Ukraine is not expected to receive an invitation to join NATO at the next Atlantic Alliance summit in early July in Washington. This is what the American ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith said on Tuesday in Brussels. “I don’t expect the Alliance to invite” Ukraine to this summit, scheduled for July 9-11, Julianne Smith said at a press briefing before a meeting of EU ministers. NATO Defense this Wednesday and Thursday in Brussels.
For Julianne Smith, the Washington summit in July should signal that “the Alliance continues to move closer to Ukraine” and is taking “concrete measures” to promote future membership of this country, currently at war with Russia. . During their summit last year in Vilnius, NATO countries reaffirmed that Ukraine was intended to join them, but without setting a timetable.
Information to remember
⇒ Russia said it neutralized nine Ukrainian drones overnight
⇒ Three dead in Russian bombings on Selydove
⇒ Estonia warns the West
Moscow claims to have neutralized nine Ukrainian drones
Russia claimed this Wednesday to have neutralized nine Ukrainian drones overnight in two Russian regions and above the Black Sea. “Air defense systems intercepted and destroyed drones over the territories of the Belgorod (two drones) and Voronezh (one drone) regions, as well as over the Black Sea (six drones),” he said. indicated the Russian Ministry of Defense in a press release. Since the start of the offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, Russian territory has been regularly targeted by strikes and drone attacks attributed to kyiv.
Ukraine: three dead in Russian bombings on Selydove
Three people were killed and twelve injured overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday during Russian bombings against Selydove, near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, according to local authorities. These strikes hit nine apartment buildings as well as the hospital in this town, located about twenty kilometers west of the front, the municipal council said on Telegram. A child was among those killed, and four among the injured, according to the same source.
According to the governor of the Donetsk region, Vadym Filachkin, a first strike took place around 11:30 p.m. and a second around 1 a.m. Around 100 patients from the damaged hospital were evacuated to other hospitals in Pokrovsk and Myrnograd, he added on Telegram. No source immediately specified what type of strikes were (missiles, drones or artillery fire).
United States: Republican opposition blocks aid to Ukraine
Mike Johnson, the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, on Tuesday refused any vote on the latest Ukraine aid bill, ignoring an earlier call from Joe Biden, who had urged his opponents to “choose America” against Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The rejection of the Republican “speaker” comes, as Joe Biden feared, to torpedo the envelope, although approved on Tuesday by the Senate, the upper house of Congress, with a Democratic majority.
Close to Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s likely competitor in the November presidential election, Mike Johnson told the press that he did not even intend to authorize a vote on the bill. “Certainly not,” he blurted.
The Senate validated this new envelope of 95 billion dollars for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, but its final adoption depends on the supporters of the former Republican president in the House, who therefore refuse to examine the text as it stands. .
Estonia warns the West
Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Bureau warned on Tuesday of possible Russian aggression against its neighbors, which could lead to conflict with the West over the next decade. “Russia has chosen the path of long-term confrontation with the entire West,” Kaupo Rosin, head of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Bureau, told reporters while presenting an annual report.
“We can be sure that in the next decade NATO will face a mass army of the type of the USSR,” he added. Warning of possible “aggression against Russia’s neighbors,” the office said in its report that a direct attack on Estonia was unlikely this year.
$3.5 billion in destruction of heritage and culture
The war in Ukraine has caused $3.5 billion in destruction to the country’s heritage and cultural sector and generated $19 billion in lost revenues in entertainment, art and tourism, UNESCO has estimated. Tuesday. Last April, the UN Organization for Education, Science and Culture, headquartered in Paris, estimated the damage at nearly $2.6 billion, and some $14.6 billion in total. losses in tourism, art and entertainment.