War in Ukraine Live: Seven Humanitarian Corridors Planned Today

Several marriage agencies are dealing with a recent influx of applications for Ukrainian women. While some men mean well, many requests are not serious or even dangerous at all. More detail in our article devoted to this topic†

Ukraine’s economy minister expects a 16% decline in gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2022 and 40% over the year, in forecasts including the Guardian echoes. In contrast, recent data forecast a 20% decline in GDP for the whole of 2022.

The amount of Iraqi oil exports in March was the highest since 1972, that is, in 50 years. As the second OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) export country, Iraq exported “100,563,999 barrels for a turnover of $11.07 billion ($10.02 billion), the highest income since 1972,” the ministry said. of petroleum.

The European Union is preparing for new sanctions against Russia. But they do not concern the energy sector, Explain European Commissioner for Energy, Paolo Gentiloni. He adds that if the prospect of a recession is ruled out for the time being, the war in Ukraine will lead to a decline in economic growth on European soil.

The Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell cannot buy Russian gas, not even in rubles. This is the result of sanctions imposed by the United Kingdom against Gazprombank, the bank of the Russian gas giant Gazprom, which the European Union has failed to do. In comments taken over by the Russian agency MugRussian presidency spokesman Dmitry Peskov explains that the United Kingdom wants to “be at the forefront of everything anti-Russian, even more so than the United States. Here are the side effects. †

In total, seven humanitarian corridors are to be set up during the day to evacuate civilians, Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said in comments from the Reuters agency† One is the one that has to ensure that civilian vehicles can leave Mariupol.

The Russian news agency ria ensures that the nighttime attacks in Dnipro and Poltava targeted two military airfields. They would have been destroyed or at the very least put out of action, the Russian side said.

At 3 p.m., a demonstration in support of Ukraine is organized, Place de la République, in Paris. Ukrainian MPs will be in attendance.

Actor Gérard Depardieu, who also has Russian nationality since 2013, took the stage Friday evening for the first of three concerts where he covers songs by Barbara and donates the profits to help Ukrainian victims. The one who denounced Thursday the “crazy urges” of the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, spared the goat and the cabbage. “We had to apologize to the theater because they couldn’t stand it, so I wrote a letter,” he said before changing the lyrics of a song: “But the kids are the same / In Paris or in Mariupol”. More detail in our article†

The Russians shelled towns in the east and center of the country at night. Dnipro, Poltava and Kremenchuk were targeted. At least ten explosions were heard in Dnipro alone. In the other two cities, infrastructure and residential buildings were targeted. anglophone media the independent Kiev explains that no information about injuries is available.

A few kilometers from Dole (Jura), in an industrial area of ​​Rochefort-sur-Nenon, 700,000 pizza crusts or pies, puff pastry, broken or shortbread leaves the factory of the bakery dough manufacturer Cérélia, a large part of the sector that has factories in Europe, the United States and Canada. The eight production lines deliver 80 types of dough per minute, for which the manufacturer largely uses sunflower oil, “80% imported from Ukraine”. At the moment “there is no plan to reduce activity”, confirms the president of Cérélia, Guillaume Réveilhac, questioned by AFP

In the storage room at 14°C, bricks of solid fats are packed in colored bags to distinguish between rapeseed and palm oil. The green pile, that of the sunflower, pales in comparison. “In two weeks there will be nothing left at all,” estimates Chen-Liang Qian, the plant manager, “and we will have completely switched to rapeseed”.

China is not “deliberately” circumventing Western sanctions against Russia, she said, following a European Union warning that any aid will damage its economic relations with Europe. Beijing, the Chinese capital, opposes sanctions against Russia and considers them counterproductive. However, Chinese companies are reluctant to deal with Russia for fear of being hit by these sanctions.

China, a close partner of Moscow, the Russian capital, has so far refrained from condemning the Russian invasion and is content to call on all sides to exercise restraint.

– The Russians “continue their partial withdrawal” from the northern region of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, towards the Belarusian border, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said.

– In the same area, the villages of Sloboda and Lukashivka, south of Chernihiv, were taken by Ukrainian troops. In the east, “Russian forces have not taken any territory for 24 hours,” according to the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

– The Ukrainians claim to have liberated 11 places in the Kherson region (south).

– 86 Ukrainian soldiers were exchanged for Russian soldiers.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is pleased that 3,000 people have been able to reach Zaporozhye from Mariupol. “Humanitarian corridors have worked in three regions: Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporozhye. We managed to rescue 6,266 people, including 3,071 from Mariupol,” he said in a video.

A column of buses carrying displaced persons, including residents of the besieged port city of Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine, arrived Friday evening in Zaporozhye, a city controlled by the Kiev military, AFP noted. The buses were carrying residents of Mariupol who had managed to reach the Russian-occupied city of Berdyansk, where they had been picked up by the convoy, according to arrivals testimonies and official officials. When they arrived in the suburb of Zaporozhye, some evacuees cried with relief that they were back on Ukrainian soil.

Several evacuees from Mariupol said they had to walk 15 kilometers or more to leave the city before finding private vehicles to continue their journey.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Britain’s Martin Griffiths, will be in Moscow’s Russian capital on Sunday to try and secure a “humanitarian ceasefire” in Ukraine, the government announced on Friday. UN chief Antonio Guterres.

“He will be in Moscow on Sunday and then to Kiev,” the UN Secretary-General told some journalists, recalling that he had recently ordered him to “seek a ceasefire”. Ukraine”.

More than 3,000 people fled the bombed Mariupol region, by bus and private cars, in the direction of Zaporozhye, Ukrainian authorities said. Most left Berdyansk. On the other hand, the Red Cross announced that the team sent to Mariupol had to return, because its plan to evacuate thousands of civilians from this city besieged by Russian troops was “impossible”. Today is another attempt.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Emmanuel Macron to try to “get from Russia the necessary conditions for a humanitarian operation” in this city, during a new interview, the French presidency said.

The Pentagon will provide up to $300 million in additional military aid to Ukraine, or about $270 million, the Defense Department spokesman said in a statement on Friday.

“The United States has now pledged more than $2.3 billion (about $2.1 billion) in military aid to Ukraine since the Biden administration took office, including more than $1.6 billion (about $1.45 billion) to military aid since the unprovoked and premeditated invasion by Russia,” specifies John Kirby.