A year after the start of the war, the negotiations still seem very distant. Antony Blinken however opened the door, Thursday, March 23, to this eventuality, by evoking the contours of the borders of Ukraine, while specifying that it will be up to the Ukrainians to decide. “I think there are going to be territories in Ukraine that Ukrainians will be determined to fight for on the ground, and maybe territories that they decide they have to try to win back by other means,” he told a parliamentary committee in Washington.
Blinken does not rule out negotiations over Ukraine’s borders in the long term
Speaking before a parliamentary committee in Washington, the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken reaffirmed that any eventual peace with Russia must be “just and lasting”, that is to say which respects the independence and the territorial integrity of Ukraine, but “how precisely this is defined on the ground, we expect Ukrainians to tell us”.
He thus seemed to endorse the fact that the Ukrainians would find it difficult to recover all the territories annexed by Russia, in particular Crimea. “I think there are going to be territories in Ukraine that the Ukrainians will be determined to fight for on the ground, and maybe territories that they decide they have to try to win back by other means,” he asserted. Antony Blinken was specifically questioned by Republican elected official Chris Stewart on whether the United States supports President Volodymyr Zelensky’s desire to recover Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Pussy Riot distinguished in the United States for their spirit of resistance
The Russian punk and feminist protest group, Pussy Riot, will be honored in May in the United States with a prize honoring the spirit of resistance through music, in particular against Russia’s war in Ukraine, the organizers announced Thursday.
On May 6, they will receive the “Woody Guthrie” distinction, named after an American folk singer and composer (1912-1967) considered a left-wing musician, sometimes classified as a socialist, revolutionary or even anarchist, and who defended the poorest and the oppressed. The latest recipients of this award are Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez or Pete Seeger.
Von der Leyen announces conference on children abducted by Russia
The EU will organize in partnership with Warsaw and Kiev a conference to help locate children abducted in Ukraine by Russia and their return to their country, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Thursday.
“It’s a horrifying reminder of the darkest times in our history, the deportations of children that are happening there. It’s a war crime,” German official said after summit in Brussels. “We know that 16,200 children were deported, only 300 have since returned,” she continued at a press conference.
Zelensky asks Europeans for missiles and combat aircraft
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the Europeans for their military aid but warned that warnings about the supply of long-range missiles and fighter jets risked prolonging the war. Returning from the Kherson region, near the southern front, the president called, via videoconference from a train, the European leaders meeting at the summit in Brussels. The connection was interrupted once, but the Ukrainian president was able to deliver his message, said a European official. He warned against refusing to supply his forces with long-range missiles and modern fighter jets.
“We cannot delay the transfer to our soldiers of weapons that can protect Ukrainians from terror. First of all, these are long-range weapons,” Volodymyr Zelensky said, according to a video posted on his Telegram account. . “We need more modern aircraft” than the MiGs already sent to kyiv, he added. The Ukrainian president also demanded the adoption of new sanctions against Russia, progress on his country’s accession to the EU and progress on his peace plan.
Athletics: Russians remain excluded from competitions a year and a half before the Paris Olympics
The Russians and Belarusians remain off the tracks: the International Athletics Federation has decided to maintain their exclusion, while the sports world is wondering about the participation of athletes from these two countries in the Paris Olympics in 2024. athletes, officials and staff members from Russia and Belarus will remain excluded for the foreseeable future due to the invasion of Ukraine,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe told a press conference.
After having “recommended” in February 2022 their exclusion from international competitions, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had shown at the beginning of the year its desire to “explore ways” to bring Russian and Belarusian athletes back into the fold of world sport. , possibly under a neutral banner, provided they “did not actively support the war in Ukraine”.
Zelensky near the Southern front, the army mistakenly announces a Russian withdrawal
President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the frontline in southern Ukraine as his army mistakenly announced a Russian withdrawal from a town across the Dnieper River in the same area. In the east of the country, in Bakhmout, where most of the fighting has been concentrated for months, the Ukrainian army assured that it had observed an “exhaustion” of the Russian forces and intended to use them to launch a counterattack “very soon”. -offensive.
Volodymyr Zelensky, who went to Bakhmout on Wednesday, appeared on Thursday near Kherson, a city from which the Russians withdrew in November 2022 to retreat to the other side of the Dnieper River, the natural border between the two armies.