The UN Security Council is due to meet urgently on Thursday at the request of Moscow. The day before, a Russian plane crashed near the Ukrainian border, causing the death of all its passengers, including 65 prisoners of war according to Moscow, which accuses Ukraine of having shot down the plane.
In the Donesk region, eastern Ukraine, a Russian strike left two dead and eight injured on Wednesday evening.
Information to remember
⇒ An emergency UN security meeting planned for Thursday evening
⇒ Two dead in a strike in the Donetsk region
⇒ The Russian army entered the town of Avdiïvka in the east before being pushed back
Ukraine says it struck Russian oil site overnight
Ukraine claimed responsibility for a drone strike on Thursday against an oil complex in southern Russia overnight, a site where Russian authorities had reported a fire, according to a military source at AFP.
Ukrainian security services (SBU) struck a refinery in Tuapse, a city on the Black Sea coast, and an “oil processing unit” was damaged, the source said. During the night, regional authorities announced that an oil site was on fire in Tuapse, without explaining the causes of the disaster.
An emergency meeting at the UN
The Security Council will meet urgently on Thursday at 11 p.m. (French time) at the request of Moscow, after the crash of a Russian military transport plane on Wednesday. The plane, which crashed near the border with Ukraine, in the Russian region of Belgorod, was carrying 74 people, according to Moscow, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be exchanged. Still according to Russia, all of the passengers died.
Moscow, which accuses Ukraine of having fired two missiles in order to accuse Russia, denounced Thursday a “monsterous act” by kyiv. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov promised to “clarify” the circumstances of the crash.
Ukrainian authorities have neither confirmed nor denied that the plane was shot down by Ukrainian weapons, nor have they attested that prisoners of war were among the victims. “We currently do not have reliable and complete information about the people who were on board the plane or their number,” Ukrainian military intelligence said. The army said a prisoner exchange was planned for Wednesday, but did not take place.
“We must establish all the facts clearly and as much as possible, given that the plane was shot down on Russian territory, which is beyond our control,” Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday evening in his daily address. The Ukrainian president called for the opening of an international investigation to clarify the circumstances of the facts. This Thursday, Ukrainian special services decided to open an investigation into the crash.
In a statement published a few hours after the crash and without mentioning it directly, the Ukrainian army promised to continue to “destroy transport aircraft and control airspace […] including in the Belgorod-Kharkiv area. More than 8,000 Ukrainians, including more than 1,600 civilians, are in Russian captivity, according to kyiv.
Two dead in Ukraine’s Donetsk region
Two people were killed and eight others injured, including a 16-year-old teenager, in a Russian strike on the village of Girnyk in the Donetsk region, regional authorities said on Wednesday. At the same time, they accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians
Fighting concentrated around the town of Avdiïvka
Avdiïvka, in the east of the country, was the subject of an assault on Wednesday by the Russian army, which managed to penetrate the town before being pushed back, said the mayor of the locality. The latter declared that “Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups (had) entered the southern part of Avdiivka” before being pushed back, without indicating how long the incursion had lasted. According to him, the situation remains “difficult but under control”.
Still according to the councilor, this is the first incursion by Russian forces, who have been trying for months to surround Avdiïvka where a thousand civilians currently live. The city briefly fell into the hands of pro-Russian separatists in July 2014, before returning to Ukrainian control. Largely destroyed, it has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
The fighting is currently concentrated in this region of Ukrainian Donbass. Last week, Russia claimed the capture of two small towns in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions.