War in Ukraine, live: after the Russian withdrawal from Serpents’ Island, the Ukrainian army welcomes “the liberation of a strategic territory”

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• The Russian army announced on Thursday that it had withdrawn from Serpents’ Islanda strategic position in the Black Sea that has been under Ukrainian bombardment in recent weeks.
• On the ground, Ukraine continues to pay a heavy price for warwith new deadly attacks against civilians, in particular in Mykolaiv (South), where six people died in a strike on a residential building, according to Ukrainian State Emergency Service.
• In Lyssychansk, eastern Ukraine, the “frequency” of Russian bombardments is “enormous”said the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhi Haïdaï. “We are witnessing a peak of intensity in the fighting”he continued on Ukrainian television.
• NATO countries announced on Wednesday a strengthening of their military presence on the eastern flank of the Alliancewhich will bring to more than 300,000 soldiers the strength of its “high readiness forces”.
• Vladimir Putin, for his part, denounced on Wednesday the “imperialist ambitions” of the Atlantic Alliance, which seeks, according to him, to affirm its “hegemony” through the Ukrainian conflict. But the Russian president said he does not see any ” problems “ to NATO membership for Sweden and Finland, with whom he says he has no “territorial disputes”.
• Vladimir Putin rejected, Wednesday evening, the responsibility of the Russian army in the strike which ravaged, Monday, a shopping center in Kremenchukcausing at least eighteen deaths. “Our army does not hit any civilian infrastructure site”he assured.
• A few hours after Damascus announced that it recognized the independence of the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Wednesday that he was ending Ukraine’s diplomatic relations with Syria.

Find our live from yesterday here.

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Reportage. Shopping center in Kremenchuk, Ukraine: “Moscow is doing this to push us to give up”

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