LIVE – War in Ukraine: Army “firmly” holds bridgehead on occupied banks of Dnieper, according to Zelensky

Volodymyr Zelensky says the Ukrainian military is “firmly” holding a bridgehead on the occupied bank of the Dnieper.

Poland will include crossing points with Ukraine on a list of “critical infrastructure” to avoid disruptions that could affect the delivery of military and humanitarian aid, the head of the Polish government announced Thursday. “To ensure a 100% guarantee that military (…), humanitarian and medical aid will reach Ukraine without delay, border crossings with Ukraine, certain roads and railways will be included in the list of critical infrastructure.” Donald said. Tusk told reporters.

According to the Polish Prime Minister, a meeting between the governments of Poland and Ukraine will be held on March 28.

The United Kingdom on Thursday publicly backed Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to replace Jens Stoltenberg as head of NATO.

“Rutte is well-respected in the alliance, has serious defense and security credentials and will ensure that the alliance is strong and ready to provide defense and deterrence,” a government official said under the cover of anonymity.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has had a “terrible human cost”, causing millions of civilians to suffer, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said on Thursday.

“Russia’s large-scale armed attack on Ukraine, which is about to enter its third year with no end in sight, is causing serious and widespread human rights violations. It is destroying people, lives and livelihoods,” he said in a statement. was

The Russian military on Thursday claimed to have captured the village of Pobeda in eastern Ukraine, a fresh claim to victory days after the town of Avdivka, against a Ukrainian army suffering from a shortage of weapons.

“Units of the forces of the Southern Group liberated the village of Pobeda,” the Russian Defense Ministry said of the area, not far from the destroyed city of Marinka, although this sector of the front was largely unchanged for years.

The Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) on Thursday accused Russia of using North Korean-made missiles to carry out deadly attacks in Ukraine against civilian targets.

“We are talking about Hwasong-11 (KN-23/24) type ballistic missiles (…) According to our investigation, Russian troops fired more than 20 (of these) North Korean weapons at Ukraine,” he said. The strike killed “at least 24 civilians” and injured more than a hundred, the SBU indicated in a press release.

A Kremlin spokesman called US President Joe Biden’s statements describing Vladimir Putin a “crazy bastard” during a meeting with Democratic Party donors as “shameful”.

“It is a great shame for the United States (…). If the president of such a country uses such a lexicon, it is necessarily a shame,” Dmitry Peskov said in a video broadcast by a Russian public television journalist on Thursday. .

• Russian website MediaZona and the BBC’s Russian service said they had identified nearly 45,000 Russian soldiers killed since the start of the invasion of Ukraine two years ago in a joint investigation published on Wednesday. This calculation is based on freely accessible sources such as death notices, press releases from local authorities, obituaries published in the media or on social networks. The media insists that the real toll is certainly much heavier. The BBC Russian Service suggests it could be twice as high. According to this source, “two-thirds of the dead had no connection with the military before the invasion.” Hence these are soldiers, volunteers, fighters of private military companies or prisoners who joined combat units in exchange for amnesty.

• The Russian Security Services (FSB) on Wednesday accused the British Council, the British Education and Culture Agency of collecting military intelligence from Ukrainian refugees. In a statement, the FSB confirmed that the British Council in Great Britain, “through organizations under its control”, is collecting information about the Ukrainian Kherson region, which is partially occupied by Russian forces. “The cases of this foreign organization have been established using Ukrainian refugees living in the United Kingdom to obtain military and political intelligence through their connections in the Kherson region,” the FSB alleged.

• A spokesman for the Ukrainian military formation strongly denied New York Times information that “several hundred” Ukrainian soldiers were taken prisoner in Avdiivka during the capture of the city by Russian forces. “Intentionally or accidentally, the New York Times spread Russian propaganda,” said Dmytro Likhovy.

• The Swedish Intelligence Services (Säpo) warned on Wednesday of a regional threat posed by Russian espionage, particularly in the Arctic, as part of Sweden’s possible entry into NATO. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sweden applied to join NATO, ending two centuries of non-alignment. The merger must be completed on Monday during a vote by the Hungarian parliament, which is the final hurdle. Russia, like China, “conducts activities that threaten security in Sweden’s far north,” Sapo writes in its annual risk assessment report.

• Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “crazy bastard” during a meeting with Democratic Party donors in San Francisco (California) on Wednesday, during which he also attacked his rival Donald Trump. “The existential threat is climate change. There’s that crazy bastard Putin and others, and we always have to worry about nuclear war, but the existential threat to humanity is climate change,” said the 81-year-old Democratic presidential candidate. The second term, during a brief speech attended by a small group of journalists.

Hello and welcome to this live broadcast dedicated to events in Ukraine.