LIVE – War in Ukraine: Nine humanitarian corridors planned for Thursday, mainly from Mariupol – Liberation

Ireland sends its foreign minister to Kiev. Irish Foreign Secretary Simon Coveney will travel to Kiev on Thursday, his office said, the first visit by a foreign minister to a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council since the war started in Ukraine. Simon Coveney, who is also defense minister, will meet his two colleagues, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, and will visit areas directly affected by the Russian invasion. “His discussions with the Ukrainian government will focus on how Ireland can continue to provide political, security and humanitarian support to Ukraine,” his office said.

New hopes for evacuations in Mariupol. Ukraine announced a resumption of evacuation of civilians through nine humanitarian corridors, including from the besieged city of Mariupol in the southeast of the country, after a day of suspension over Russian ceasefire violations. “Today, nine humanitarian corridors are planned”Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Telegram.

On the streets of Boutcha. Beyond the bombed-out bridge of Hostomel, which only by miraculously survives, Boutcha looks like a corpse. A deep silence reigns in the morning around the church of Saint-André-le-Premier-Appelé-et-tous-les-Saints, interrupted from time to time by the roar of the engine of the Grouz-300 truck responsible before going to the morgue, the bodies just exhumed from the city’s main mass grave. Read the report from our correspondent in Ukraine, Stéphane Siohan.

New UK sanctions. The United Kingdom has announced it will expand the list of sanctioned individuals to include 178 pro-Russian separatists, as well as new Russian oligarchs and their relatives, as well as the wife of the head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov. Authorities in Jersey, a British Crown Dependency, have announced the freeze “assets estimated at over $7 billion suspected of being linked” to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. Moscow, in turn, announced it would punish 398 US lawmakers as a reprisal.

The Russian flagship hit or sunk in the Black Sea? the cruiser Moscow, flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, was “seriously damaged” by an explosion of ammunition caused by a fire, Russian government agencies reported Thursday, citing the Defense Ministry. According to Moscow, the crew has been fully evacuated and the cause of the fire is being investigated. The Ukrainian authorities, for their part, have confirmed that the Moscow was on fire after being hit by missiles.

Zelensky goes after Macron. French President Emmanuel Macron’s refusal to “genocide” in Ukraine by the Russian army is “very hurtful,” Zelensky complained, after Macron chose not to resume the term “genocide” used by Joe Biden. “I would say that Russia has unilaterally started a brutal war, that it has now been established that war crimes have been committed by the Russian army and that we now need to find those responsible,” said Macron.

US heavy weapons delivered to Ukraine. In a phone call with Zelensky on Wednesday, Joe Biden announced the shipment to Kiev of a large amount of equipment from US military supplies, including artillery, armor, radar, missiles, anti-tank and unmanned coastal defense craft and drones, according to a White House ruling. The White House recently appeared to waive the distinction it made between supplying equipment “defensive”, that she has given permission, and “offensive”, which she, on the contrary, refused to provide. This massive new military aid was promised when Russia threatened to attack Kiev again.