You missed the latest events on the war in Ukraine ? Do not panic, 20 Minutes takes stock for you every evening at 7:30 p.m. Who did what ? Who said what? Where are we ? The answer below:
The fact of the day
The European Union reached an agreement on a cap on the price of russian oila decision hailed by its american ally. The text, tied up on Thursday, was suspended from the decision of Poland, which has just given its approval on Friday.
This tool is designed by the West to deprive Moscow of the means to finance the war in Ukraine. The mechanism envisaged plans to impose a ceiling of 60 dollars per barrel on the prices of Russian oil sold to third countries, in addition to the EU embargo which comes into force on Monday. As a reminder, Russia has earned 67 billion euros from its oil sales to the EU since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Washington considers EU cap on Russian oil prices “welcome”
sentence of the day
The Russian armed forces have long avoided high-precision missile strikes on certain targets in Ukraine, but such measures have become necessary and unavoidable in the face of provocative attacks from kyiv.
In a phone call on Friday with the Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Vladimir Putin remained on his positions. While the German leader asked Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine to allow a “diplomatic solution”, the Russian head of state considered that the massive strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, depriving civilians of water and electricity, were “necessary and unavoidable”.
Vladimir Putin also denounced the “destructive” position of the West, which has defended kyiv since the start of the conflict. On Thursday, during a joint press conference with Emmanuel Macron in Washington, United States President Joe Biden said he was “ready” to talk to Vladimir Putin if the latter “is looking for a way to end the war” , while specifying that he (Putin) has not yet done so.
During this press conference as part of his state visit to the United States, Emmanuel Macron told him that he “would never push the Ukrainians to accept a compromise that would be unacceptable to them”.
The number of the day
13.000. Like the maximum number of Ukrainian soldiers killed since Russia invaded the country last February, according to kyiv. “We have official estimates from the general staff (…) They range from 10,000 (…) to 13,000 dead,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the presidency, on a Ukrainian television channel. According to him, Volodymyr Zelensky will make the official data public “when the time is right”.
The trend
A pro-Russian head of Serbian intelligence. Aleksandar Vulin, 50, former Minister of Defense and Interior, was appointed to this strategic post on Thursday by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.
Vulin is one of the few European foreign officials to have visited Moscow after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This senior Serbian leader had met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last August and had repeated to him that Belgrade would not introduce sanctions against Russia. Before his trip to Moscow, he had declared that Serbia “would not be part of the anti-Russian hysteria”.