Sadness and anger. The sadness is that of a crying Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday, attending with his wife the funeral of his Minister of the Interior, who died on Tuesday with thirteen other people in a helicopter accident. The anger is what was expressed a little earlier by his adviser, Mykhaïlo Podoliak: “Today’s indecision is killing more and more of our people“, he said in a tweet. A reference to Friday’s meeting in Ramstein (Germany) at the end of which Ukraine’s allies did not agree on the shipment of tanks requested by Kyiv.
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In the crosshairs of Ukraine’s most ardent defenders is Germany, designer of the coveted Leopard 2, which is reluctant to see them go to the front. If Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his new Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, thought they were buying themselves some breathing room by saying they were going to conduct a review of available stocks, their calculation was wrong. Since yesterday morning, the foreign ministers of the Baltic countries have put pressure on Berlin, asking it to “deliver Leopard tanks to Ukraine now“. An identical message to his Polish counterpart, whose country said it was ready on Friday to supply 14 of these tanks.
An almost frozen forehead
Ukraine has received new delivery promises in recent days: 600 Brimstone missiles from the United Kingdom, 19 Caesar guns from Denmark or Archer self-propelled guns from Sweden. But they are not likely to move a front that is now almost frozen, especially around the cities of Bakhmout or Kreminna in the Donbass. The only notable change if confirmed: after several months of calm, the clashes would have gained, according to Moscow, in intensity in the region of Zaporizhzhya (south).
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On Saturday, the Russian General Staff claimed to have carried out “offensive operations“which he would have allowed”take lines and advantageous positions“. Kyiv simply referred to “shotsin a dozen towns. Russia also communicates about its defensive actions, although they are probably only intended to scare and therefore mobilize public opinion. Throughout the week, “stolen” images thus showed the installation of anti-aircraft batteries in official buildings, as if the country was about to be bombed. On Saturday, the Ministry of Defense even announced that it had conducted air defense exercises in the Moscow region, to protect “your critical infrastructure, in the event of an attack.»
Source : Le JDD
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