The essential
- Ukrainian forces launched a counter-offensive on the city of Kherson, the only major urban center completely conquered by Moscow forces. For its part, the Russian army has announced that it will limit its offensive on the Donbass, in the east of the country.
- The United States and the European Union have announced the creation of a working group aimed at reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels. Objective: to deprive Moscow of its main source of income.
- Russia has acknowledged the death of 1,351 of its soldiers since the start of its military offensive, for 3,825 wounded, the first figures for more than three weeks. On the Ukrainian side, more than 10 million people out of 40 million have fled their homes, including 3.7 million who have gone abroad, mainly to Poland.
- France, Turkey and Greece will carry out a humanitarian operation to evacuate the besieged city of Mariupol as its town hall fears the death of around 300 people in the bombing of the city’s theater by Russian aircraft on March 16 .
9:55 p.m. – The city where Chernobyl personnel live occupied by the Russians
The Russian army has taken control of the town of Slavoutitch, where the staff of the Chernobyl power plant reside, briefly arresting the mayor and sparking pro-Ukrainian demonstrations, Ukrainian authorities said on Saturday. “I have been released, everything is fine, as far as it is possible under the occupation,” Yuri Fomichev, mayor of Slavoutitch, told Agence France Presse by telephone, whose arrest by the Russians had was announced in the morning by the Kyiv regional administration. After being released, he spoke at an anti-Russian demonstration, which he said gathered some 5,000 people, and assured that Russian troops would soon leave the city. He then told Agence France Presse that they would withdraw on Sunday.
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“The Russian occupiers have invaded Slavoutitch and occupied the municipal hospital”, wrote in the morning on Telegram the military administration of the kyiv region, which includes Slavoutitch, a city of 25,000 inhabitants 160 km north of the capital, built after the Chernobyl accident in 1986. Demonstrators unfurled a huge Ukrainian blue and yellow flag and marched towards the hospital, according to regional authorities, who released photos of dozens of people gathered around the Ukrainian flag and chanting “Glory to Ukraine”.
9:15 p.m. – kyiv says Washington has “no objection” to transfer of Polish fighter jets
The United States assured kyiv that it had “no objection” to the transfer of Polish fighter jets to Ukraine, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister said on Saturday in a written message sent to the France Media Agency. “The United States assured us that they had no objection to the transfer of the planes,” wrote Dmytro Kouleba, who met in the morning with American President Joe Biden, who is visiting Poland. “The ball is now in Poland’s court,” he added.
8:50 p.m. – At least 5 injured after a series of strikes on a fuel depot in Lviv
Lviv, a major city in western Ukraine relatively spared from the fighting so far, suffered a series of Russian strikes on Saturday afternoon, two of which hit a fuel depot and injured five, according to local authorities . “Today, two strategic infrastructures were affected,” said regional governor Maxime Kozytski during a brief press conference interrupted by warning sirens. “One of them is a fuel depot in the city of Lviv, in a residential area, and the second is a military site, a factory also located in a residential area,” he said, indicating that these sites had been hit by two strikes each.
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“Five people from the first site needed medical attention,” he added, adding that there were no fatalities and that a fire was being extinguished at the second site. “With today’s strikes, the attackers want to say hello to President Biden who is currently in Poland,” said Lviv Mayor Andriï Sadovy. The latter had published a video on Telegram a little earlier, in which we see him in a school, located according to him not far from the second site hit by the shots. “The windows were blown out, but the people are all alive and that’s the most important thing,” he said at the time. “The Russian missile strikes on the city of Lviv are an attempt to intimidate the Ukrainians, the diplomats of the democratic countries who are in the city,” said the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, Andriï Yermak, for his part. on Telegram. The installation affected by the first explosions is in an eastern district of the city, Lytchakivsky. Shortly after the strikes, reporters saw billowing clouds of thick black smoke and flames rising above the neighborhood.
8:10 p.m. – Ukraine says it has regained control of a city in the northeast from the Russians
Ukrainian forces have regained control of the town of Trostianets in northeastern Ukraine, where fighting with Russian soldiers was raging, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on Saturday. “The town of Trostianets in the Sumy region has been liberated from Russian occupation troops,” the ministry wrote on Telegram, citing the 93rd Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The recapture of this city, which is about fifty kilometers from Sumy and had around 20,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion, seems to be a significant advance by the Ukrainian army, which has launched counter-attacks in certain regions. According to kyiv, Trostianets had been occupied by the Russian Kantemirovskaya Armor Division.
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7:59 p.m. — Biden did not call for ‘regime change’ in Russia, White House says
US President Joe Biden, who said in a speech in Warsaw that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin should ‘not stay in power’, did not call for ‘regime change’ in Russia, an official says of the White House. “What the president meant was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. He was not talking about Putin’s power in Russia, or about regime change,” the manager said.
6:30 p.m. – Joe Biden speaks from Warsaw, Poland
The American president affirms that Vladimir Putin “has an imperial project” and that we will have to “arm ourselves for a long fight before us”. Joe Biden, who believes that this war in Ukraine is already “a failure for Putin”, speaks directly to the Russian people, assuring them that they are not “the enemy”: “You do not deserve this war” , he says, adding that Putin is “a dictator” and that he must “not stay in power”.
6:23 p.m. – Turkey will not sanction Russian oligarchs
Turkey, a member of NATO, which maintains close relations with Russia and Ukraine, did not join the sanctions against Moscow. Russian oligarchs can indeed continue to come and do business in Turkey as long as they respect Turkish law and international law, says Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.
5:16 p.m. – Two strikes on Lviv, at least 5 injured, according to regional governor
The city of Lviv, in western Ukraine, relatively spared from the fighting so far, suffered two Russian strikes leaving at least five wounded, said the governor of the region, Maxime Kozytsky, on Telegram.
4:14 p.m. – Joe Biden “not sure” that Russia has changed its strategy in Ukraine
US President Joe Biden said in Warsaw on Saturday that he “wasn’t sure” that Russia’s announcement to focus its offensive on Donbass meant a change in its strategy in Ukraine. Questioned by a journalist on this point, he replied briefly: “I’m not sure that they (the Russians) did it”, while the Russian command declared on Friday that it wanted to “concentrate the bulk of the efforts on the main objective: the liberation of Donbass”, contrasting with the stated intention of the Kremlin to “demilitarize” and “denazify” the whole of Ukraine.
