War in Ukraine: Blinken expected next week in Finland

Blinken in Finland, Scholz ready to resume contact with Putin “when the time comes”, hitting a clinic in Dnipro with a Russian missile, Sergei Lavrov who says he sees “serious obstacles” to peace, two drones fall in Krasnodar. .. Le Figaro takes stock of the situation in Ukraine and around the conflict this Friday 26 May.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Finland, which recently joined NATO, next week and give a speech in support of Ukraine against Russia, the State Department said on Friday. . He will travel to Helsinki on June 1 and 2, after a meeting in Olso with the foreign ministers of the allied countries.

Anthony Blinken will first go to Sweden, a candidate country for NATO membership, and will meet the Prime Ministers of the three Nordic countries. In Helsinki, he will hold a speech "to highlight all the ways that made Russia's aggression against Ukraine a strategic mistake," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. .

He will underline on this occasion "our continuous efforts to support Ukraine for the defense of its territory, its sovereignty and democracy, in the search for a just and lasting peace", he specified. Mr Blinken will travel to Sweden in the northern town of Lulea, where he will take part in a meeting of the Trade and Technology Council (TCC) between the European Union and the United States, which aims in particular to establish common standards, to compete with China.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was ready on Friday to resume contact "when the time comes" about Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom he has not spoken since December. “My last telephone interview was a while ago. But when the time comes, I intend to talk to Putin again,” Olaf Scholz said in an interview published by the daily Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger.

Regarding the resolution of the conflict, "Russia must understand that it cannot be a question of sealing a kind of cold peace, which would see the current front line become the new border between Russia and Ukraine, it would only legitimize Putin's criminal expedition,” insisted Olaf Scholz. "On the contrary, we must achieve a fair peace and the condition for doing so is a withdrawal of Russian troops" from Ukraine, after the invasion began in February 2022, he added.

However, he explicitly refused to say whether this withdrawal should also include Crimea, which has been occupied since 2014. The German Chancellor judged that it was up to Ukraine to define what it wants precisely.

At least two people were killed and twenty-three others injured in a Russian strike that hit a clinic in Dnipro, a large city in central-eastern Ukraine, on Friday, announced President Volodymyr Zelensky, who denounced a “crime against the 'humanity". “Missile strike against a clinic in the city of Dnipro. One person was killed and fifteen others were injured,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram. He posted a video in which buildings can be seen heavily damaged and topped with plumes of black smoke. "We must defeat these inhuman beings," Volodymyr Zelensky said of the Russian army.

Regional Governor Sergei Lyssak said two boys aged three and six are among the injured. "The rescue of the injured continues," added the official on Telegram, according to which the strike caused a fire in two buildings. “The fire affected a total of 500 square meters. Firefighters are battling the flames,” he said. Ukrainian Telegram channels posted videos of rescuers helping people with blood on their faces escape from the clinic through rubble-filled corridors. According to Serguiï Lyssak, his region of Dnipropetrovsk was also “massively attacked” during the night “with Russian missiles and drones”. In Dnipro, the regional capital, night bombardments set fire to several houses and a gas station.

The head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that he saw "serious obstacles" in the search for a peaceful solution in Ukraine, when he received the Chinese envoy Li Hui in Moscow, to whom he praised the "positive" role. from Beijing.

During their meeting, "the Russian Foreign Minister reaffirmed Moscow's commitment to a politico-diplomatic resolution of the conflict, noting the serious obstacles created by Ukraine and its Western supporters to the resumption of peace talks peace,” Russian diplomacy said in a statement.

Two drones fell on Friday in the center of Krasnodar, a large city in southwestern Russia, about 200 kilometers from Crimea, damaging buildings but causing no casualties, the regional governor said. “The reason for this morning's incident on Morskaya Street (in Krasnodar) is the fall of two drones. Buildings are damaged, but no vital infrastructure. And the main thing is that there were no casualties,” Governor Veniamine Kondratiev said on Telegram.

Local media released video from a surveillance camera on Friday morning showing an unidentified flying object crashing in a shower of flames near parked cars. Local authorities reported a detonation at 4:17 a.m. local time.

The Russian region of Belgorod, bordering Ukraine, has suffered dozens of artillery fire in the past 24 hours, said Friday the governor of this territory shaken at the beginning of the week by an armed incursion.

On Telegram, Vyacheslav Gladkov notably indicated that the village of Kozinka, in the district of Graivoron, where this incursion took place, claimed by two Russian armed groups fighting for Kiev, had been hit by 132 shells. Several buildings in the area were damaged, again according to the governor, according to whom there were no casualties.

Tokyo said on Friday it had imposed additional sanctions on Russia, in accordance with the commitment of the G7 countries at their summit in Hiroshima (western Japan) at the end of last week.

Japan will impose new sanctions including freezing the assets of 17 Russian nationals and 78 organizations, as well as banning the export of goods and services to 80 Russian entities, government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said. The export bans include products destined for Russian companies linked to the country's military-industrial complex, as well as construction and engineering services.

The German government has asked Chinese envoy Li Hui to "pressure" Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said on Friday. The Chinese envoy, who is on a one-week European tour and is expected in Moscow on Friday, was received in Berlin on Wednesday by State Secretary Andreas Michaelis. "The discussion on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine was at the center of this intensive interview," ministry spokesman Christian Wagner told a regular press conference.

"China, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has a special responsibility to play a constructive role in favor of peace and security in the world", estimated this spokesperson, recalling that Berlin “would support Ukraine as long as necessary” against Moscow. "Germany has also asked China to put pressure on Russia to immediately cease its attack and withdraw completely from Ukraine," the Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

“China should also use its influence on Russia to end its irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and prevent any escalation,” he said. "The Secretary of State expressed the expectation that China clearly designates and condemns Russia's aggression and refrains from supporting it with (delivery of) weapons," said Christian Wagner. “Both parties agreed to continue the exchange on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine,” he concluded.

The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, will present a proposal to the UN on Tuesday (30 May) to protect the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhya, occupied by the Russian army, in the hope of reach an agreement before a possible Kiev counter-offensive. "Rafael Grossi plans to brief the UN Security Council on the situation in terms of nuclear safety" in Zaporizhia "during a meeting on May 30 chaired by Switzerland", according to an IAEA statement sent to the AFP.

The head of the UN body has been conducting negotiations for months to ensure the protection of this site in south-eastern Ukraine, where the situation is considered very precarious due to the bombardments linked to the fighting.

Russian forces bombed kyiv again overnight from Thursday to Friday, the city's civil-military administration said, saying all the missiles were intercepted and destroyed. “Another air attack on kyiv, the 13th in a row since the beginning of May! And as always, at night,” said the administration on its Telegram account. According to her, cruise missiles were launched by Tu-95MS strategic bombers from the Caspian Sea region. “According to preliminary information, all enemy targets in Kyiv airspace have been detected and destroyed,” she added.

In its daily morning brief, the Ukrainian General Staff reported 55 Russian air attacks over the past day, including 36 by explosive drones, and four missile attacks. "An S-300 missile hit a dam in the Karlivka area of ​​the Donetsk region" (east), said the staff. “As a result, there is a great danger of flooding of the surrounding communities,” he added, specifying on the other hand that he intercepted all the projectiles launched during the air raids.

Ukrainian authorities on Friday arrested a judge suspected of running down and killing a soldier at a crossing point in kyiv while driving drunk. The Ukrainian investigation office said it was investigating the circumstances of this death, citing a violation of road safety rules, punishable by up to ten years in prison. The suspect is a judge of a kyiv district court while the deceased serviceman was 23 years old, reports the investigation office.

The incident happened around midnight local time, when the night curfew in kyiv begins, according to the same source. The investigation office released photos of a car with a dented bonnet and partially shattered windshield, as well as the body of the dead man lying on the bloodied road. The judge refused to go to a clinic to carry out a breathalyzer after the tragedy, reported the investigators.