While talks are engaged between Ukrainians and Russians for a cease-fire, the situation is however worsening between Russia and Western countries."The worst is to come," even said Emmanuel Macron after an exchange this Thursday with Vladimir Putin, who told him of "his very great determination" to pursue his offensive, whose goal is, according to the Elysée, "to take control of "from the whole country.Later in the day, the speech on the national television of the chief of the Kremlin will prove him right.Vladimir Putin indicated that "the special operation" in Ukraine was taking place according to the initially stopped plans, that it aimed to fight neonazis to save Russians and Ukrainians, which according to him "only one people".And so that it aimed to destroy "anti-Russia" created by the West.
"You tell yourself stories" (Macron in Putin, according to the Elysée)
To the accusations of the first on the Ukrainians, the French "replied that he made a serious error on the Ukrainian regime", which "is not Nazi"."You tell stories, you are looking for pretexts," he said, reported the Elysée, inviting him "not to lie".
"This interview made it possible to return to disagreements, to tell the truth to President Putin", but also "unfortunately", to note "his determination to continue the military operation until the end"."The Ukrainians are courageously fighting. Nothing is acquired but the balance of power is very disproportionate," said the Elysée, emphasizing "the pessimism" of Emmanuel Macron after the discussion.
"I will not give up the conviction that the Russians and the Ukrainians are a single people," said Vladimir Putin, welcoming the "courage" and the heroism of the Russian soldiers who "firmly fight with a total understanding ofthe correctness of their cause ".
While Russia said Wednesday that 498 Russian soldiers had been killed and 1,597 others injured, the Russian president announced financial compensation to Russian soldiers killed or injured in Ukraine, but also to those who are still deployed.
Objective: to rebuild the influence of the USSR
For his part, the Ukrainian president called on Westerners on Thursday to increase their support, hammering that if her country was defeated by Russia, she would attack the rest of Eastern Europe to arrive "to the wall ofBerlin".
"If we disappear, let God protect us, then it will be Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia etc ... To the Berlin Wall, believe me," said Volodymyr Zelensky, believing that the Kremlin could have forobjective of rebuilding the entire European influence of the USSR.He also called on Westerners to impose an air exclusion area above his country.
"And if you don't have the strength to close the sky, then give me planes!" He exclaimed at a press conference in kyiv reserved for foreign media.
The Ukrainian president also said he was ready to speak to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
"It's not that I want to talk to Putin, but I have to talk to Putin, the world must speak to Putin because it is the only way to stop this war," he said, "heMust speak without conditions, without resentment, like men ".
But Volodymyr Zelensky also challenged his counterpart who ordered the invasion of his country a week ago: "What do you want us?
Before launching: "Sit with me at the negotiation table. But not thirty meters like with (Emmanuel) Macron or (Olaf) Scholz. I am a normal guy, I do not bite! Sit with me,Tell me what you are afraid of! "
He thus made fun of the very long table at which the Russian president receives his Russian hosts as foreigners due to the drastic sanitary protocol to protect him from COVID-19.
Asked about the current talks in Belarus between Ukrainian and Russian delegations, he estimated that there were "things on which compromise must be found so that people stop dying".
"But there are things on which it is impossible to find compromises. We cannot simply go by saying 'Yes, this country is yours, Ukraine is part of Russia'. It is impossible.It is not worth offering it to us. "
Volodymyr Zelensky nevertheless stressed the importance of a diplomatic dialogue.
"Each word is more important than a shot," he concluded.
Memory and worried about Russia, Poland, announced that it will devote 3% of its GDP next year to the defense budget, against 2.2% this year, announced Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Vice-Prime Minister on Thursdayand president of the conservative party in power.
Human Rights Council
In addition, Russia suffered a long salvo of attacks on Thursday during a debate on the war in Ukraine in the Human Rights Council, during which the UN assured that the elevation of the nuclear threat put indanger of all humanity.
After the massive vote of the UN General Assembly to demand from Moscow the cessation of the conflict, Russia could only count on very rare supporters during the debate in Geneva.
It was Ukraine, who hopes to have discussions adopted on Friday a resolution asking for an international investigation into human rights abuses committed by Russian troops, which launched the first assaults.
"The barbarians should not have and have their place in the alliance of civilizations," said the first vice-minister of Foreign Affairs in Ukraine, Emine Dzhaparova, in video speech.
This war occurs only, she said, because "a group of war criminals with the nuclear bomb decided that our people were too weak to resist and that the world would make fun of it".
kyiv was able to count on the support of Western capitals but also many other diplomats who denounced the non-compliance with the territorial sovereignty of Ukraine by Moscow and the violence against the Ukrainian people, as well as the threat to world peace . Ukraine posed on the table a draft resolution calling "for the rapid and verifiable withdrawal of Russian troops" on its territory, and requesting to establish an emergency for an initial period of one year "an international commission of inquiry independent ". Investigators will be responsible for "collecting, gathering and analyzing the evidence attesting to (...) violations" of human rights in Ukraine, and to identify those responsible for these violations "so that they have to answer their actions ". Only a very small group of countries - including Venezuela, Syria, Belarus and China - supported Moscow, Ambassador Bélarusse Youri Ambrazevitch comparing the debates to a "political buffoonery".
Beijing, through the voice of his ambassador Chen Xu, underlined his attachment to respect for the sovereignty of the States but climbed the road to the "politicization of human rights" and to any commission of inquiry.
Paris also considers "very significant" the China's decision to abstain from the UN, where a resolution requiring the "immediate" judgment of the force against Ukraine, was adopted by an overwhelming majority."We are interested in the fact that China has proposed its mediation" and "are in contact with the officials" of Beijing, said the Elysée.
Russia is ininvestable
In the meantime, a week after the introduction of Western sanctions against the invasion in Ukraine, Russian finance feels sulfur.
"Russia has become completely ininvestable," said Vincent Mortier, investment director of the European number of AMUNI, Thursday, during a conference for its customers."There is no more market" in Russia, he says.
The downgrading of Russian debt by rating agencies in the category of speculative investments has sunk the point of sanctions: Moody's, Fitch and SP Global now consider that Moscow is likely to be able to repay its debt.
Read also 3 min in the markets, Russia, on the brink of bankruptcy, is worth almost nothing
The agencies monitor a possible worsening of Western sanctions and do not exclude lowering the Russian note again.However, the lower this note, the less lenders will trust the country and the less it will be able to borrow money from reasonable interest rates.
Moscow did not pay the interests due to foreign investors on Wednesday who have ruble debt, reported the Russian media, continuing to pay those in currencies for the time being.
According to rating agencies, sanctions against the Russian financial system could not only technically prevent the country from reimbursing the deadlines that come to the end from mid-March, but also raise concerns about the country's good will to serve its debt.
A default of Moscow would be a first since 1998.
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Moldova wants to enter the EU
President Moldavian Maia Sandu announced Thursday that she has signed a formal Moldova membership request to the European Union, accelerating a pro-Western turn of the former Soviet Republic Eight days after the start of the invasion of Ukraineby Russia.Moscow firmly opposes the expansion of the European Union and NATO in Eastern Europe, Russia seeing it a direct threat to its own national security.Maia Sandu, Prime Minister Moldavian and the President of the Parliament all signed the Moldova membership request, where pro-Russian and European pro-Union have been competing for power since the country's independence in 1991. The formal candidacymembership will be sent to Brussels in the coming days, said Maia Sandu.
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