Eastern Ukraine is still in the throes of heavy fighting. “The Russian army is pounding Lysytchansk with cannons, missiles, aerial bombs, rocket launchers… they are destroying everything,” Serguii Gaïdaï, the governor of the Lugansk region, said overnight. of the confrontation between Ukrainian and Russian armies. While Lyssytchansk, an industrial city neighboring Severodonetsk in the Donbass, is under fire from Russian artillery, fifteen people, including an eight-year-old child, were killed in the Kharkiv region, Governor Oleg Synegoubov announced on Tuesday. At the same time as the clashes, the Ukrainians are working to obtain arms and official EU candidate status.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile spent his day on the phone trying to rally support from the 27 members of the EU, pending the formalization of the country’s candidacy which must be officially validated during a summit on Thursday. French European Affairs Minister Clément Beaune, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, reported a “total consensus” that emerged within the Twenty-Seven during a meeting with his counterparts in Luxemburg.
- Russia threatens Lithuania
Meanwhile, the tone has risen between Moscow and Lithuania. The former Soviet republic has indeed implemented European sanctions linked to the invasion of Ukraine on the transit by rail of goods in the direction of Kaliningrad. Enough to warm up the Russians who described them as “hostile acts”. “Appropriate measures” will be “adopted soon” and they will have “serious negative consequences for the people of Lithuania” threatened, in the process, the secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolaï Patrushev, of visit in the Russian enclave on the Baltic.
- US shocked that Russians are considering death penalty for two Americans
Alexander Drueke and Andy Huynh, two former US soldiers who went to Ukraine to support the country’s army, have been in Russian hands since early June. During an interview with the American channel NBC on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that they were “endangering” Russian soldiers and should be “held responsible for these crimes”. He added that they were “mercenaries” involved “in illegal activities”, so they were not protected by the Geneva Conventions, hinting that they risked the death penalty.
“It is appalling that a Russian government official is suggesting the death penalty for two American citizens who were in Ukraine,” White House spokesman for national security John Kirby said on Tuesday. He also confirmed that a second American national had been killed in action in that country.
- Macron keeps Washington’s trust
The United States on Tuesday expressed “confidence” in continuing to work closely diplomatically with French President Emmanuel Macron on the war in Ukraine, despite his camp’s electoral setbacks. “France is an ally of the United States. We have every confidence in the continuation in the future of our work in very close coordination with the Macron government on the challenge posed by Russia and on other shared challenges”, said underlined the spokesman for American diplomacy, Ned Price.
The French head of state is facing a rare political stalemate after legislative elections that deprived him of an absolute majority in the National Assembly. On Tuesday, he refused the resignation presented to him by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, but began intense consultations with political parties, including the opposition, to try to find “solutions” allowing him to adopt his future reforms.