” The city of Izium is the main conquest of the dazzling Ukrainian counter-offensive launched last Tuesday in the Kharkiv region, in northeastern Ukraine, relief The world. Once the front was broken through in heavy fighting at Balakliya, the Russian army collapsed and its units fled in disorganized order. Faced with the debacle, Moscow announced the day before yesterday that it had ordered the withdrawal from Izium, where thousands of soldiers were being surrounded. kyiv confirmed yesterday evening, through the voice of President Volodymyr Zelensky, that it had completed the capture of the city. Izioum is now the symbol of how five days of assault become a turning point in a war. »
Surprises…
“ Surprises have followed one another for almost seven months in Ukraine, exclaims Le Figaro. kyiv was to fall quickly. Volodymyr Zelensky resisted. The powerful and massive Russian army seemed destined to advance, however slowly, carried by the force of its artillery. She had to withdraw from the Kyiv and Kharkiv region. The Donbass seemed lost after the capture of Sieverodonetsk. The Ukrainian army leads a victorious counter-offensive… If we add the reconquest of Serpents’ Island, the loss of the Moskva (warship) or the missile strikes on the Crimea, the results of “the operation Vladimir Putin’s special event – not to mention the diplomatic and economic consequences – turns into a nightmare for anyone who wanted to intimidate the West. »
Armed reinforcements
How can this military advance be explained? Response from the military consultant of the ParisianPierre Servent: “ those last weeks, he explains, the Ukrainians received hundreds of drones, armored infantry fighting vehicles that are very important in ground operations. They received anti-radar missiles which they managed to adapt to their combat planes. They also received troop transport helicopters from the Americans. Moreover, the training of Ukrainian soldiers on these different tools has improved. The Ukrainians have moved upmarket while on the Russian side, we had the feeling of a stagnant tool that has not regenerated. »
How will Putin react?
So, can we call this Ukrainian breakthrough a turning point in the war against Russia? For Michel Goya, military historian, interviewed by Releasecertainly… ” One could compare, he says, these events to the mobile war which took place in 1918, during the First World War, and which could lead to the collapse of the Russian army. Nothing prevents the Ukrainians from mounting other attacks of the same style in the rest of the country, such as south of Zaporizhia, which would be devastating for the Russians. The days and weeks to come will be very important to know if the Ukrainians have the capacity to renew this kind of attacks in the long term. In this case, believes Michel Goya, victory is within their reach. »
Remains a fundamental question comments Release : “ how will Vladimir Putin react? Doesn’t the Russian President risk, in his destructive rage, wanting to strike a blow in retaliation? For the sole purpose of showing that it retains a power of nuisance. »
A left united but not united…
Also on the front page, electric debates on the left during the Fête de l’Humanité…
We stay with Release who notes that “ this weekend’s (political) event was marked by electric debates between the members of Nupes after Fabien Roussel’s controversial exit last Friday on social minima. Jean-Luc Mélenchon meanwhile delivered a speech in which he affirmed his attachment to “collectivism”. » Release who remarks that the same Mélenchon, “ triple presidential candidate, preserves the vagueness around his qualifiers and the future of La France insoumise: leader LFI, ex-deputy, retired? ” We do not know…
” What is Mélenchon looking for?wonders for his part Le Figaro. The heart of its strategy remains “conflictuality”. “Our identity is the citizen revolution, not the friends of the campsites”, he confides in private. As if in the constitution of a “sociological majority”, Mitterrand style 81, he favored the maintenance of poles of radicalism and contestation, levers not of an alternation but of the revolution. »
Rest exclaims Humanity that ” this 87th edition of the Fête de L’Humanité will remain etched in our memories as the first to welcome stands from all over the left. The communist daily which sees in it the sign of a found brotherhood. »