Moscow has accused kyiv of using long-range GLSDB weapons, a first since the start of the conflict. The Ukrainian army did not confirm.
This is a first in the conflict. Russia claims to have shot down an American long-range GLSDB rocket on Tuesday, March 28, the delivery of which Ukraine has never officially acknowledged. This ammunition makes it possible to carry out strikes up to 150 km. Franceinfo looks back on the highlights of the day on the war front.
Moscow intercepted long-range US rockets
Russia has claimed to have shot down an American long-range GLSDB rocket, the first confirmation of delivery of this ammunition to Ukraine, which considers it crucial to launch its next counter-offensive. Ukraine has not provided any information on the deployment of these devices.
The GLSDB (for “Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb” in English) are small-diameter, high-precision devices manufactured by the American Boeing and the Swedish Saab. They can fly up to 150 km and therefore threaten Russian positions, in particular ammunition depots, far behind the front lines. “The accuracy of GLSDBs is so high that they can hit within the radius of a car tire”says Saab on its website.
Washington accepts the idea of a special international court
The United States favors the creation of a special tribunal to try “aggression” Russian in Ukraine, with funds and international staff but “rooted in the Ukrainian judicial system”. Washington wishes to obtain “significant international support, particularly from our European partners“and let the court be “ideally located in another country in Europe”.
This is the first time that the United States, traditionally recalcitrant in the face of international justice, has expressed its explicit support for the creation of such a tribunal to try crimes committed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24. 2022. Kiev has long called for a special court to be set up to try top Russian officials, but its exact form raises complex legal questions.
The National Assembly recognizes the Holodomor genocide
The National Assembly recognized as a genocide the Holodomor, this famine caused at the beginning of the 1930s in Ukraine by the Soviet authorities, at the origin of the death of several million people. In a resolution adopted almost unanimously (168 votes against 2), the deputies called on the government to do the same, to respond to Kiev’s strong expectations about this painful memory, revived by the Russian invasion of country.
>> How the memory of the Holodomor, this famine caused by Stalin, has shaped Ukrainian identity
On Twitter, President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed (in French) his “recognition to the deputies of the National Assembly for this historic decision”. The adopted text “officially recognizes the genocidal nature of the famine forced and planned by the Soviet authorities against the Ukrainian population in 1932 and 1933”. Il “sentenced” these acts and “affirms its support for the Ukrainian people in their aspiration to have the mass crimes committed against them by the Soviet regime recognized”.
The IOC paves the way for the return of Russian athletes
A limited, reversible and already controversial return. The International Olympic Committee on Tuesday recommended the reinstatement of Russian and Belarusian athletes in international competitions, without commenting on their participation in the 2024 Paris Olympics. While Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic countries are already threatening to boycott the Olympics in the event of Russian and Belarusian presence, the IOC will decide on this issue “at the appropriate time, in its sole discretion, and without being bound by the results of qualifying competitions”announced the German leader, thus leaving himself complete latitude.
Russian sentenced for drawing anti-war cartoon
A Russian, separated from his 13-year-old daughter who was placed because of a school drawing against the offensive in Ukraine, was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday and fled, authorities said . This affair has aroused great indignation for several weeks in Russia, becoming one of the symbols of the merciless repression against those who oppose the military operation launched more than a year ago by the Kremlin in Ukraine.
The case began when Alexei Moskaliov’s daughter Maria, a 13-year-old middle school student, drew a picture in class showing missiles heading towards a woman and child with a Ukrainian flag. In the context of an all-out hunt for voices critical of the offensive in Ukraine, the headmistress of the school immediately alerted the police. He was placed under house arrest on March 1 and his daughter placed in a home and deprived of all contact with her father.
