War in Ukraine: 20 Russian drones destroyed, provisional agreement on curbs on agricultural imports… update on the situation

Update on the situation. MAXPPP – Dmytro Smolienko/Avalon

Every day, Midi Libre takes stock of the situation in Ukraine. This Tuesday, April 9, 2024, discover the latest news around this conflict.

Ukraine claims to have destroyed 20 drones overnight

Ukrainian air defense systems neutralized 20 drones launched by Russia in seven different regions across the country overnight, said Tuesday, April 9 commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Mykola Oleshchuk.

The drones were destroyed over the southern Ukrainian regions of Mykolaiv, Odessa and Kherson, the central regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava and Vinnytsia, and Lviv in the west of the country, a indicated Mykola Olechchuk on the Telegram messaging application.

Russian forces launched Shahed drone attacks in several waves, targeting critical infrastructure and power plants, according to Ukrainian military and regional officials. Lviv region governor Maksym Kozytsky said drone debris damaged critical infrastructure in the west of the country, causing a fire.

In the Odessa region, power lines were destroyed by debris, Governor Oleh Kiper said on the Telegram app. The Ukrainian Energy Ministry noted that electrical infrastructure equipment was also damaged in the central Poltava region.

Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukraine's energy sector in recent weeks, targeting facilities and other key infrastructure. kyiv has also intensified its attacks on Russian territory, targeting military installations and energy infrastructure linked to Moscow's war effort.

On Tuesday, Ukraine struck one of the main aircraft production infrastructures in the Russian region of Voronezh, a member of the Ukrainian intelligence services told Reuters.

A woman and a child lost their lives in Ukrainian bombings on the Russian village of Klimovo in the Bryansk region, according to the region's governor, Alexander Bogomaz. Three other people were also killed in shelling in the occupied Kherson region in the south of the country, the region's pro-Russian governor Vladimir Saldo said on Tuesday

David Cameron visits the USA to ask Congress to help Ukraine

The head of British diplomacy, David Cameron, will meet this Tuesday his American counterpart, Antony Blinken, during a visit to Washington during which he intends to press the elected representatives of Congress to # 39;approve additional aid to Ukraine as well as discuss the war in Gaza.

Speaking last week about this trip to the United States, David Cameron indicated that he would speak to the "speaker" House Republican Mike Johnson to urge him to pass an additional $60 billion in aid to Ukraine.

This plan, wanted by Democratic President Joe Biden, has been blocked for months by Republican elected officials in Congress. “A success for Ukraine and a failure for (Vladimir) Putin are vital to American and European security,” the Foreign Secretary said in a statement , adding that it was important to prove to the Russian president that “aggression does not pay“.

Otherwise, "This would encourage Putin to lead further attempts to redraw Europe's borders by force", a message which David Cameron said would then "heard clearly in Beijing, Tehran and North Korea".

The services of the head of British diplomacy announced that he would meet in Washington with high-ranking elected officials from the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

Provisional agreement on curbs on agricultural imports from Ukraine

The European Parliament and the Council reached a provisional agreement on Monday 8 April on an extension of customs duty exemptions for agricultural products imported from Ukraine, while at the same time ;with a mechanism allowing them to be restored under certain conditions.

These imports from Ukraine were one of the factors in the anger of European farmers at the start of the year. The latter accuse them of having flooded the market and generated unfair competition after the removal of customs duties intended to help Ukraine following the invasion of the country by Russia in February 2022.

The agreement concluded between MEPs and Belgium, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Council, must still be validated in plenary session by the Parliament and by the member states of the European Council. ;UE.

The European Commission proposed in January to extend exemptions from customs duties on Ukrainian agricultural products until June 2025. However, it supplemented this measure with a mechanism for customs duties. emergency allowing the reestablishment of tariffs on poultry, eggs and sugar if imports of these categories of products exceed the averages observed in 2022 and 2023.

Oats, corn and honey have since been added to this list and the calculation of the average has been expanded to also take into account the second half of 2021, a period during which customs duties were still applied.
It was this formula that was the subject of agreement on Monday, said a European diplomat.