As bombings continue on both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border, more than two years after the start of the conflict, Japan reaffirmed its support for Kiev on Sunday, January 7, and will provide the country with a new detection system drones.
Information to remember
⇒ 300 residents of the Russian town of Belgorod were evacuated
⇒ The head of Japanese diplomacy announced new aid to Ukraine
⇒ Polish farmers have suspended the blockade of an important crossing point with Ukraine
Russian strikes kill 3
At least three people were killed in Ukraine in new Russian night strikes, Ukrainian authorities announced on Monday, at a time when Moscow says it wants to intensify its attacks against its neighbor.
“The enemy fired dozens of missiles at towns and villages” and “at this stage, 33 people were injured and two were killed,” the deputy head of the presidential administration, Oleksiï Kouleba, lamented on Telegram. The regional authorities of Kharkiv (east) separately announced the death of “a 62-year-old woman”, killed in a Russian strike “on a house”.
Hundreds of residents evacuated from Belgorod
“Around 300” residents have already been evacuated from the Russian town of Belgorod, located near the border with Ukraine and a target of Ukrainian bombing since the end of December, the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, announced on Monday. .
These several hundred people are now “housed in reception centers in Stary Oskol, Gubkin and in the Korotchansky district”, further from the border, he added in a video published on Telegram.
This unprecedented measure for a large city in Russia, however, is at odds with the efforts of the Kremlin which has always strived to give the image, for almost two years of assault in Ukraine, that the conflict did not directly affect the daily lives and security of Russians.
However, this strategy was shattered on December 30 when 25 people lost their lives in Belgorod in a Ukrainian attack, the deadliest civilian death toll on Russian soil since the start of Moscow’s offensive in its neighbor on February 24, 2022. .
Tokyo reaffirms its support for Ukraine
“Japan is determined to support Ukraine so that peace returns to this country,” said the head of Japanese diplomacy, Yoko Kamikawa, on a visit to kyiv on Sunday January 7. The representative notably announced that Tokyo had released 37 million dollars (around 33.8 million euros) to provide a drone detection system to Ukraine.
Yoko Kamikawa, the first senior foreign official to visit Ukraine this year, met with her counterpart Dmytro Kouleba and visited Boutcha and Irpin, two towns near Kiev which were the scene of atrocities attributed to the army Russian.
His Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kouleba, for his part insisted on his country’s needs in terms of F-16 combat planes but also new anti-aircraft defense systems to face Russian strikes.
Japan will host a conference on promoting Ukraine’s economic reconstruction in Tokyo in February, which Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal plans to attend.
Polish farmers unblock crossing point with Ukraine
Following an agreement signed with the Polish government, farmers suspended, on Saturday January 6, their blockade of an important crossing point with Ukraine. Three other important border crossings have remained blocked since November by Polish truckers who are protesting against “unfair competition” from Ukrainian truckers and against the relaxation of rules for access to the European Union for companies from this country.
After a period of break for the holiday period at the end of the year, the farmers resumed blocking the Medyka post on January 4. Polish farmers say they are suffering from falling prices early last year following Ukrainian grain imports and are demanding subsidies and cheap loans – benefits provided for in the agreement signed with the Minister of Agriculture. ‘Agriculture.
Warsaw and kyiv as well as representatives of the European Union have held talks several times to resolve the border crisis, but no agreement has been reached so far.