Keystone-SDA
Russia has launched more drones against Ukraine in July than at any other month since the start of the invasion in 2022, according to an analysis by AFP on Friday, showing an intensification of the bombardments despite the ultimatums of Donald Trump.
(Keystone-ATS) Russian President Vladimir Putin nevertheless assured that he wanted a “sustainable peace” in Ukraine, his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky calling him, in response, in response to negotiate to negotiate.
AFP’s analysis, which is based on figures provided by the Ukrainian authorities, shows that the Russian army pulled 6,297 long -range drones against Ukraine in July, an increasing figure for the third consecutive month and which constitutes an increase of 16% compared to June.
This figure includes a large share of lure drones, especially intended to saturate Ukrainian anti -aircraft defense already undermined by the intensity of the attacks.
Between January and June Russia has tripled the number of missiles sent to Ukraine (77 against 239, then 198 in July), according to data analyzed by AFP.
These air attacks take place every night, pushing the inhabitants to take refuge in a shelter, in their bathroom or in the corridors of a metro, under the din of alert sirens.
During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, an attack on kyiv killed 31 civilians, according to a new assessment communicated on Friday by the authorities, one of the worst of this type against the capital in more than three years of war.
Five children are among the victims, of which “the youngest was only two years old,” said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Friday morning, in the aftermath of this attack, rescuers released in the space of a few minutes two bodies of the rubble of one of the affected buildings, noted an AFP journalist.
Residents came to meditate, depositing children’s flowers and toys. Among them, Iryna Drozd, 28, who lives in the neighborhood with his family. “Our children could have died,” she told AFP.
Another resident, Oksana Kinal, explains that she lost a colleague, “a woman with a big heart”, killed by the attack at the same time as her son.
Despite her sentence, Oksana Kinal says she is fine. “We got used to all of this now. Unfortunately. »»
“Sustainable peace”?
President Donald Trump gave in June a period of 50 days to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to end the war under penalty of sanctions, before reducing it this week to ten days – until next Friday.
The Russian president said Friday that he wanted a “lasting peace” in Ukraine on Friday, while recalling that the Russian conditions to achieve it remain “unchanged”.
His country requests the sale of four southern and eastern regions of Ukraine, as well as Crimea, the “demilitarization” of the country and its renunciation of joining NATO, which kyiv judges unacceptable.
Volodymyr Zelensky invited him the Russian president to meet, which he has already claimed several times without success.
“Ukraine offers, instead of the exchange of declarations and meetings at the technical level, to move to talks between managers,” he said on his Telegram account.
Russia and Ukraine have held three sessions of direct talks led by negotiator teams, without achieving real advances towards a peace agreement.
The Kremlin rejects the idea of a lasting ceasefire in Ukraine, which he sees as a gift made to kyiv’s troops, despite the frustration expressed by Donald Trump in the face of this refusal.
Ukraine, for its part, demands anti -aircraft defense systems from its European allies and hopes in particular to be able to obtain modern Patriot batteries.
Germany announced on Friday that it could deliver two of these expensive systems to Ukraine in the coming days in the coming days as part of an agreement found with Washington.
On the front, the Russian army accelerated its progression in July for the fourth consecutive month, according to AFP analysis of data provided by the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
On Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed to take Tchassiv Iar, a small town of strategic importance in the Donetsk region (East), even if Ukraine then described this announcement as “total lie”.
