The Kremlin has indicated that Vladimir Putin will travel to Tehran on July 19, officially to discuss the situation in Syria. This information tends to confirm the statements of the American intelligence services, which believe that Iran is preparing to supply drones to Russia. In response, Washington announced on Tuesday the payment of additional aid of 1.7 billion dollars to Ukraine.
The head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken accused, this Wednesday, July 13, Moscow of having forcibly moved up to 1.6 million Ukrainians to Russia, denouncing a deliberate operation to depopulate part of Ukraine.
On the eve of a conference in The Hague on the allegations of war crimes in Ukraine, the secretary of state asserts that Russia was conducting a "filtering" operation by relocating to Russian territory Ukrainians living in the east and the south of the country, controlled by the Russian army or pro-Russian separatists.
"This illegal transfer and displacement of protected persons is a serious violation of the 4th Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians and is a war crime," he said in a statement.
Delegations from Ukraine, Russia and Turkey met in Istanbul on Wednesday for the first time in three months to try to unblock Ukrainian ports from grain exports that are sorely lacking on the world market.
But, after three hours of discussions between military experts on the European side of the Bosphorus, in the presence of UN representatives, the discussions were closed at the end of the afternoon without it being possible to assess whether they allowed any progress.
Some 20 million tonnes of grain are currently tied up in ports in the Odessa region of southern Ukraine due to the Russian invasion launched on February 24.
The United States announced on Tuesday that it would provide an additional $1.7 billion to Ukraine, bringing the total amount of aid allocated by Washington to kyiv since the start of the war to four billion. . In Brussels, the Ministers of Finance of the Member States of the European Union, for their part, gave the green light to the payment of one billion euros to Ukraine, increasing to 2.2 billion euros the total financial assistance from the Twenty-Seven. As part of the sanctions against Russia, EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said around €13.8 billion in assets belonging to oligarchs had been frozen.
While on the night of Monday to Tuesday Ukrainian forces killed 52 Russian soldiers and destroyed an ammunition depot in Nova Kakhovka, a town bordering Crimea, Russia responded by bombarding violently, on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, the city of Bakhmout, located in the Donetsk region.
The Russians also carried out "massive" missile strikes on Mykolaiv, hitting two medical facilities and apartment buildings, according to the city's mayor, Oleksandr Senkevych. He also mentioned, Tuesday evening, the "complete destruction" of a school, announcing a balance sheet of 12 wounded. "Russian terror has long since crossed the line beyond which it has become apparent to many in the civilized world that punishing Russia, a terrorist state, for all it has done in Ukraine is a matter of global security. ", commented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. As for the latest assessment of the Russian bombardment of a residential building in Chassiv Iar, last Sunday, it reports at least 45 dead.
Ukraine's World Congress announced on Tuesday that it has filed a lawsuit against Canada for violating sanctions on Russia by transferring repaired turbines to Germany for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline. terrorist state the tools it needs to finance the murder of tens of thousands of innocent people,” said Paul Grod, the president and CEO of the Ukrainian World Congress. "It's not just about one turbine or possibly many turbines to support Russia's energy exports, it's about succumbing to Russian blackmail," he added.
Brazil intends to buy "as much diesel as it can" from Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions that weigh on Moscow, said Tuesday the head of Brazilian diplomacy. This statement comes after an announcement by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro that an agreement is "almost" on the verge of being reached on this subject with Russia. "We must be sure to have enough diesel for agro-industry and for Brazilian drivers," the minister explained on the sidelines of a meeting of the UN Security Council chaired by Brazil. Brazil is "a strategic partner" of Russia, a country on which it is highly dependent for fertilizers (20% of its imports).
