204 days have passed since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the horror does not stop. In a torture chamber in liberated Balakliya, the ‘Our Father’ was found engraved on a wall.
At risk now there is the Ukrainian city of Kryvyj Rihm, which is located in the interior of the country: the danger is that it could be submerged by water due to a Russian bombing that damaged some water infrastructures and caused the flooding of a river, the Inhulec. In the Kharkiv area, the main power lines were restored after a Russian retaliatory attack against a local facility. The Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna however announced that Russian officials have contacted Kiev in recent days to negotiate, while the Ukrainian team has now regained more than 8,000 square kilometers of land. Despite this, according to Guterres who heard Putin on the phone yesterday, peace is still a long way off.
Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she will visit Kiev on Wednesday, adding that “the bloc’s solidarity with Ukraine will remain unshakable.”
REPORTAGE – The new Bucha, a horror journey to the northeast
ANALYSES – So the Russians get the money into Europe
LETTERS AND IDEAS – Kiev and Putin’s anger
Here’s what happened yesterday
Updates hour by hour
00.03 – Kiev: full training in Great Britain for 5,000 Ukrainian soldiers
Nearly 5,000 Ukrainian soldiers have completed their training in the United Kingdom, reports the military staff of Kiev, quoted by the Kyiv Independent. “The operation, launched by the British government, required Ukrainian military personnel to acquire the ability to conduct defensive and offensive operations in urban areas,” reveals Kiev.
Putin unleashes Prigozhin: he enlists inmates to fight in Ukraine in exchange for amnesty
00.01 – CNN: former US governor in Moscow for the Griner case
Former diplomat and former governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, is in Moscow with some of his collaborators for meetings with the Russian leadership. The CNN reports, putting forward the hypothesis that Richardson is trying to obtain the release of two American prisoners in Russia, the female basketball champion Brittney Griner and the former marine Paul Whelan. CNN states that the spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dmitry Peskov, denied any meeting in the Kremlin, adding that he has “nothing to say on this subject”. The US State Department spokesman, Ned Price, for his part said that “we will not comment on Richardson’s trip or his activity”, acknowledging, however, that the State Department “is in contact” with the center that Richardson leads, which bears his name and who works on behalf of the families of hostages and inmates.