Russian bombings against the cities of Kharkiv and Odessa have caused further casualties. While a European summit is being held in Budapest, Ursula von der Leyen returned to her future relationship with Donald Trump and raised the possibility of replacing Russian gas with American gas. For his part, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called on Europeans to “moving from war to peace”.
Here's what you need to know about the conflict as of November 8, 2024.
One dead and around 40 injured in Russian bombings
At least one person was killed and more than forty injured during a series of strikes targeting the cities of Kharkiv and Odessa in Ukraine, local authorities announced, the day after deadly bombings on Zaporizhia.
“Missiles, drones and glide bombs were used against the Odessa, Kharkiv and kyiv regions”noted President Volodymyr Zelensky.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia fired five missiles, 92 drones and glide bombs overnight, with four missiles and 62 drones shot down. In Kharkiv, the country's second city located in the northeast near the Russian border, 25 people were injured, according to local authorities.
Von der Leyen proposes to Trump to replace Russian gas with American gas
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she had proposed to Donald Trump that the United States supply more liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the EU to replace Russian gas. The American president-elect has threatened to tax imports of European products in order to put an end to the European Union's trade surpluses vis-à-vis the United States, which he continued to denounce during the electoral campaign.
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“First of all, I think it is very important to talk to each other, then (we must) discuss our common interests and then start negotiations”declared Ursula von der Leyen, asked about how she intended to manage the commercial relationship with Donald Trump with whom she had a first telephone exchange on Thursday.
“The common interests are, for example – and this is a subject that we addressed yesterday, without really discussing it in depth – everything relating to LNG. We still get a lot of LNG from Russia so why not replace it with American LNG which is cheaper for us and lowers our energy prices? »she asked herself during a press conference, following a European summit in Budapest.
Orban calls on Europeans to “move from war to peace” in Ukraine
Also during the European summit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called on Europeans to recognize the new situation created by the election of Donald Trump, by agreeing to “moving from war to peace” in Ukraine, despite their reaffirmed support for kyiv.
“The situation on the battlefield is obvious, it is a military defeat” for Ukraine, he said before welcoming the heads of state and government of the 27, gathered in Budapest. Donald Trump “hate war” and therefore, “for us Europeans, the situation is evolving”he added on Hungarian radio.
And for the Hungarian leader, who pleads for a ceasefire, there is only one way to respond: “Let us adapt quickly and move from war to peace. »
NATO and its partners in Asia condemn North Korean engagement
NATO and its partners in Asia (South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand) have “firmly” condemned North Korea's engagement alongside Russia, in its “war of aggression” against Ukraine.
“The deployment of thousands of fighters (from North Korea) constitutes a dangerous intensification of the already substantial support provided by this country to the war of aggression that Russia is waging, completely illegally, against Ukraine”indicated the Atlantic Alliance in a press release, specifying that its partners in Asia and Ukraine had joined this text.
Two soldiers sentenced to life in prison for massacre of Ukrainian family
Two Russian soldiers have been sentenced to life in Russia for murdering an entire family of nine, including two children, in an occupied Ukrainian town in 2023, the state news agency reported Tass.
According to the prosecution, on October 28, 2023, in the partially occupied Ukrainian region of Donetsk, in Volnovakha, Anton Sopov and Stanislav Raou, armed with assault rifles with silencers, decimated the Kapkanets family, including two children aged nine and four years.
They were convicted by a military court in Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia, for the assassinations, said Tass which cites security sources, and does not give further details on the motive.
This conviction is a rare example of recognition by Russian institutions of abuses committed by Russian soldiers in the occupied zones, of which Ukrainians, Westerners and international organizations accuse them.
