(Kharkiv) Ukraine and the United States have “started working” on a bilateral security agreement, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Monday after speaking on the phone with Joe Biden, whom he thanked for the news tranche of American aid.
In his daily message, Mr. Zelensky also assured that Kyiv and Washington had made progress on the issue of the delivery of American long-range ATACMS missiles.
Ukraine has signed such “security agreements” in recent months with several European states including France and the United Kingdom, which are essentially promises from these countries to continue providing it with long-term military and financial support for face the Russian invasion.
During their telephone interview, Volodymyr Zelensky said he was “grateful to Joe Biden for his unwavering support for Ukraine” and expected “rapid and powerful” aid, which “will strengthen our air defense capacity, for a long time to come.” range and artillery.
According to the American president, the contribution amounting to nearly $61 billion voted on Saturday by the House of Representatives will respond to “Ukraine’s urgent needs on the battlefield” and in terms of anti-aircraft defense.
Blocked for months due to internal political struggles in Washington, this aid was welcomed with relief in Ukraine, where the situation on the front has deteriorated considerably in recent weeks.
Faced with a larger and better-equipped Russian army, Ukrainian troops have been forced to give ground, a trend illustrated by Moscow’s claim on Monday for the capture of a new village in the east.
Mr. Biden, for his part, promised to provide this new envelope “quickly,” as soon as the American Senate has in turn voted on it, which should only be a formality.
Destroyed television tower
Shortly before this conversation, a Russian strike destroyed the television tower in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, located near the border and increasingly targeted by bombings in recent weeks.
Some 240 meters high, the metal structure collapsed halfway up, noted an AFP journalist. It had already been damaged in March 2022, at the start of the Russian invasion.
According to regional governor Oleg Synegoubov, this attack did not cause any casualties, but caused “interruptions in the signal for digital television”.
Mr. Zelensky judged, during his telephone conversation with Mr. Biden, that this strike was indicative of a “clear intention by Russia to make the city uninhabitable.”
One of those responsible for the Russian occupation in southern Ukraine, Vladimir Saldo, for his part, welcomed on Telegram the “destruction of the means of communication and propaganda” of the adversary.
Images taken shortly after the impact and posted on social networks show the upper part of the building falling in a cloud of gray smoke.
Kharkiv, home to nearly 1.4 million people before the war, has been the target of numerous bombings in recent weeks. Its energy infrastructure was notably targeted, causing major power outages at the end of March.
President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the newly dug defense lines in this region at the beginning of April, the front being located around forty kilometers from Kharkiv.
” Hard time ”
In the eastern part of Ukraine, where Russian soldiers have been gaining ground since the fall of the fortress town of Avdiïvka in February, Moscow has claimed the conquest of Novomykhaïlivka, around thirty kilometers from Donetsk.
This village is also close to Vougledar, a town at the junction of the southern and eastern fronts that Russia has been trying to seize for two years.
In recent weeks, several other villages have fallen, with Russian troops taking advantage of the Ukrainian army’s difficulties due to delays in mobilization and the delivery of Western aid.
In this context, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov predicted on Monday that the situation on the front will worsen around mid-May and early June, which will be a “difficult period” for Ukraine.
The Russians are engaged in “a complex operation,” warned Mr. Boudanov, when asked about the state of the front, in an interview with the BBC’s Ukrainian language service. “We believe that a rather difficult situation awaits us in the near future. But we must understand that it will not be catastrophic.”
Russian forces now have in their sights the strategic city of Chassiv Yar, perched on a height, less than 30 kilometers southeast of Kramatorsk, the main city in the region under Ukrainian control, which is an important railway hub and logistics for Ukrainians.
reference: www.lapresse.ca