It is the forty-ninth day of the war. The diplomacy front runs aground, with Russian President Vladimir Putin speaking of “shopkeepers in a dead end”, stresses that the Bucha massacre is a “fake” and makes it known “that we will take the Donbass”. Ukraine resists and speaks of a “final offensive that has already begun” in the Donbass, while announcing the capture of Ukrainian and pro-Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk.
US President Joe Biden yesterday evoked the word “genocide” for the first time referring to Putin, while he made it known that the US intends to announce, within 48 hours, the investment of another 750 million dollars in military assistance to Ukraine. invaded by Russian forces. Yesterday there was a long conversation between the US president and Boris Johnson on the need for further economic and military support in Kiev. And Zelensky, meanwhile, fears an attack with chemical weapons.
What happened yesterday, Tuesday 12 April
Follow the updates hour after hour
The point of Andrea Margelletti – “Putin will not stop, he wants to change the order of the world“
He reports – The ghosts of the bunker in the hell of Severodonetsk
The analysis – The new geopolitics with the war in Ukraine: divided and militarized the world is no longer the same
00.45 – France freezes Russian assets worth over 25 billion dollars: the French Ministry of Finance said it
The French finance ministry has released a detailed list of Russian assets worth 23.7 billion euros – or $ 25.6 billion – which it has frozen since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Assets belonging to the Russian central bank, which according to the ministry are worth € 22.8 billion, make up the bulk of the frozen assets. The asset list also includes 33 real estate properties with a combined purchase value of 573.6 million euros, including some addresses in Antibes, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat and Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera, and 178 billion euros. euro in also listed frozen bank assets, three yachts worth over 125 billion euros, six helicopters worth over 60 million euros and three works of art worth 7 million euros.
00.38 – Ukraine: US deputy in Blinken, restore diplomatic presence in Kiev
Victoria Spartaz, the first US congressman born in Ukraine, urged the State Department to send some diplomats back to Ukraine. Spartaz sent a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken explaining that the US should consider redeploying US diplomats to Lviv in western Ukraine to provide better coordination with Ukraine. The deputy stressed the actions of the European Union, which returned its diplomatic corps to Kiev. “As the largest provider of military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, it is time for the United States to follow the example of our European allies,” Spartaz wrote. The United States and other countries withdrew their diplomats and evacuated embassies and consulates from Kiev in the days leading up to the Russian invasion, moving them to the western city of Lviv. The officials were then transferred to Poland.
00.25 – Ukrainian army reports 5-hour battle in central Zaporizhzhia region as forces try to liberate the area
The Ukrainian army reported heavy fighting in the central Zaporizhzhia region on Tuesday. The Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration said a five-hour battle took place in the Polohy district as Ukrainian forces attempted to vacate the area. After units of the region’s territorial defense brigade occupied part of the district, Russian reinforcements forced them to withdraw, according to Colonel Ivan Arefyev, spokesman for the military administration. Polohy is located north-east of the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, where Arefyev said Russian troops continued to “use terrorist methods to intimidate the local population and persuade them to take their side.”
00.20 – Biden ready to give another 750 million dollars in arms to Kiev
The US intends to announce another $ 750 million in military assistance to Ukraine invaded by Russian forces within 48 hours. This was reported by Reuters exclusively, citing two sources of the American administration, according to which President Joe Biden will use his powers to transfer equipment without going through the approval of Congress. Among the aids it is very likely that there are also artillery systems, including howitzers. No comment so far from the White House that last week had pointed out that since the beginning of the Russian invasion it has provided Ukraine with assistance for 1.7 billion dollars.
00.17 – CNN, OPCW (International Chemical Weapons Surveillance) “worried” about unconfirmed news on the use of chemical weapons in Mariupol
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said it was “concerned about the recent unconfirmed report on the use of chemical weapons” in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol that emerged on Monday. “All 193 OPCW member states, including the Russian Federation and Ukraine, are parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention,” the OPCW said in a statement. “In doing so, they have solemnly and voluntarily committed not to develop, produce, acquire, accumulate, transfer or use chemical weapons.”
00.05 – The OECD will publish the results of the investigation into human rights violations in the Russian war tomorrow
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) will publish the results of its investigation into human rights violations and atrocities committed in the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine tomorrow Wednesday. The spokesman for the US Mission to the OSCE says so.
Zelensky: “Russians are preparing terror campaign. In Mariupol they could use chemical weapons”
00.01 – Zelensky in Moscow, Medvedchuk in exchange for our soldiers
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has proposed to Russia that oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, considered close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, be handed over to Moscow in exchange for the release of Ukrainians taken prisoner by Russian forces. The Guardian reports it. “I propose an exchange between this man of yours” and Ukrainian men and women detained by the Russians, Zelensky said in a message on Telegram. A few hours earlier, Kiev had announced that Medvedchuk had been arrested in a Ukrainian intelligence operation.
The Azov battalion accuses the Russians of using chemical weapons in Mariupol. Here’s what we know so far
