Vladimir Putin’s attack on Kyiv, Zelensky and NATO

The European Union on Tuesday formally adopted a new round of trade sanctions that seek to further isolate Russia on the international stage and tighten the blockade on the Russian oligarchs who fund Vladimir Putin’s regime, in response to the invasion of Ukraine. “As President Putin’s war against the Ukrainian people continues, so too is our determination to support Ukraine and cut off funding for the Kremlin’s war machine,” said the High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell. Actions that came after the informal summit of the leaders of the twenty. Seven in Versailles, France, as the European Union prepares to face long-term conflict.

The authorities of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic demanded Russia’s help on Tuesday to avoid attacks such as the one carried out by the Ukrainian army on Monday against the city of Donetsk, which left about 20 people dead, according to the official balance. “Our forces are not enough because we do not have the kind of weapons with which we can carry out demolitions at high altitudes or reach the places where these (Ukrainian military) installations are,” said Eduard Basurin, a spokesman for the Donetsk militia. “We asked for help from the Russian Defense Ministry. I believe that with joint efforts this type of incident will not be repeated,” he was quoted as saying by the Russian news agency TASS.

According to Chinese experts, the meeting in Rome between Chinese and American foreign and security officials ended without Washington succeeding in persuading Beijing to change its vaunted neutrality over the war in Ukraine or comply with Western sanctions on Russia. The Romanian meeting, which took place for more than eight hours, the US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, in front of the director of the bureau of the Chinese Foreign Affairs Committee, Yang Jiechi, ended with non-material statements with few details about what it really was. discussed at the meeting.

A deathly silence fills the city that never slept and its center is protected to preserve the so-called pearl of the Black Sea. The port of Odessa is going through its most tense moment while waiting for the worst: the arrival of Russian troops in this city in southwestern Ukraine. Barriers surround the downtown streets where only a few dozen people are seen wandering between closed shops and only a few open spaces. But what abounds is the army. Andrey, who is Ukrainian and Lebanese, was a TV presenter and is now a soldier waiting on a street in the city, the third largest in Ukraine. “We are ready and I am sure that if the Russians enter from here, we have enough weapons and brains to fight these stupid Russians,” he explained to Efe.

The World Bank has agreed to provide Ukraine with additional financing amounting to about $200 million (183 million euros) to strengthen the country’s social services for vulnerable groups. This brings the total amount mobilized by the World Bank for Ukraine to more than 925 million dollars (845 million euros), of which 723 million dollars (660 million euros) was mobilized for the benefit of the country and its population last week. This financing is part of a $3,000 million (€2,740 million) package that the World Bank plans to prepare for Ukraine in the coming months.

The United States said on Monday it had “multiple ways” to deliver its military aid to Ukraine, following last weekend’s Russian bombing of a military base in western Ukraine, just 20 kilometers from the Polish border. The Pentagon does not see this attack, which killed 35 people and wounded 134, as a “turning point” in the conflict that Russia began on February 24.

Prime Ministers of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, of the Czech Republic, Petr Viala, and of Slovenia, Janez Jansa, will travel to Kyiv on Tuesday to meet with Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Polish government said in a statement. The official program also includes a meeting with the Prime Minister of Ukraine, Denis Shmyal. According to Polish government spokesman, Michal Dorchik, it is a “representation of the European Council and its aim is to express strong support for Ukraine’s struggle for independence”.

At least seven people were killed during the Russian bombing in the past hours on the Ukrainian region of Kharkov in the east, one of the areas worst affected by the attacks since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Three people were rescued alive when the rubble of buildings damaged by the bombing was cleared, according to Ukrinform agency. “Rescue operations continued in the Kievsky, Shevchenkivsky and Novovarsky districts of the city of Kharkov, as well as in the Izyum district of the same region,” the Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said on its Facebook page.

The Russian army attacked again this morning some residential neighborhoods in the capital, Kyiv. Mayor Vitali Klitschko confirmed that “the shells hit several apartment buildings: two high-rise buildings in the Svyatoshinsky district, one building in Podilskyi. And also in a private house.” “There are victims in apartment buildings and the information is current. Rescue teams and doctors are working on the ground,” he said.

Today, Tuesday, the Russian government confirmed that its army already controls the entire Ukrainian region of Kherson, in the south of the country, as part of the military offensive that began on February 24 by order of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The Russian armed forces have fully taken control of the entire territory of the Kherson region,” the TASS news agency quoted Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov as saying. Moscow announced its capture of Kherson – the capital of the region, where some 280,000 people live – during the course of March 2. Since then, it has continued its offensive in an attempt to take control of the entire province.

Ukraine’s military confirmed this Tuesday that more than 13,500 Russian soldiers have been killed in combat since the war began on February 24 by order of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had just days recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed republics. Donetsk and Luhansk. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Army had indicated in a message on its account on the social networking site Facebook that the death toll in the ranks of the Russian army was “more than 13,500”, while it stated that it had destroyed 404 battle tanks and 36 anti-tanks so far. Aircraft systems of 81 aircraft, 95 helicopters and 640 vehicles.