“Our hearts go out to the family of Arman Soldin, who lost his life today on the front line of the war in Ukraine, and to his colleagues at AFP,” said Karine Jean-Pierre, spokesperson. word of the White House. The AFP journalist was killed on Tuesday, May 9, during a rocket attack in eastern Ukraine. He was 32 years old. For his part, the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said he was “devastated” by the news of the disappearance of the journalist.
In Paris, President Emmanuel Macron hailed the “courage” of the AFP journalist and shared “the pain of his relatives and all his colleagues”. His “tragic death”, “while he was covering the war in Ukraine, reminds us of the courage of all journalists who undertake to inform us at the risk of their lives”, also reacted Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne. In the National Assembly, deputies from all groups rose on Tuesday evening to applaud in tribute to the journalist.
“The world owes Arman” Soldin and all the journalists killed in Ukraine (White House)
Agence France-Presse’s video coordinator in Ukraine, Arman Soldin, was killed on Tuesday afternoon in a Russian rocket attack in eastern Ukraine, near the besieged town of Bakhmout. In the evening, Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to him. “An Agence France-Presse journalist, one of our compatriots, Arman Soldin, was killed in Ukraine. With courage, from the first hours of the conflict, he was at the front to establish the facts. To inform us,” said wrote on Twitter the French president.
Tribute also to Washington. The world owes a debt to Arman” Soldin, an AFP journalist killed on Tuesday in Ukraine, and to “the 10 other reporters and media workers who lost their lives” covering the conflict, the spokeswoman for the White House, Karine Jean-Pierre “Our hearts go out to the family of Arman Soldin, who lost his life today on the front line of the war in Ukraine, and to his colleagues at AFP”, she said in a statement, adding: “Journalism is one of the foundations of a free society.”
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense also offered its “sincere condolences to his family and colleagues”, adding, on the same social network: “He dedicated his life to reporting the truth to the world”. Arman Soldin was part of a team of five AFP reporters who accompanied Ukrainian soldiers on the most active front of the war, around Chassiv Iar, a Ukrainian town near Bakhmout and targeted daily by Russian forces. The salvo of Grad rockets that hit it was fired around 4:30 p.m. local time (1:30 p.m. GMT). He was hit as he lay on the ground trying to protect himself. The rest of the team escaped unscathed.
In the French National Assembly, deputies from all groups stood up on Tuesday evening to applaud in tribute to the journalist. Recruited in Rome in 2015 as an intern before joining the London office the same year, Arman Soldin, of French nationality and of Bosnian origin, was born in Sarajevo. He was one of the first evacuees in France in 1992 at the start of the siege of the city. He was barely a year old. “Refugee stories touch me,” he told AFP’s Making Of blog last year, interviewed from kyiv as he lit by candlelight.
Washington announces $1.2 billion in new military aid to Ukraine
The United States announced Tuesday new military aid to Ukraine in the amount of 1.2 billion dollars in order in particular to strengthen the air defense of this country against Russia, immediately welcomed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. This new aid reflects “the United States’ determination to continue to support Ukraine by providing it with critical near-term resources such as air defense systems and ‘artillery’ munitions while enhancing its ability to defend itself ‘at longer term,” a Pentagon statement said.
The Ukrainian president welcomed a “sign of solidarity” brought on a “symbolic day for us – the Day of Europe and the Day of the victory over Nazism in the Second World War”. “Together, we are moving towards a new victory!”, Volodymyr Zelensky said on Twitter, while Kiev says it has been preparing for months a major counter-offensive to liberate the territories occupied by Russia since the start of the war.
This new aid does not come from American stocks and will therefore not be used immediately on the battlefield, but it consists of financing the purchase of longer-term armaments from the defense industry, which avoids drawing in the inventory of the United States already put to contribution.
French MPs demand that Wagner be labeled by the EU as a terrorist group
The National Assembly on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution calling for the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, accused of abuses in Ukraine and Africa, to be placed on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations. The text, without binding value, invites the French government “to mobilize diplomatically” so that the EU accedes to this request, which should make it possible to sanction more effectively the members of Wagner and their supporters, in particular financially.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the initiative, saying “this is what the whole world must adopt”. “Any manifestation of terrorism must be eliminated and every terrorist must be condemned,” he said in his evening address. Led by Renaissance MP Benjamin Haddad, the resolution was co-signed by deputies from the various majority groups, but also by elected officials from the socialist, environmentalist and LR ranks.
It targets in particular the “numerous abuses against the civilian population” in Ukraine committed by this group of mercenaries, some of which could be qualified as “war crimes”. “The activity of the Wagner group meets the European definition of terrorism”, pleaded in the hemicycle Benjamin Haddad, describing an “army of chaos” standing “alongside Putin’s Russia”, and whose members “sow instability and violence”.
London and Washington urge Moscow to renew the grain agreement
The United States and the United Kingdom have jointly called for the extension of the agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, denouncing the fact that Russia continues to use food “as a weapon “. “In recent days, Russia has again blocked the entry of ships into Ukrainian ports to load grain, a cynical act which has the direct result of reducing the quantity of food on world markets and, de facto, that ‘It is reaching those in need in Africa, the Middle East and around the world,” US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken said at a press conference.
“The world shouldn’t have to remind Russia every two or three weeks not to use people’s hunger as a weapon in its war against Ukraine,” the secretary of state added. “It is completely immoral for Russia to use the hunger of the poorest people in the world as leverage in this conflict,” added his British counterpart James Cleverly, visiting Washington. The so-called Black Sea agreement, signed on July 22 for 120 days by the UN, Ukraine, Russia and Turkey, helped ease the global food crisis caused by the war, and was renewed for four month.