German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visited Ukraine for the eighth time in Kiev this Tuesday, May 21, while new Russian strikes took place in the Kharkiv region, since the offensive launched on May 10 by Russia. According to her, Ukraine “urgently needs reinforced air defense”, a “necessity” recalled Monday by the Ukrainian president in a message on Telegram.
Information to remember
⇒ Berlin calls for more air defense for kyiv
⇒ Russian and Ukrainian drone attacks in the Kharkiv and Belgorod regions
⇒ It is “vital and urgent” to use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine, says the United States
Ukraine ‘urgently needs’ more air defense
“The situation in Ukraine has once again dramatically worsened with massive Russian airstrikes on civilian infrastructure and the brutal Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region,” declared the head of German diplomacy, Annalena Baerbock, on a surprise visit in kyiv on Tuesday. To protect Ukraine from the “rain of Russian missiles and drones” in the northeast of the country, Ukraine “urgently needs strengthened air defense.”
This is the eighth visit by the German Foreign Minister to Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. The aim of the trip is to assure Ukrainian interlocutors of Germany’s support and EU, even given the worsening fighting situation, according to the Foreign Ministry. “Our support is based on the deep conviction that Ukraine will win this war,” Annalena Baerbock further underlined in kyiv.
Russian drone attack on Kharkiv
The Ukrainian Air Force said on Tuesday that it had shot down 28 Shahed explosive drones out of 29 launched by Russia overnight, notably in the city of Kharkiv, the country’s second largest, and southern and central regions of Ukraine. Ukraine.
In Kharkiv, around thirty trucks, buses and cars were damaged, and two houses, a garage and a minibus burned by falling drone debris, regional governor Oleg Synegoubov said on Telegram. Two people were also injured early in the city, “following a rocket attack against a transport company”, added the governor.
One dead, three injured in drone attack in Russia
A woman died and three other people were injured Tuesday in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, according to its governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, on the social network Telegram. During the night from Monday to Tuesday, two other drones and a Ukrainian Vilkha rocket were also neutralized by Russian anti-aircraft systems, the Russian Defense Ministry said. Another drone was neutralized Tuesday morning above the Kursk region, also bordering Ukraine, according to the same source.
“We keep control everywhere,” assures Volodymyr Zelensky
The Ukrainian President spoke on Monday with the Chief of the General Staff about the situation in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions in particular. “We keep control everywhere,” he said in a message on Telegram.
According to him, the Russian army “actively uses guided aerial bombs – in the Chasiv Yar zone, in the Pokrovsk sector, in the Lyptsi zone in the Kharkiv region, and in other combat zones.” According to Volodymyr Zelensky, this reminds us of “the need for air defense” and its importance for Ukraine.
Using frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says it is “vital and urgent” to find a way to use interests in frozen Russian assets in Western countries to help Ukraine, according to excerpts of her speech published on Monday, a subject that will be at the heart of the G7 Finances this week.
G7 finance ministers meet starting Thursday in Stresa, Italy, to discuss a U.S. plan to give Ukraine up to $50 billion in loans guaranteed by future profits generated by stranded Russian assets , the Financial Times reported on Monday.
This plan from the Biden administration will serve as a basis for G7 discussions, an Italian Treasury source confirmed to AFP. Any decision, however, needs the support of the European Union, “must have a solid legal basis” and will only be announced at the summit of G7 heads of state and government in June, according to the same source.
Humanitarian aid for Ukraine lacks funds, UN worries
In the Kharkiv region, in the north-east of Ukraine, targeted by a Russian offensive since May 10, “these are the most vulnerable, the elderly, widows with children, disabled people who have no not the resources or the ability to start a new life elsewhere in the country who are really suffering today,” explained Karolina Lindholm Billing, representative of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in this country, in an interview at AFP, during his visit to Geneva.
Two years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she laments that the attention of the international community has diminished. “There are far fewer resources for humanitarian aid even as humanitarian needs increase with recent developments. And it is the most vulnerable who will bear the brunt of this reduction in funding and aid,” a- she warned.
Nearly 3.7 million people are currently displaced within Ukraine, according to the UNHCR. “But those who still live in these places near the front line are generally elderly people, 70-80%, and they are the ones who are arriving now,” said Karolina Lindholm Billing.