By receiving his prestigious award in Oslo, the Russian winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, the president of the NGO Memorial, Ian Ratchinski, castigated this Saturday, December 10 “the mad and criminal war” led by Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. He judges that, under the presidency of Putin, “to resist Russia is tantamount to fascism”, and that this distortion provides “the ideological justification for the war against Ukraine”. Co-winner of this prize, Oleksandra Matviichuk, president of the Center for Civil Liberties, a Ukrainian NGO, considered that peace in Ukraine cannot be achieved “by laying down arms”. “The people of Ukraine want peace more than anyone else on this earth, but a country under attack cannot achieve peace if it lays down its arms. That would not be peace, but occupation,” he said. she declared.
- Odessa without electricity after kamikaze drone attack
The city of Odessa, in the south of Ukraine, has practically no electricity, following an attack by “kamikaze drones” launched by Russia on the night of Friday to Saturday, announced the Ukrainian authorities. The adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Kirill Timoshenko, however specified, in a message on his Telegram account, that essential infrastructures, in particular hospitals and maternity wards, had access to current. “The situation remains difficult, but is under control,” the oblast governor said.
According to the Ukrainian president, about 1.5 million inhabitants of Odessa and its region are plunged into darkness. The services of the regional administration indicated that the repair of the energy networks following the strikes carried out the previous night would take “weeks” and urged the inhabitants of this large port city who can to leave the region. Separately, Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russian forces had “turned the city of Bakhmout into ruins”, while Russia said it was continuing its offensive in the Donbass towards the town of Lyman, located 65 kilometers north of Bakhmout. .
- Medvedev announces the development of new “means of destruction”
The former Russian president, and current number two of the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, affirmed this Sunday that Moscow was manufacturing the “most powerful means of destruction” based on “new principles”, threatening to use them against the West. “Our enemy has not entrenched himself only in the Kiev government. He is also in Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and other places that have pledged allegiance to the Nazis of our time,” Medvedev wrote. “That is why we are intensifying the production of the most powerful means of destruction, including those based on new principles.”
- Arms dealer Viktor Bout publicly announces his support for the war in Ukraine
Released in an exchange with Washington for American basketball player Brittney Griner, arms dealer Viktor Bout gave his support to Vladimir Putin and the offensive in Ukraine on Saturday. “I am proud to be Russian, and our president is Putin”, said in an interview with Russian media RT this 55-year-old former Soviet army officer, who says he “fully” supports the Kremlin-led attack in Ukraine. “If I had the opportunity and the necessary skills, I would volunteer to fight in Ukraine,” he said, saying he “didn’t understand » why the massive Moscow offensive had not taken place as early as 2014.
- Olaf Scholz defends maintaining dialogue with Putin
Criticized for his repeated exchanges with Vladimir Putin, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said he was determined to maintain contact with the Russian president, “with a view to ending the war”. Since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, the German leader has spoken directly with Vladimir Putin more than most other Western leaders. The last telephone conversation between the two men, dating from December 2, lasted an hour.
“Every time I speak with Putin, he makes it very clear that for him it’s about conquering something,” Olaf Scholz said at an event in Potsdam, near Berlin. “He just wants to conquer part of Ukrainian territory by violence.” If he admitted “the brutality of which he is capable”, he also felt that no way out of the crisis was possible “without talking to each other”.
- Moscow imposes the ruble in the Kherson region
The pro-Russian administration of the Kherson region said on Saturday that it had started replacing the Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia, with the ruble, and that the circulation of Ukrainian currency in areas of the region controlled by Moscow was to end on January 1.
Russian forces took control of most of the Kherson region in the early days of the war, and declared its annexation to Russia in September, after a referendum condemned by Ukraine and Western countries. Less than two months later, Russian forces withdrew from the city of Kherson under pressure from a Ukrainian counter-offensive, while continuing to retain control of most of the region’s territory.