The American President Joe Biden violently attacked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, calling him a “butcher” and saying he could “not stay in power” after his invasion of theUkraine, a statement immediately tempered by the White House. Coming to show his support for Poland, a country on the eastern flank of the Atlantic Alliance and bordering Ukraine, Joe Biden on Saturday described the war in this country as a “strategic failure for Russia”, and warned the authorities in Moscow, enjoining them not “even to [penser] to advance one centimeter into NATO territory”.
The main information:
- Negotiations are held in Ankara from March 28 to 30
- Eight Russian tanks destroyed in Donetsk and Lugansk areas
- Russian strikes on fuel depots in Lviv and Mykolaiv
- Over 2,000 Mariupol residents killed
- Residents of Kharkiv resigned
Before his charge against the master of the Kremlin in the early evening, the American president had dealt Vladimir Poutine of “butcher” for the crimes committed according to him by the Russian army in Ukraine. Calling on Joe Biden to remain “thoughtful” in his remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reacted to this first attack by judging that each time, personal insults of this kind reduce the field of possibilities for our relations bilateral with the current US government”.
The host of the White House drove the point home during a speech in front of a thousand people at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, directly challenging the “Russian people”.
New negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Ankara
Russian and Ukrainian delegations will meet from Monday in Turkey for a new round of face-to-face negotiationsannounced Sunday David Arakhamia, one of the Ukrainian negotiators.
“During discussions today by videoconference, it was decided to hold the next face-to-face round in Turkey from March 28 to 30,” he said on his Facebook page. A face-to-face Russian-Ukrainian negotiation session had already taken place on March 10 in Turkey, in Antalya, between the foreign ministers, without leading to concrete progress.
The call for a boycott of Auchan supermarkets
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister called on Sunday for a boycott of Auchan stores, after the French group announced that it wanted to maintain its activities in Russia, arguing in particular for the need to support the purchasing power of Russians.
“Apparently the job losses in Russia are greater than the deaths in Ukraine,” Dmytro Kouleba wrote on Twitter. “If Auchan ignores the 139 Ukrainian children murdered during this month of Russian invasion, let’s ignore Auchan and all its products,” he added, calling for a “boycott” of Auchan, Leroy-Merlin and Decathlon stores, all owned by the Mulliez Family Association.
In the military field
On the military front, the Ukrainian army ensures, in the last bulletin of its staff published Sunday at dawn, that in the Donbass, in the areas of Donetsk and Lugansk, “seven enemy attacks have been repelled” and eight Russian tanks destroyed. Russia for its part claimed that Kalibr-type rockets destroyed an arms and ammunition depot in the Zhytomyr region, west of kyiv, on March 25. A fuel depot was also hit near the port city of Mykolaiv (south), according to the same source.
Saturday afternoon’s Russian strikes on Lviv, a major city in western Ukraine relatively spared from fighting so far, hit a strategic fuel depot and military site and injured five, local authorities say .
More than 2,000 civilians killed in Mariupol
In the besieged city of Mariupol (south), a strategic port on the Sea of Azov, more than 2,000 civilians were killed, according to the municipality. Some 100,000 of its inhabitants are still stranded there and lack everything, according to President Zelensky.
British conditions for lifting sanctions
British sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine could be lifted if Moscow agrees to a total ceasefire and withdraws its troops, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said on Saturday.
These statements echo those of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken indicating that the sanctions against Russia “were not designed to be permanent” and that they could disappear if Moscow changed its attitude.
Polish fighter planes: no American objection, according to kyiv
The United States assured kyiv that it had “no objection” to the transfer of Polish fighter jets to Ukraine, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister said on Saturday evening in a written message sent to Ukraine. AFP.
“The ball is now in Poland’s court,” added Dmytro Kouleba, who met US President Joe Biden on Saturday during his two-day visit to Poland.
IAEA concerns over Chernobyl maintenance
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reiterated its concern about the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, taken by the Russian army on February 24, in first day of the invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian army has now also taken control of the town of Slavoutitch, where the staff of the Chernobyl plant reside, and “there has been no turnover of employees for almost a week”, i.e. on 20 March, on the site, specifies the press release of the IAEA. The agency is concerned about the ability of employees who manage day-to-day operations at the radioactive waste site to return home to rest.
Auchan stays in Russia
The CEO of Auchan Retail International, Frenchman Yves Claude, on Sunday defended the maintenance of the group’s activities in Russia because, according to him, “leaving would be imaginable from an economic point of view, but not from a human point of view”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky questioned the Auchan group on Wednesday before the French Parliament on its activity in Russia, where it employs 30,000 people and generates 10% of its global sales.
“It’s easy to criticize us, but we are there, we face up and we act for the civilian population”, assured Yves Claude in an interview with the press.