#LIVE #War #Ukraine #kyiv #welcomes #Macrons #comments #sending #troops #good #sign
• Joe Biden receives Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders at the White House this Tuesday, in the hope of releasing $60 billion in aid to Ukraine. In the House of Representatives, the shadow of Donald Trump, the Republican ultra-favorite for the November election, opposes this aid and first demands a toughening of immigration legislation.
• Emmanuel Macron yesterday called on Ukraine’s allies meeting in Paris for a “start” to ensure the “defeat” of Russia, announcing new measures to provide more weapons to Kiev and refusing to rule out the option of a sending of Western troops in the future. This conference hastily organized by the French president, in the presence of twenty-seven other countries, comes at a critical moment for Ukraine, awaiting the Western weapons necessary for its survival.
• A drone strike blamed on kyiv left three dead and three injured in the Russian border region of Belgorod, regularly subject to bombing. “Three civilians died,” the local governor said on Telegram, adding that three other people had been hospitalized after being injured in the explosion.
• The Ukrainian president says he “does not understand” how former President Donald Trump “can be on the side” of Russia, in an interview with CNN. “I don’t understand how Donald Trump can be on Putin’s side. It’s unthinkable,” he said during this interview broadcast Monday evening. The former Republican president is pushing his supporters in Congress to block $60 billion in US military aid for kyiv.
• Ukraine received only 30% of the million artillery shells promised by the EU last year, Volodymyr Zelensky said at a press conference on Monday in Kiev, as the Kiev’s army is in difficulty on the front and suffers from a lack of ammunition.
• The Ukrainian army announced its withdrawal from the small village of Lastochkyné, near the town of Avdiïvka, which fell more than a week ago, the Russian forces having for their part claimed its capture. The capture of this industrial city constituted the first real major territorial gain of the Russian army since the conquest of Bakhmut in May 2023.
• Danish police closed their investigation into the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September 2022, believing they did not “have the necessary basis” for prosecution. In addition to Denmark, two other investigations had been opened, in Germany and Sweden. The Swedish prosecutor’s office closed its investigations at the beginning of February without any prosecution, while the investigation is still ongoing in Germany.
