War in Ukraine: Soviet monument dismantled in kyiv, deaths in Kharkiv, ATACMS missiles… update on the situation

L'attaque à Kharkiv ce 30 avril 2024. MAXPPP – SERGEY KOZLOV

Tous les jours, Midi Libre fait le point sur la situation en Ukraine. Ce mardi 30 avril 2024, découvrez les dernières actualités autour de ce conflit.

Two dead in Russian strike in Kharkiv

According to the region's governor Oleh Synehoubov, Russia used guided bombs.

The attack damaged an apartment building in one of the city's districts where help was dispatched, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor said Terekhov.

Ukrainian authorities also announced that the death toll from a Russian missile strike on Monday in Odessa, on the Black Sea in the south of the country, had risen to five dead and 32 injured.

Russia says it shot down ATACMS missiles launched by Ukraine

The Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday it had shot down six ATACMS missiles, long-range weapons recently supplied to Ukraine by the United States, with the governor of annexed Crimea saying submunitions had fallen on his territory.

Last week, Washington announced that it had sent these missiles to Ukraine, which had long requested them in order to be able to strike further behind the front line. Russian air defense destroyed six ATACMS missiles "over the past 24 hours", the Russian ministry said in a statement, without indicating the ;#39;place where this would have taken place.

The governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksionov, however, warned residents of this territory against the presence of "unexploded submunitions" dispersed after the destruction of "ATACMS missiles". The official mentioned the district of Simferopol, one of the cities on the peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014. He attached to his message a photo of a ball placed on the ground, being, according to him, one of the < em>"submunitions" in question.

Russia has not indicated whether these missiles or falling debris caused any damage, and Ukraine has not commented. Last week, the US State Department announced that the United States had sent Ukraine in February "at the direct request of the president" Joe Biden ATACMS missiles to Ukraine.

Ukraine used American ATACMS missiles against Russia for the first time in October, but those sent recently have a longer range, up to 300 km away. Ukraine was seeking to obtain them in order to strike Russian supply routes, warehouses or military HQs further from the front line.

Last week, the Kremlin assured that this new delivery would not change anything in the conflict.

kyiv dismantles a Soviet monument evoking friendship with Russia

The town hall of kyiv announced on Tuesday the dismantling of a Soviet monument evoking friendship with Russia against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of the Soviet Union. Ukraine which left tens of thousands dead in two years. "The city's municipal services began dismantling the composition in memory of the Pereyaslav Treaty&quot ;, which marked Ukraine's allegiance to Russia in 1654, said the town hall.

The monument — stone sculptures representing Ukrainian and Russian officials of the time including the signatories of the treaty — had been installed in a park in the center of Kiev as part of' #39;an iconic memorial complex celebrating "the friendship of the peoples" Ukrainian and Russian.

Shortly after the start of the invasion in 2022, Kiev authorities had already dismantled two bronze statues representing Ukrainian and Russian workers on the same site and renamed the arch metal surmounting the architectural ensemble as the Arch of the Freedom of the Ukrainian People instead of the Arch of the Friendship of Peoples initially.

"Dismantling can take several days because the composition is quite massive. It includes around twenty elements" weighing between six and seven tonnes, said the town hall. The monument will then be transferred to a museum in kyiv, according to the same source.

"It's a measure to be taken", Aliona told AFP Iavorivska, a 32-year-old psychologist living in kyiv. "I don't understand why this monument was still here". For Oleksandre Severyn, a 32-year-old firefighter, this operation is on the contrary "inopportune" because he believes that in times of war the authorities would be better off using the funds to finance the army.

Ukraine, a former Soviet republic independent since 1991, has for years been pursuing a policy of dismantling monuments dating from the Soviet era and has renamed them many cities to restore their name before the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. These measures increased after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and even more so after the invasion of February 2022.

Last year, Ukraine passed a "decolonization" law, aiming to rename streets and tear down related monuments in Moscow. In kyiv, a central square named Leo Tolstoy is now called "Ukrainian Heroes Square".