“You are a man. Be it”. In the street or on social networks, advertisements encouraging young Russians to enlist in the army to go and fight in Ukraine have multiplied in recent days. In addition, in his daily evening speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday denounced a “barbaric” Russian attack on a museum in Kupyansk, northeastern Ukraine, on Tuesday as a new “war crime” in his eyes. which left two dead and ten injured, he announced.
In addition, American officials believe that the Ukrainian counter-offensive could take place in early May. Based on leaked documents, the American newspaper The New York Times specifies that twelve Ukrainian combat units, totaling 4,000 soldiers, are about to go to the front line.
Pope Francis leaves Friday for a three-day visit to the Hungary of Viktor Orban, a sovereignist leader whose anti-migrant policy he does not share and who wishes to maintain the link with Moscow.
Intercepted Russian planes
Germany and Britain have intercepted three Russian military reconnaissance planes over the Baltic Sea, the German Air Force announced on Wednesday.
“Reconnaissance flights intercepted. German and British Eurofighters were alerted to identify three military aircraft. The two SU-27 Flankers and a Russian IL-20 were again flying without transponder signals in international airspace over the Baltic Sea,” the Air Force tweeted.
US officials believe Ukrainian counteroffensive could take place in May
According to leaked Pentagon documents, the New York Times reports, in an article published this Wednesday, April 26, that American officials estimate that the Ukrainian counter-offensive will begin in May. The daily specifies that twelve Ukrainian combat units totaling 4,000 soldiers would be about to go to the front line by the end of April. Nine of them were trained by the United States and NATO allies. While Ukraine shares few details of its operational plan with US officials, they nevertheless decipher that the operation is likely to take place in the south of the country, including along the Ukrainian coast on the Sea of Azov, near the Crimea annexed to Russia.
“It’s all about this counter-offensive,” Alexander Vershbow, former US ambassador to Russia and senior NATO official, told the US daily. “Everyone is hopeful, maybe too optimistic. But it will determine whether there will be a decent outcome for the Ukrainians, in terms of reclaiming territory on the battlefield and creating leverage a lot more important to get some sort of negotiated settlement.”
Russia launches massive military recruitment drive
Moscow wants to replenish ranks weakened by more than a year of war, while kyiv says it is preparing a vast counter-offensive. But today, it seems that the Kremlin does not want to resort to a new forced mobilization. An unpopular measure that Moscow took in September after several setbacks. To spare public opinion, the government has therefore launched the largest advertising campaign for voluntary military recruitment since the launch of its offensive against Ukraine in February 2022.
In Moscow, posted on the side of roads, on store windows and on bus shelters, recruitment posters have flourished in recent days, touting “an honorable job and a decent salary”, noted AFP journalists. The authorities have not announced quantified targets, but some Russian media have reported that the army hopes to enlist several hundred thousand men by offering contracts on particularly attractive terms. On the website of the Moscow municipality, the salary promised to a recruit deployed in the area of operations in Ukraine thus amounts to 204,000 rubles (2,260 euros at the current rate), or more than 10 times the minimum wage.
Zelensky denounces a “barbaric” attack on a museum in Kupiansk that left two dead
“Russia killed two women with this strike (…) Ten people were injured,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video released Tuesday evening. Earlier, he had reported one death in this attack, castigating the Russians who “kill Ukrainians with absolutely barbaric methods”, via a message on Telegram. “All the culprits of these war crimes will certainly be brought to justice and it will be without mercy,” the Ukrainian president had again slammed. According to him, the strike took place in downtown Kupyansk, on “a local history museum and nearby houses”, very close to the front line in the northeast of the country. The Russian attack took place with the help of surface-to-air missiles of Soviet origin “S-300”, indicated the Ukrainian president.
Kupiansk, about a hundred kilometers from the city of Kharkiv, had more than 25,000 inhabitants before the war. It was taken by the Russians in the early days of the invasion, over a year ago. The Ukrainians then recaptured the town in September after a lightning counteroffensive. But the forces of Moscow, bolstered by the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of reservists in Russia, returned to the attack at the beginning of the year in this sector, arousing the fear of many inhabitants. In early March, kyiv even ordered vulnerable people to evacuate the city in the face of pressure from the Russian army.
Ukraine at the heart of the Pope’s visit to Hungary
A month after his hospitalization for bronchitis, the health of the 86-year-old Argentine pope will be closely observed during this visit, confined to the capital Budapest to adapt to his physical condition. In this Central European country of 9.7 million inhabitants, of which some 39% are Catholics according to the latest figures in 2011, the pope’s stay will revolve around the war in neighboring Ukraine and the theme of migration. Upon his arrival on Friday, Jorge Bergoglio will be received by Viktor Orban, to whom he had expressed his gratitude for the protection that Hungary offers to Ukrainians fleeing the war, during an audience at the Vatican in April 2022.
In Budapest, the pope will notably meet Ukrainian refugees, while his innumerable appeals for peace and the initiative of the Holy See for mediation have remained a dead letter. More than a million Ukrainians have crossed the border since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022 and 35,000 have applied for temporary protection status, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
