Did you miss the latest events on the war in Ukraine? 20 minutes takes stock for you every evening. Between the strong declarations, the progress on the front and the results of the battles, here is the main part of the day.
The fact of the day
Ukraine assured on Friday that it had “stopped” the Russian assault on the Kharkiv region and had begun a counterattack in this sector of the northeast of the country. The Russian army launched an offensive in the Kharkiv region from the border on May 10, seizing several localities and forcing Ukraine to deploy valuable reinforcements in the area.
After two weeks of fighting, “the Ukrainian defense forces have stopped the Russian troops” and “are carrying out counter-offensive actions”, Colonel Igor Prokhorenko, an official of the Ukrainian General Staff, said this Friday. “The enemy is completely bogged down in street fighting in Vovchansk and has suffered very significant losses,” assured General Oleksandr Syrsky, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, affirming that Moscow was sending “reserves” to continue its assault.
Since May 10, nearly 11,000 civilians have been forced to leave their homes in the region, Governor Oleg Synegubov said Thursday. President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Friday that he had arrived in Kharkiv, in particular for meetings on the “defense of the region, in particular in Vovchansk”.
Regarding other sectors of the front, General Syrsky’s tone was more somber. Further south in the Kharkiv region, the Russians have been on the attack near Koupiansk for almost a year. In the Donbass, the officer reported fierce clashes in the direction of Chassiv Iar, Pokrovsk and Kurakhové where the Russians have been nibbling ground for months.
Today’s statement
“ “Russia has increased its provocations (…) Full solidarity in the face of these unacceptable aggressive actions” »
The sentence is signed Stéphane Séjourné, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, in a message posted on and Lithuania. “We are closely monitoring the situation alongside our allies, who are acting calmly and calmly. »
The Estonian coast guard said Thursday that their Russian counterparts had removed buoys placed on the Narva River, which separates the two countries, during the night as part of a dispute at the border.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas spoke of a “border incident” as Lithuania and other countries in the region have strained relations with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
The number of the day
144 dead. This is the heavy toll of the Crocus City Hall attack which occurred on March 22 in Moscow. Russia recognized this Friday for the first time clearly the responsibility of the Islamic State (IS) organization, after having repeatedly pointed out the responsibility of Ukraine.
“During the investigation (…), it was established that the preparations, financing, attack and withdrawal of the terrorists were coordinated via the Internet by members of the Khorasan Province group”, the Afghan branch of the EI, declared the director of the Russian security services (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, quoted by the RIA Novosti agency.
Gunmen opened fire at Crocus City Hall, a concert venue on the northwest outskirts of the Russian capital, before setting it on fire. More than 20 people have since been arrested, including the four suspected attackers, all from Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia neighboring Afghanistan. Ukraine has always categorically rejected any involvement.
The trend
What if the West made Russia pay for aid to Ukraine? How to use frozen Russian assets to provide additional financing was on the agenda of G7 finance ministers this week, but the application is proving complex.
To the point that after advocating a pure and simple confiscation of Russian assets, the United States has now aligned itself with the European position of using only the interest generated by the frozen assets, even if Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has called on Thursday at the G7 for “more ambitious options”. “It’s an attractive idea to confiscate the jackpot,” Frédéric Dopagne, professor at the UCLouvain law faculty in Belgium, told AFP.
Our file on the war in Ukraine
What amounts are we talking about? The European Union and G7 countries have frozen some 300 billion euros in assets of Russia’s central bank, according to the EU. They also seized private assets of people linked to Russian power, such as the oligarchs’ yachts and villas. No register counts the total, but according to the Institute of Legislative Ideas, a Ukrainian think tank which claims to question official sources, 397 billion dollars are immobilized.
The World Bank, for its part, estimates the cost of rebuilding Ukraine, devastated by two years of war, at more than $486 billion.
