A year after its enemy, Ukraine in turn began to build fortifications along the front line, a sign that it is preparing for a long war, while it seems to have for the moment lost the operational initiative. Re-elected with 87% of the vote, President Vladimir Putin assured Monday that his country would not allow itself to be “intimidated” or “crushed”, after two years of conflict in Ukraine and crisis with the West.
Information to remember
⇒ kyiv builds defensive fortifications
⇒ Re-elected Putin promises a Russia that will “not be intimidated”
⇒ Putin favored a prisoner exchange including Navalny
kyiv builds defensive fortifications and prepares for the long term
On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of the construction of “two thousand kilometers of works to strengthen existing fortifications and create new ones.” Information that the British Ministry of Defense had mentioned the day before, reporting “dragon’s teeth”, anti-tank ditches, infantry trenches, minefields and fortified defensive positions.
The line in question will respond to the Russian “Surovikin Line” established in 2023 in eastern Ukraine, which includes three layers of defense in depth, intended both to exhaust enemy forces and make it more difficult to take control of an area after a military breakthrough. The Ukrainian response will probably be less elaborate, less profound, but responds urgently to its ammunition shortage.
Re-elected Putin promises a Russia that will not be intimidated
The master of the Kremlin, in power for almost a quarter of a century, collected more than 87% of the votes after counting 98% of the polling stations, according to the official Russian agency Ria Novosti citing the electoral commission. This is his best result, following a vote from which the opposition was excluded. Addressing the Russians at the end of the evening, Vladimir Putin thanked those who went to vote and who made it possible to create the conditions for “internal political consolidation”, two years after the start of the assault against Ukraine and of the adoption of unprecedented sanctions by the West.
“I would like to thank you all, as well as all the citizens of the country, for your support and your trust,” he told his campaign team, before promising that Russia will stand up to all its adversaries. “It doesn’t matter who wants to intimidate us or how much, no matter who wants to crush us or how much, our will or our conscience. No one has ever succeeded in doing anything like this in history. This has not worked today and will not work in the future,” said the 71-year-old president.
A “man drunk with power”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky considered that Vladimir Putin was a man “drunk with power” wanting to “reign eternally” and the head of British diplomacy David Cameron deplored the absence of “free and fair” elections in Russia. The United States criticized the holding of the vote in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Moscow.
The leaders of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Bolivia, for their part, congratulated Vladimir Putin on his re-election.
Putin says Russian forces have advantage
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that his troops had the advantage against kyiv’s forces on the front in Ukraine, promising once again that Moscow’s objectives would be “achieved”.
“Overall, the initiative lies entirely with the Russian armed forces, and in some areas our men are mowing down the enemy,” Vladimir Putin said in a televised speech.
Putin favors a prisoner exchange including Navalny
In Russia, the authorities left no room for opponents of power: the three other candidates selected for the presidential election were all in line with the Kremlin, whether it was Ukraine or the repression which culminated with the death of Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison in February.
Vladimir Putin assured Monday that the death of his main detractor was a “sad event” and that he had been favorable to the idea of exchanging him with the West. “There was only one condition: that we trade him so that he doesn’t come back,” he said.
“Eradicate” Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar identities
Russia is seeking to “eradicate” the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar identities and to modify the demographic composition of this territory that it has controlled for ten years, notably through population transfers, denounces Amnesty International in a report published Monday. “In ten years of occupation, Russia has done everything in its power to delegitimize Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea,” points out the human rights NGO, describing the policies used by Moscow to “change the ethnic composition” of the peninsula.
It has “systematically sought to eradicate Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar identities, by disrupting, restricting or prohibiting the use of the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages in education, media, national celebrations and other areas of life “, according to Amnesty. Residents were also forced to accept Russian passports under penalty of “being deprived of their fundamental rights, being denied access to essential services and even risking being expelled”, assures the NGO. “These policies appear to be a model for Russia’s plans in other parts of Ukraine it occupies,” Amnesty said.