wojtek Radwanski / AFP
While awaiting a decision, Ukrainian soldiers are forced to save their ammunition and face a confident Russian army, which has repelled a major counter-offensive by the Kiev army in the summer of 2023.
Logistics routes under threat
The Russian army, more numerous and better supplied with ammunition, is gradually pushing forward on the eastern front, and has regularly struck Ukraine's energy infrastructure in recent weeks, plunging thousands of civilians into darkness.
The Ukrainian army thus recognized on Sunday that the situation around Chassiv Iar, a small town located southeast of the important Ukrainian railway and logistics hub of Kramatorsk, was “difficult and tense”.
A wounded Ukrainian soldier, treated near Chassiv Iar (east), April 3, 2024 © Roman PILIPEY / AFP
The Russians have intensified their pressure around Chassiv Yar in recent days, this key locality in the Ukrainian Donbass now finding itself "under constant fire", according to kyiv.
The Russian army "uses infantry with the support of armored combat vehicles", supported by "assault aircraft", declared on Ukrainian television Oleg Kalashnikov, the spokesperson for a brigade engaged in the fighting on the spot.
“But all their attacks were repelled,” he said.
On Friday, local authorities installed by Moscow announced that the Russian army was advancing towards Chassiv Yar.
The Telegram channel DeepState, close to the Ukrainian army, reported that Russian soldiers were on the outskirts of the city.
If he seizes Chassiv Yar, “the enemy will also be able to threaten our logistical routes”, underlined Oleg Kalashnikov.
Russian bombings also left three dead in the southern region of Zaporizhia and one in Koupiansk in the east, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Ukraine: the positions of the military forces © Valentin RAKOVSKY, Sophie RAMIS, Cléa PECULIER / AFP
Russia, for its part, claimed that Ukrainian drones had attacked, injuring three people, the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant which it has controlled since the start of its invasion in February 2022 and which has since been the subject of reciprocal accusations between Russians and Ukrainians.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) indicated, without confirming, that it had been informed by the Russian side "that a drone had exploded on the site today", and once again called on the parties to exercise restraint. .
Russia also claimed to have destroyed 15 Ukrainian drones over its border regions of Belgorod and Bryansk, now frequently bombed by the Ukrainians.
A young girl was killed when the car she was in with five other people was hit, all injured, said the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov.
With AFP
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