Follow the evolution of the conflict in Ukraine during this day of Monday 18 April.
– Macron says he is ready to return to Kiev
Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he was ready to travel again to Ukraine’s capital, but on the condition that he could bring something useful with him.
“I am going back to Kiev, but I will go back to bring something useful, not just to show support,” the presidential candidate said of France 5.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky has invited Emmanuel Macron to visit Ukraine so the French president can see, he says, Russian troops committing “genocide,” a term the French president refuses to use, unlike US President Joe Biden. .
– The bodies of 269 people found in the Irpin . region
Ukrainian researchers conducted theexamination of 269 corpses in Irpinnear Kiev since the city was recaptured from Russian troops in late March, a police official said Monday.
The citywhich had about 62,000 inhabitants before the war, was at the heart of clashes with Russian forces before withdrawing from the northern regions of Ukraine to step up their offensive in the east.
In a cemetery on the outskirts of Irpin, dozens of new graves have been dug and covered with flowers. “We have inspected 269 corpses so far,” Serhi Panteleiev, first deputy head of the police’s main investigative department, told an online news conference.
He indicated that forensic investigations were underway to determine the cause of death of many victimswith photos of mostly charred bodies.
He said seven sites in Irpin where civilians were allegedly shot had been inspected, without giving further details. Russia denies targeting civilians and dismissed allegations that his troops committed war crimes in occupied territories of Ukraine.
– Sanctions against Russia weaken the West, Putin says
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that sanctions imposed by Western countries against Russia over the situation in Ukraine have led to a “deterioration of the economy in the West”.
Speaking about the state of the Russian economy, he added that inflation in his country was stabilizing and demand had returned to normal.
Western countries have decided on unprecedented sanctions against Russia, its companies and its financial system since the beginning, on Feb. 24, of what Moscow presents as a “special military operation” but which Kiev considers an invasion.
Before Vladimir Putin’s speech, Russian central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina said she is considering another rate cut and that it will take about two years to bring inflation back to the 4% target the authorities have set for themselves.
Consumer price inflation in Russia reached 17% in March. The central bank had raised its key key rate to 20% on February 28, from 9.5% earlier, following the ruble’s fall following the start of the conflict and the first Western sanctions, but lowered it to April 8 to 17. %. †
“We need to be able to cut key rates faster,” Elvira Nabioullina said in a speech to MPs on Monday. “We need to create the conditions to increase the availability of credit in the economy.”
The sanctions, she said, have hit financial markets mostly “but now they will start to affect the economy more and more”.
She said Moscow was planning to initiate legal proceedings against the freeze on Russian assets, including gold and foreign currency belonging to Russian residents.
– “Powerful” Russian missile strikes in Lviv
Five “powerful” Russian missile strikes hit Lviv on Monday morning, a major city in western Ukraine that has generally been relatively unscathed from the fighting, Mayor Andriï Sadovy and an adviser to the presidency announced.
A resident of southwestern Lviv told AFP he saw: thick plumes of gray smoke soar into the sky behind apartment buildings.
Five powerful rocket attacks simultaneously on the civilian infrastructure of old European Lviv. The Russians continue to barbarously attack Ukrainian cities from the air, cynically declaring to the whole world their “right” to kill… Ukrainians.
— ихайло одоляк (@Podolyak_M) Apr 18, 2022
The emergency services have not yet intervened on the spot and it is difficult to make an estimate at the moment. But for the regional governor, the strikes would have been enough at least 6 killed and 8 injured†
‘There is a child among the victims’Maksym Kozitsky said on Telegram, adding that the attacks hit military infrastructure and a tire garage, sparking a fire.
Lviv and western Ukraine, far from the front, have rarely been the target of bombing since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
– The targeted Kiev region
The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Sunday that it fired precision missiles at a munitions factory near Brovary.
– Mariupol without humanitarian aid
“It is estimated that there are between 100 and 130,000 civilians in Mariupol. They suffer under fire, without water or food† Russia has completely blocked all humanitarian aid in the city,” Mariupol . deputy mayor said BFM TV†
“People survive. They share everything they have with each other. People look for water directly from wells, in the ground, and for food in abandoned stores,” he explained.
