“One step forward”. This is how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed, on Friday, the green light – subject to conditions – given by the United States concerning the use of its weapons against targets on Russian soil. The day before, American President Joe Biden, who had so far refused to do so, accepted that the Ukrainians would strike targets on Russian territory close to the Kharkiv region (north-east) to defend themselves, which is under Russian strikes. incessant for months. Germany announced such a decision a few hours later. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov assured that American weapons were “already used to try to strike Russian territory”, seeing this as proof of the “degree of involvement of the United States in this conflict”. .
Information to remember
⇒ kyiv accuses Moscow of having fired more than a hundred missiles and drones in the night
⇒ NATO wants to anchor its support for Ukraine to the tune of 40 billion euros per year
⇒ IMF paves way for payment of $2.2 billion to Ukraine
Ukraine accuses Russia of firing more than a hundred missiles and drones
Russia fired more than a hundred missiles and drones at critical infrastructure and power plants in Ukraine overnight from Friday to Saturday, the Ukrainian Air Force said this Saturday, June 1. This counted “53 missiles of various types and 47 attack drones”, and claimed to have shot down 35 of the missiles and 46 drones.
Deliveries of drones and missiles: Iran condemns EU sanctions
Iran described this Saturday as “absurd” the new sanctions imposed the day before by the European Union (EU) on senior Iranian officials for having supplied, according to it, drones to Russia and its allies in the Middle East. East. The EU on Friday sanctioned Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, five other officials, the Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, the Ideological Army of the Islamic Republic, and two other Iranian entities, including a company trading drone components.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry called the measures “regrettable,” saying they were based on “repeated, absurd and unfounded excuses and accusations.” “The EU has once again resorted to the obsolete and ineffective tool of sanctions” against Iran, ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani said in a statement. The officials and entities targeted by the sanctions are accused by the EU of being involved in the Iranian drone production program, or of having organized and facilitated transfers of drones and missiles to Moscow for its offensives in Ukraine or ” armed groups compromising peace and security” such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen and the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah.
Ukraine: IMF paves way for payment of $2.2 billion
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced on Friday that it had reached an agreement with the Ukrainian government on the fourth review of the aid program currently in place to support the country at war, thus opening the door to the payment of 2 .2 billion additional dollars. The agreement must now receive the green light from the Fund’s board of directors, which should meet “in the coming weeks”, the institution said in its press release.
This is the fourth tranche of the $15.6 billion aid program adopted in March 2023, as part of a major international aid plan totaling $122 billion. The previous revision is recent since it was carried out just two months ago, and had already enabled a disbursement of 880 million dollars. This time again, the Fund underlines “the performance (which) remains solid within the framework of the program despite the challenge represented by the conflict” in progress, since the invasion of eastern Ukraine by Russia, in February 2022 .
40 billion euros per year: NATO wants to anchor its support for Ukraine over time
NATO, meeting on Friday in Prague, seeks to anchor its military support to Ukraine in the war against Russia over the long term, at a minimum level of 40 billion euros per year, “as long as necessary”. Its secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, told the press that he had made this proposal during an informal meeting of Alliance foreign ministers.
“Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Allies have provided approximately €40 billion per year in military aid to Ukraine. We must maintain at least this level of support each year, for as long as necessary.” , he stressed. As this was an informal meeting, no decision was taken but “we have made significant progress” in several areas,” he said. NATO also wants to regain control of the coordination of its military aid to Ukraine, which has until now been provided by the United States.
Turkey refuses NATO “participation” in the war in Ukraine
“We support continued aid to Ukraine and Ukraine’s ability to provide deterrence, but we do not want NATO to participate in this war,” said the head of Turkish diplomacy, Hakan Fidan, following an informal meeting of Alliance foreign ministers in Prague on Friday. For Ankara, “supporting Ukraine to guarantee its territorial integrity and liberate its territories is one thing. But NATO’s involvement in the war is another” which, added Hakan Fidan, “risks leading to a regional extension (of the conflict) and larger crises.
S&P lowers rating of three Baltic countries due to war
The rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) announced this Friday that it had lowered the rating of the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, estimating that the effects of the war in Ukraine, and geopolitical risks with Russia, weighed on these three European countries. Estonia sees its sovereign debt rating go from “AA-” to “A +”, that of Latvia going from “A + ” to “A”, just like that of Lithuania, in the three cases accompanied by ‘a stable outlook.
These three countries were particularly affected by the high inflation that hit the European Union (EU) after the Covid-19 pandemic and in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The rise in consumer prices peaked at around 9% for the EU as a whole, but exceeded 20% in the Baltics, which are more dependent on energy from Russia. However, the stable outlook reflects S&P’s confidence that the war in Ukraine “will not extend to the territory of any member country of NATO”, an organization to which all three countries belong.