Biden meets in Poland with Ukraine’s foreign and defense ministers

The president of United States, Joe Bidenmet on Saturday in Poland with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense of Ukraine and later he will visit refugees who fled the conflict, after Russia announced on Friday that it will concentrate its offensive on Donbas, in eastern Ukraine.

in Warsaw, Biden met on Saturday with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov at the Marriott Hotel, in the first direct meeting with senior kyiv officials since the Russian invasion began on February 24

in the meeting, Biden sat at a long white table alongside US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. In front were the Ukrainian ministers of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, and Defense, Oleksiy Reznikov, according to the group of journalists accredited to the White House.

For your part the president of ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of fueling a dangerous arms race by flaunting its nuclear weapons after the invasion that began on February 24.

During an intervention by videoconference during the forum of politicians and businessmen in Doha, in Qatar, Zelensky He touched on another sensitive vein of the crisis, the energy dependence of many countries on Russia, and asked the organizing country, Qatar, to increase its production of natural gas to avoid blackmail from the Russians.

On the front lines, near areas where pro-Russian separatists from Donetsk and Luganskin the eastern Ukrainian region of donbas, the kyiv Army General Staff claimed that it “inflicted significant losses on the Russian invaders.”

According to this count published in the early hours of Saturday, three planes, eight tanks and 170 Russian soldiers were shot down.

For its part, the Ministry of Defense of Russia reported Saturday morning that there is an ongoing battle for control of two towns near Donetskin Novobajmutivka and Novomykhailivka.

He also indicated that Kalibr rockets destroyed on March 25 an arms and ammunition depot in the Yitomir region, east of kyiv. He also claimed that a gasoline warehouse near the port of Mykolaiv, in the south of Ukraine.

This information must be analyzed with caution, since both sides are involved in an intense informative struggle about the development of the conflict and it is difficult to compare the data due to the situation on the ground.

On Friday Russia announced that it will concentrate its offensive in Ukraine in the “liberation” of donbasin the east of the country, after Moscow initially stated that the objective of this operation was the “demilitarization and denazification” of the neighboring country as a whole and not just this region where the population is mostly Russian-speaking.

This is where the pro-Russian separatist groups that were recognized by Moscow as “republics” before the start of the invasion are located.

Doubts about casualties among the generals

A key issue in the development of the conflict is the number of casualties among the Russian generals in Ukraine, which kyiv numbers at seven. The latest senior officer killed, according to Western sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, is General Yakov Rezantsev.

These same sources indicated that another general, the military Vladislav Yerchevwas removed from office by the Kremlin for the significant losses suffered by Russian troops.

The Ukrainian media speak of a “purge”, but Moscow has only confirmed the death of one of its generals.

In this critical media context, the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, the subject of speculation since he has not appeared publicly for two weeks, appeared in images released by Russia on Saturday, which, however, are not dated.

His absence had raised questions about his fate and Moscow dismissed any speculation about the secretary’s health.

Beyond the donbasRussian troops are still active and fighting continues on the outskirts of kyiv, according to the Ukrainian General Staff, which stated that the front line has not moved.

Ukraine says it is pursuing a counteroffensive to recapture Kherson, in the south of the country, which is the only city to have been taken by Russian forces.

In Mariupol, a Ukrainian port on the Sea of ​​Azov that is a key point in the conflict, more than 2,000 civilians have been killed in the siege of this city, according to its city council. The Ukrainian president claims that there are still 100,000 people locked inside who suffer from all kinds of deficiencies.

On Friday night, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that his country Turkey and Greece will launch “in the coming days” a “humanitarian operation” to try to evacuate civilians from the port.

Thousands of dead and millions displaced

During his visit to Poland, the president of the United States will meet with Polish leaders and then visit a reception center for Ukrainian refugees where he will deliver a speech on the conflict, which in a little more than a month has left thousands of Ukrainians dead. , including 135 children, according to the kyiv government.

Since February 24, more than 2.2 million people who fled the conflict entered Poland, according to border guard figures and in total there are 3.7 million displaced outside the country, according to the UN which estimates that 1 .8 million are children.

In Europe, solidarity efforts are multiplying for this exodus.

In the town of Diss, in the east of England, its inhabitants organize the sending of aid trucks and prepare accommodation for the refugees and in Germany, the train operator Deustche Bahn (DB) created the “rail bridge” to provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine, an initiative that evokes the airlift organized by Westerners during the Cold War.

On the economic front, the United States and the EU announced on Friday the creation of a working group to reduce Europe’s dependence on fossil energy from Russia, projecting the delivery of US gas.

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