Difficulties are mounting for Ukraine. About a thousand of its civilians are still entrenched in a factory in the industrial zone of Azovstal, in Mariupol, a city that the Kremlin now announces that it fully controls. And no evacuation corridor is planned this Friday according to kyiv. “Due to the danger threatening our routes, there will be no humanitarian corridors today,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Telegram. The day before, three buses of evacuees from the besieged port of Mariupol had arrived in Zaporijjia, a large city in the south-east.
Faced with the inexorable advance of Russian troops in the east of the country, in the Donbass, the United States and certain European countries are again preparing to send arms to Ukraine.
- US Delivers Heavy Weapons, Challenges Total Fall of Mariupol
To enable Ukraine to resist the major Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine, the President of the United States announced Thursday a new military aid of 800 million dollars. It takes the form of heavy artillery weapons, helicopters, howitzers, 144,000 munitions and drones, as well as additional economic aid of 500 million dollars to ensure the proper functioning of the Ukrainian government. Joe Biden had spoken the day before with President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce the first deliveries by Saturday.
Separately, Joe Biden called the total Russian takeover of Mariupol “questionable,” saying there was “no evidence Thursday night that Mariupol is completely lost.”
For their part, the Europeans, who are preparing to adopt a sixth package of sanctions against Russia, have also announced that they are delivering arms to Ukraine. Long considered a red line not to be crossed in order not to generalize the conflict, this posture no longer holds because of the atrocities committed by the Russian army in Ukrainian territory. The Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland and Spain assured Ukraine of a rapid shipment of equipment, including tanks.
- President Zelensky estimates he needs $7 billion a month
If it is essential, the new financial aid provided by the United States to Ukraine nevertheless seems insufficient, according to the statements of the Ukrainian head of state, estimating Thursday at 7 billion dollars per month the need for Ukraine to cope with the economic crisis caused by the war.
A few days earlier, Ukrainian officials had told the International Monetary Fund that they needed $5 billion a month to keep the country’s economy running. The IMF intends to grant financial aid to Ukraine “as soon as possible”, as indicated by its managing director, Kristina Georgieva, but would favor the form of donations and not loans so that kyiv does not accumulate a colossal debt.
- Ukraine warns of possible fake referendum
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of trying to organize a fake independence referendum in the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhya it occupies in the south of the country.
“It’s not just to conduct a census. It’s not to give you humanitarian aid of any kind. It’s actually to tamper with a so-called referendum on your land,” warned the president in a video posted Thursday evening. In March, Ukraine had already accused Russia of wanting to fake a referendum in the Kherson region, as it had done in 2014 in Crimea in order to legitimize its occupation.
- New discovery of corpses in kyiv
More than 1,000 civilian bodies lie in morgues in the Kyiv region, a Ukrainian official says, while Kyiv accuses the Russians of ‘massacring’ hundreds of civilians during their occupation of the region in March, which Moscow denies. In Mariupol, 127 civilians living in a district near the Azovstal factory, in which the last combatants are entrenched, were evacuated to Zaporijjia via a humanitarian corridor.