Pending the resumption of peace talks between the delegations of Moscow and Kiev, the war on the ground is being fought relentlessly. Even on Russian territory. According to Tass, in fact, two Ukrainian helicopters, flying at low altitude, entered Russian airspace and hit a fuel depot in the Belgorod region, setting fire to 8 of the 27 oil tanks in the area. The Russian ministry for emergencies would have sent at least 170 firefighters assisted by 50 vehicles to put out the fire that is described as being of considerable size. The inhabitants of the houses near the burning depot would have been evacuated. And, according to the mayor of the city, Anton Ivanov, there would be no injuries. On the other hand, the death toll on Ukrainian territory is growing. According to the Kiev Prosecutor’s Office, “almost 400 children” have been injured and killed since the start of the war. And “of these – writes the prosecutor’s office on Telegram – 153 were killed and more than 245 injured”.
The clashes are inexorable. According to the British ‘007’, “Ukrainian forces” would “retake the villages of Sloboda and Lukashivka in southern Chernihiv” and would “position themselves along one of the main supply routes between the city and Kiev” and also “continue to to carry out successful, albeit limited, counter-offensives in the east and north-east of Kiev “. “Both Chernihiv and Kiev – explained the intelligence – have been subjected to continuous attacks from the air and with missiles despite Russian declarations on the reduction of activities in these areas”.
Kiev denounces that “more than 100,000 civilians” are still “trapped in Mariupol without medical supplies that have not been delivered for 36 days”. And in fact, the operations to create the humanitarian corridor planned for today would proceed very slowly, which would allow people to leave the city and get aid, including food.
According to a BBC envoy, only a small convoy of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of 3 vehicles has so far left Zaporizhzhia, traveling to Mariupol “with the aim of trying to facilitate the evacuation of civilians from the besieged city”. The team, the British broadcaster explains, would have received “the required security guarantees a little earlier”. The goal would be to “complete the operation within the day” even though an assistant to the mayor of Mariupol, Petro Andryushchenko, quoted by the international media, said that “it is very dangerous” for anyone trying to leave the city. “In some regions – says Oleksii Iaremenko, deputy minister of the Ukrainian government, in an interview with Sky News,
Also according to the Ukrainians, the number of “victims of the Russian attack on Tuesday against the building of the regional state administration in Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine, has risen to 24. While, in Melitopol, according to the mayor Ivan Fedorov, the Russians would not allow civilians to leave the city: at least “70-75 thousand people”, he declares, would not have been able to leave. “All are sent only to the Crimea. They say you can get there without problems, but our people do not want to go to Crimea “, explains the mayor.” Heavy bombings “by the Russian army in the Lugansk region are then denounced by the head of the Lugansk regional military administration, Serhii Haidai, according to CNN. And increasingly serious consequences are also recorded on the economic front with the price of gas flying to Europe “after Putin’s decision to ask for payment for supplies in rubles rather than in euros or dollars”. At the start, prices in Amsterdam jumped to 132 euros per MWh, up by 4.8% compared to yesterday’s close. In London, the price rises to 305 pence per Mmbtu, up 1.9%.
