Once again deadly attacks in Ukrainian territory, Thursday December 21. Three people were killed and five others injured in Russian strikes targeting mining companies in the eastern Ukrainian city of Toretsk. Two more women died and a man was injured in Russian shelling Thursday morning in Nikopol, a town in southern Ukraine.
Information to remember
⇒ An attack on a residential building in kyiv
⇒ Macron’s appeal in favor of Ukraine
⇒ Orban considers the Russian invasion as a military operation
Biden to sanction financial institutions that support the Russian war effort
President Joe Biden will sign an executive order on Friday authorizing the United States to take so-called “secondary” sanctions against financial institutions that support the Russian war effort against Ukraine, a senior White House official said.
“What we want to do is target the materials that Russia absolutely needs to produce weapons. (…) To obtain these materials, (the Russians) need to go through the financial system, which which makes it a potential hotspot, and this tool targets that hotspot,” he explained.
The new head of Polish diplomacy in kyiv
The new head of Polish diplomacy, Radoslaw Sikorski, is in kyiv on Friday for his first visit abroad since his appointment, Polish and Ukrainian officials told AFP. Poland is one of kyiv’s most loyal allies in the face of the Russian invasion, but in recent months relations between the two neighbors have been hampered by a series of trade disputes.
Radoslaw Sikorski published in the morning a selfie taken visibly on Mykhaïlivska Square in the center of the Ukrainian capital. “First visit abroad. Already there,” he wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
A residential building in kyiv hit
A residential building in kyiv was hit Thursday evening by an explosive drone during a new Russian night attack, Ukrainian authorities said, reporting at least two injuries.
This is the first incident of this kind in months in the Ukrainian capital. While kyiv is regularly targeted by Russian drone and missile attacks, most of them are shot down by air defense.
Macron calls not to let “Russia win”
French President Emmanuel Macron insisted on Thursday that the West could not “let Russia win” in Ukraine and that support for kyiv must continue even if “it costs us”. “You who know what the balance of power is, you measure what we cannot let happen and how much we cannot let Russia win,” he said during a dinner of Christmas in front of French forces stationed in Jordan.
“What would be the next day for us Europeans? We will therefore continue to help the Ukrainians. What we do, even if it costs us, is decisive for our future security, for our role in Europe and for the sovereignty of Ukraine”, he added.
Orban still considers Russian invasion a military operation
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday once again described the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a “military operation”, repeating the formula used by the Kremlin. “This is a military operation as long as there has not been a declaration of war between the two countries,” the nationalist leader declared during his annual press conference.
“When the Russians declare war on Ukraine, then it will be war,” he added. “Strictly speaking, let’s rejoice as long as there is no war. If there is a war, there is a general mobilization and I don’t wish that on anyone.”