On the twenty-third day of the war , pressure from the White House on China is felt, for fear that Beijing will send military aid to Russia . Waiting for the phone call, sent for today, between the President of the United States, Joe Biden, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made it clear: “Biden will warn that any support for the war in Moscow will come at a cost. “. The head of US diplomacy then warned: “The Russian president is not giving in and out of desperation he could use terrorist tactics, such as false flag attacks with chemical weapons.“. The message sent in the meantime from the Oval Office to the Kremlin was very explicit and harsh: Biden defined Putin a “murderous dictator” and a “pure criminal”.
In short, a scenario that is not very relaxing, in spite of the forecasts made to filter yesterday by Kiev: Ukraine believes it is possible, or perhaps hopes, to reach an agreement within ten days ; which would lead to a ceasefire and, later, to a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Zelensky . Mihailo Podolyak, one of the Ukrainian side negotiators, in fact expressed himself in these terms: “It could take from a few days to a week and a half to resolve the controversial issues”.
Meanwhile, “a new alliance to secure Europe” has been proposed, with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (US, UK, France, Russia and China) plus Germany and Turkey. Italian Prime Minister Draghi , during the press conference at Palazzo Chigi followed by the Council of Ministers, declared that ” on Putin’s part there is a determination to continue the war and not to seek peace”. In the meantime, confirmation has arrived that next Tuesday, March 22, Ukrainian President Zelensky , as he is doing these days by speaking in various parliamentary assemblies, will connect by videoconference with the Chamber of Deputies, where the Chamber and the Senate will hear it in joint session.
But, while diplomacy takes its course, on the battlefield there are dead, wounded, refugees. At the moment, from the city of Mariupol , where the theater in which hundreds of civilians (mainly women and children) were hiding and which Italy has offered to rebuild, has been destroyed, 30 thousand people have managed to escape. A meeting of the UN Security Council is scheduled for the night to address the humanitarian question. Ukraine denounces a ” genocide ” in the cities of the country and speaks of 20,000 dead. French President Macron, in a worried tone, said that Paris must prepare for a “high-intensity war”. At the same time, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe suspended the participation of Belarus in its forum. Bombs
continue to fall on Kiev , where a 2-year-old child also died in the north; on Chernihiv , where “an American citizen was killed” and 53 civilians have died in the last 24 hours. Instead, there is talk of 21 dead after a Russian raid in Kharkiv , where the use of cluster bombs was reported. In total, according to Pentagon sources, Russia has launched more than a thousand missiles on the country that has invaded. At the same time, the same sources speak of a “weak morale” of the Moscow troops.
