The US Congress released Thursday a gigantic envelope of 40 billion to arm and support Ukraine. This as Moscow secured a symbolic victory with images of hundreds of Ukrainian fighters emerging from the Azovstal factory in Mariupol.
Within this large aid package, 6 billion dollars should in particular allow Ukraine to equip itself with armored vehicles and strengthen its anti-aircraft defense at a time when fighting is raging in the east and the south of the country. Moscow has resolved to focus its efforts there in recent weeks after failing to take kyiv and Kharkiv to the north.
The G7 finance ministers, meeting in Germany, began on Thursday to count the billions of euros, pounds and dollars that each country could spend quickly to support Ukraine’s economy and its military effort.
The bill now only needs to be ratified by President Joe Biden. In mid-March, Congress had already released nearly 14 billion dollars for the Ukrainian crisis, but Joe Biden had been asking for several weeks for a significant budget extension in order to support Ukraine in the new phase of the conflict.
Heroes of Azovstal
This major announcement, eagerly awaited in kyiv, comes as Russia announced on Thursday that nearly 800 Ukrainian servicemen entrenched in the bowels of the gigantic Azovstal steel complex in Mariupol had surrendered in the past 24 hours, bringing the total at 1730 since Monday.
Moscow released images showing cohorts of men in combat gear emerging, some with crutches or bandages, after a long battle that had become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion in Mariupol, a martyred city in 90% destroyed in the south-east of the country and where at least 20,000 people died, according to kyiv.
These soldiers, including 80 wounded, “made themselves prisoners”, underlined the Russian Ministry of Defense in a press release.
UN calls for talks
kyiv has not spoken of surrender and Ukrainian officials decline to comment at this stage. But President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on Monday of an “evacuation” aimed at safeguarding the lives of these Ukrainian “heroes” through international mediation.
Implicitly confirming the version of a negotiated solution, as had been the case under the aegis of the ICRC to previously evacuate civilians from Mariupol, the UN on Thursday called on Russia and Ukraine to resume talks to “end to this war”.
Mainly members of a unit of marine riflemen of the Ukrainian army and of the Azov regiment founded by Ukrainian nationalists, the evacuated combatants had been entrenched for several weeks in the maze of underground galleries dug during the Soviet era under the gigantic steelworks, heavily bombed by the Russians.
Commanders still on site
Pro-Russian separatist leader Denis Pushilin clarified on Wednesday that commanders had not yet surrendered and said there were initially “more than 2,000 people” at the site.
In a video released Thursday evening, Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment, confirmed that he was still in the factory with the rest of the command, refusing to reveal details of the “operation” in progress.
Their fate, however, remains unresolved: Ukraine wants to organize an exchange of prisoners of war, but Russia has repeatedly made it known that it considers at least some of them not as soldiers, but as fighters “neo-Nazis”.
“Independance War”
Despite this sequence of essentially symbolic value for Russia, which had had almost total control of the city for several weeks, President Zelensky declared Thursday that his people remained “strong, indestructible, courageous and free”, in a video marking the day of the Vychyvanka, the famous traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt, which he wore for the occasion.
“This war for us is undoubtedly a war of independence,” he said in a speech to students, stressing that Russia would “probably always remain a threat.”
“I beg your pardon”
Sequence this time with high symbolic value for Ukraine, the first trial of a Russian soldier for war crime resumed Thursday in kyiv.
“I know you won’t be able to forgive me, but I beg your pardon,” Sergeant Vadim Chichimarine, 21, told the widow of the 62-year-old man he is accused of shooting dead on February 28 in the north-east of Ukraine, while, his column of armored vehicles having been attacked, he tried to rejoin his people.
Life imprisonment was requested against the young soldier, who pleaded guilty. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier on Wednesday called the accusations against Russian troops “false or staged”.
Another war crimes trial opened Thursday in northeastern Ukraine, however: that of two Russian soldiers accused of firing rockets at civilian infrastructure in the Kharkiv region.
Twelve dead in Severodonetsk
Russian bombardments continue to cause casualties. They left 12 dead and 40 injured on Thursday in Severodonetsk, in the Lugansk region (east), according to local governor Serguiï Gaïdaï. He said most of the shots hit apartment buildings, and the death toll could rise.
An AFP team on the spot noted that this industrial city had been transformed for several days into a battlefield and crushed under artillery fire.
Severodonetsk and Lyssytchansk constitute the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the Lugansk region. The Russians now surrounded these two localities, only separated by a river, and bombarded them relentlessly to exhaust the resistance and prevent the arrival of reinforcements.
Pentagon: the conflict could last
According to a daily report by the Ukrainian military, “the enemy has intensified its attacks and assault attempts to improve its tactical positions” in Donbass, the Russian-speaking eastern region partially controlled since 2014 by pro-Russian separatists and whose Moscow, unable to take kyiv and the rest of the country, wants to take total control.
The Pentagon warned on Thursday that despite the successes of Ukrainian forces in the north, the Russian military was managing to tighten its grip on Donbass and the south of the country, which means the conflict could last.
“We are absolutely determined to do everything to help the Ukrainians defend themselves,” a senior US Department of Defense official told reporters.
Meeting of the G7
On the economic front, the big moneymakers of the G7 met in Germany on Thursday and Friday, in support of Ukraine and to examine the consequences throughout the world of the war started by Moscow.
On Wednesday, the European Commission had proposed “new macro-financial assistance” to Ukraine for this year in an amount “of up to 9 billion euros”.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Wednesday of the ‘specter of global food shortages in the coming months’, imploring Russia to free Ukrainian grain exports and the West to open access Russian fertilizers to world markets.
This article has been published automatically. Sources: ats / afp