War in Ukraine: 4 dead after a missile attack in Odessa, new military aid of 1.4 billion… an update on the situation
|Ce qu'il faut retenir. MAXPPP – Nina Liashonok/Avalon
Every day, Midi Libre takes stock of the situation in Ukraine. This Friday, October 11, 2024, discover the latest news about this conflict.
Four dead after Russian missile strike in Odessa region
Four people were killed this Friday by a Russian missile strike in the Odessa region, in southern Ukraine, Governor Oleh Kiper announced on the Telegram messaging service.
According to Oleh Kiper, a ballistic missile hit a two-story building where civilians lived and worked, killing four and injuring ten others.
Zelensky asks Pope for help in freeing Ukrainian prisoners
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Pope Francis for help in securing the release of Ukrainians held captive by Russia during a meeting at the Vatican on Friday.
Visiting major European capitals to present his "victory plan" for the war with the Russia, Volodymyr Zelensky also announced that he had invited the Vatican to participate in a conference on prisoners of war, scheduled to take place in Canada at the end of the month.
"We are counting on the assistance of the Holy See to repatriate Ukrainians held captive in Russia", wrote Volodymyr Zelensky on the Telegram messenger.
A Vatican statement did not provide any details about the talks between the pope and the Ukrainian president, but said that a subsequent meeting between the leader and the Vatican's top diplomat included discussions “devoted to the state of the war (…) as well as ways to end it”.
This was the Ukrainian president's second private audience at the Vatican in four months. He also met the sovereign pontiff on the sidelines of the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Italy.
The meeting lasted 35 minutes. At the end of the meeting, the Pope presented Volodymyr Zelensky with a bronze sculpture depicting a flower growing next to a bird and bearing the inscription “Peace is a fragile flower”.
The Ukrainian president presented the Pope with a painting depicting a child amidst ruins in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, near Kyiv, which was occupied by Russian forces for 33 days in the spring of 2022.
Germany announces additional military aid of 1.4 billion euros for Ukraine
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who received Volodymyr Zelensky in Berlin on Friday, announced an additional €1.4 billion in aid for Ukraine by the end of 2024, stressing to Moscow that the West would never stop supporting Kyiv.
The aid, which Belgium, Denmark and Norway are participating in, will include air defences, tanks, combat drones and artillery.
“This is a clear message to Russian President Vladimir Putin: playing for time will not work. We will not relax our support for Ukraine,” the German Chancellor said.
The Ukrainian president has been on a whirlwind European tour to present a “victory plan” aimed at ending the war with Russia, insisting on lifting restrictions on the use of long-range missiles to strike Russian territory.
The details of his plan have not been released, but a U.S. official described it as a request for more weapons and a lifting of the restrictions in question.
A European diplomatic source said there was nothing new in the plan, which aims to speed up Ukraine's integration into NATO and increase arms deliveries, including long-range missiles, to encourage Moscow to start peace talks.
“It is essential for us that military aid does not decrease next year,”, the Ukrainian president said alongside Olaf Scholz at the Berlin chancellery. The two men were meeting for the fourth time this year, and Volodymyr Zelensky stressed that it was one of the most important meetings since the beginning of the war.
“Today I will present to Olaf a plan that, in our opinion, will allow us to force Russia to peace, that is, to end this war, preferably no later than next year. And guarantee the non-recurrence of aggression".
A summit of Ukraine's allies, the so-called “Ramstein” contact group, was to be held Friday at the U.S. military base of the same name in Germany. But the meeting was postponed due to the absence of U.S. President Joe Biden, who canceled his trip to oversee the government's response to Hurricane Milton.