He was acclaimed by MEPs and applauded by the leaders of the Twenty-Seven gathered at the summit. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrapped up a European visit to Brussels on Thursday, February 9, during which he demanded concrete answers to his request for combat aircraft. The Europeans have so far refused to commit to the aircraft requested by Ukraine.
The Ukrainian head of state, however, spoke of “positive signals”. “We want to get these planes that we need and there are agreements that […] are not public”, he assured during a press conference, without further details.
A Russian “massive attack” with missiles and drones
Russia carried out in the morning, this Friday, February 10, a “massive attack” with missiles and kamikaze drones, “affecting” several energy sites in Ukraine, said the Ukrainian army.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia fired “six Kalibr cruise missiles”, “up to 35 S-300 anti-aircraft guided missiles at the Kharkiv and Zaporizhia regions”, and used “seven Shahed drones “. “The enemy has struck the cities and critical infrastructure of Ukraine,” she said in a statement.
“Five Kalibr cruise missiles and five Shahed drones were destroyed” by anti-aircraft defense, the same source said. According to her, “the enemy has struck the cities and essential infrastructure of Ukraine”. No casualties have been reported at this stage by the Ukrainian authorities.
No delivery of planes “in the coming weeks”, according to Macron
Emmanuel Macron, however, affirmed on the night of Thursday to Friday that fighter planes claimed by Ukraine could “in no case” be delivered “in the coming weeks”, ensuring that he favored “more useful” and “more fast”.
“I exclude absolutely nothing”, declared the French president in front of the press about deliveries of combat planes. But “it does not correspond to the needs today”, he estimated, after a European summit in Brussels in the presence of his Ukrainian counterpart.
Throughout his European tour on Wednesday and Thursday, Volodymyr Zelensky insisted that his country needed fighter jets to end the war led by Russia. Emmanuel Macron assured that his “very in-depth and very precise discussion” with Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday February 8 in Paris had highlighted that the priority should be “to do everything to help (Ukraine) to resist in the coming weeks”, and to “carry out useful operations in the spring-summer if we want to be able to then carry out diplomatic actions in parallel”.
Zelensky meets the King of the Belgians in Brussels
The Ukrainian president met Thursday in Brussels with the King of the Belgians Philippe, on the sidelines of a European summit, announced the Royal Palace in a tweet accompanied by a photo showing them together. “His Excellency the President of the Republic of Ukraine was received in audience,” the Palace said. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, whom Volodymyr Zelensky had met earlier in the day at the EU summit, also attended the interview.
Macron does not rule out withdrawing the Legion of Honor from Putin
Emmanuel Macron did not rule out withdrawing the Legion of Honor awarded by his predecessor Jacques Chirac to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2006, while explaining that he wanted to choose “the right time to do it”.
The Head of State presented Wednesday evening to Volodymyr Zelensky, passing through Paris during his second trip outside Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. This is the highest distinction that a French president can award to a counterpart. Asked by the press after a European summit in Brussels on the night of Thursday to Friday, he explained that this distinction was “an element of justice and recognition of our country” with regard to the Ukrainian president.
But the informal ceremony to award the Legion of Honor to Volodymyr Zelensky at the Elysée, of which Emmanuel Macron had tweeted a video, has revived the demands of those who demand that France withdraw this distinction from Vladimir Putin. In 2006, Jacques Chirac presented the Russian President with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. This decision immediately raised a controversy. The organization Reporters Without Borders had notably tried in court, but in vain, to deprive the master of the Kremlin of it.
Marina Ovsiannikova, the Russian anti-war journalist: “My son called me a traitor”
Today in exile, Marina Ovsiannikova speaks for the first time in a French media since her arrest last summer. The Russian anti-war journalist gave an exclusive interview to The Express. In mid-March 2022, a few days after the start of the offensive in Ukraine, Marina Ovsiannikova had interrupted the evening television news of the major Russian channel Pervy Kanal, where she had worked as a journalist for almost 20 years. She had waved a sign in full live calling for an end to the fighting and the Russians to “not believe the propaganda”.
For this gesture, she was briefly arrested and fined. She then left the country to work for the German media Die Welt. In July, she had returned to Russia to try to retain custody of her two minor children, whom her ex-husband, still living in Russia, was trying to take from her.
Despite the risks, she continued to criticize the power and the offensive from Moscow, before being arrested again and charged with “disseminating false information” about the army. The Russian journalist, under house arrest, then fled Russia with her daughter.
She released an autobiographical book describing in particular “the media propaganda factory” of Moscow. The book appears this Friday in Germany. The same day, she gave a press conference in Paris at the offices of Reporters sans Frontières to talk about her escape from Russia with her daughter thanks to RSF, four months ago, when she was under house arrest.
JO-2024: the IOC denounces the threats of boycott before the conference on the presence of Russian athletes
The President of the International Olympic Committee denounced Ukrainian threats to boycott the 2024 Olympics in Paris if Russian and Belarusian athletes participate, on the eve of a conference this Friday, January 10 on this subject between the Ministers of Sports of several countries .
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, who will speak at the opening of this conference organized by London, according to the PA agency, has repeatedly called for the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes from the next Olympic Games, calling again this week for “protect the Olympic charter”.
In a letter dated January 31 and revealed Thursday by the Ukrainian Olympic Committee, IOC President Thomas Bach denounced this posture as going “against the fundamentals of the Olympic movement”. Thomas Bach also assures that the Ukrainian “pressures” are perceived as “extremely regrettable” by “the vast majority” of National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and international federations.