Workers work in the rubble of a shopping mall damaged by a Russian strike in Kremenchuk, Ukraine on June 28, 2022 (AFP/GENYA SAVILOV)
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NATO announced on Tuesday an agreement for the entry of Sweden and Finland thanks to the lifting of the Turkish veto, while Russia ruled out ending its offensive in Ukraine until kyiv has capitulated.
After several hours of discussions on the sidelines of the Alliance summit, which began Tuesday evening in Madrid, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg assured that Turkey had lifted its veto on the candidacy of the two Nordic countries.
“Turkey has given its agreement for Sweden and Finland to join NATO”, announced Mr. Stoltenberg, deeming this step “essential” while the world “is facing the most serious security crisis for decades”.
Ankara, a member of NATO since 1952, has so far blocked the membership of Stockholm and Helsinki, because it accused them of harboring militants of the Kurdish organization PKK, which it considers “terrorist”.
But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan finally felt he had obtained “full cooperation” from Stockholm and Helsinki, after intense negotiations. “Turkey got what it wanted,” insisted the Turkish presidency in a statement.
– “Throw down the weapons” –
The agreement signed on Tuesday evening in front of the cameras by the heads of diplomacy of the three countries concerned will allow the Heads of State and Government of the Alliance present in Madrid to show greater unity in the face of Russia, which has again on Tuesday called kyiv to capitulation.
Photo provided by the Ukrainian State Emergency Service, showing workers working in the rubble of a shopping mall destroyed by Russian missiles in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, June 28, 2022 (Ukrainian State Emergency Service Press Service/STR)
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“The Ukrainian soldiers must be ordered to lay down their arms and all the conditions set by Russia must be implemented. Then everything will be over in one day,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters.
This declaration came the day after a Russian attack, which ravaged a crowded shopping center in Kremenchuk, 330 kilometers southeast of kyiv, leaving at least 18 dead and around 40 missing, according to Ukrainian authorities.
This bombardment is “one of the most shameless terrorist acts in European history”, denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, asking that Russia be designated as a “State sponsor of terrorism” after this strike on “a peaceful city “.
Mr. Zelensky suggested on Tuesday to the UN Security Council to send a commission of inquiry to prove that this shopping center had been destroyed by a Russian missile.
The Russian army, which since the beginning of the conflict has rejected all accusations of strikes targeting civilians, claimed to have struck an arms warehouse located in a nearby construction machinery factory, the fire of which would have spread to the center commercial, according to her disaffected.
But the Russian version was contradicted by testimonies collected on the spot by an AFP journalist. “We heard that, it’s absurd. When you live here, I wonder how you can believe such things,” reacted a resident of Kremenchuk, Polina Pushintseva.
– “Brutality” –
This attack was strongly condemned by the leaders of the G7, which ended on Tuesday in Germany. During this summit, the West promised to tighten the noose on Moscow by targeting the Russian defense industry and capping the price of Russian oil at the global level.
The overall goal is to “increase” the costs of war for Russia, summed up German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. According to the US Treasury, Washington began implementing these sanctions on Tuesday, including a ban on gold imports from Russia.
“Russia cannot and must not win and therefore our support for Ukraine and our sanctions against Russia will continue as long as necessary,” insisted French President Emmanuel Macron, calling on NATO countries to send a “message of unity and strength”.
Rescuers at a shopping mall hit by a Russian missile strike in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk on June 27, 2022 (Ukraine’s State Emergency Service/STR)
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“It is extremely important that we are ready to continue to provide our support because Ukraine today faces a brutality that we have not seen in Europe since the Second World War”, added the head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg.
According to an adviser to US President Joe Biden, the NATO meeting will be an opportunity for Washington to make “specific announcements” on “new military commitments”, decisive for the future of the Alliance.
“At the end of this summit, there will be a more robust, more effective, more credible system (…) to take into account a more acute and more serious Russian threat”, explained Jake Sullivan, principal diplomatic adviser and Joe Biden’s military.
– “City in ruins” –
Despite the heavy sanctions hitting the Russian economy since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the Kremlin assured Tuesday that there was “no reason” to mention a default of payment from Russia.
The Russian authorities, however, acknowledged that because of the sanctions, two installments had not reached creditors by the deadline on Sunday. This constitutes in fact a “default” of payment, estimated Tuesday the rating agency Moody’s.
A few hours after the announcement of the bombardment of Kremenchuk, the Ukrainian authorities announced another deadly Russian strike against civilians in Lyssychansk, a strategic pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the Donbass basin (east).
Map of the situation in Ukraine as of June 28 at 7 a.m. GMT (AFP /)
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In this twin town of Severodonetsk, recently taken by the Russians, at least eight Ukrainian civilians were killed and more than 20 others, including two children, injured while “collecting water from a cistern “, according to the governor of the Lugansk region, Sergei Gaïdaï.
Lysytchansk is the last major city left to conquer for the Russians in this province. “Our defenders hold the line, but the Russians reduce the city to ruins with artillery, aviation … The infrastructure is completely destroyed,” detailed Mr. Gaïdaï.
In the Dniepropetrovsk region (center) Governor Valentyn Reznichenko reported an attack by six missiles on his Facebook page, without mentioning any possible victims. According to him, three missiles were shot down by the air defense.
The conquest of Donbass, already partly held by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, has been the Russians’ priority objective since they evacuated the area around kyiv at the end of March.
In New York, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric recalled that the belligerents were bound by international law to “protect civilians and civilian infrastructure”, judging the new strike “totally deplorable”.
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