LIVE – War in Ukraine: the director of the Zaporizhia power plant arrested by the Russians

Turkey “rejects” the annexation of new Ukrainian territories by Russia, as it refused to recognize the annexation of Crimea, the Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

“Turkey did not recognize the annexation of Crimea during an illegitimate referendum in 2014 and has always expressed its strong support for the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of Ukraine,” insists the ministry in a press release published at night, after the celebration with great fanfare. in Moscow of the annexations.

“According to this position, adopted since 2014, we reject the Russian decision to annex the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. This decision, which constitutes a serious violation of the principles of international law, cannot be accepted.” The Turkish ministry had already condemned last week the “illegitimate” referendums held in these four regions.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has not spoken directly on the subject, has been trying since the beginning of the conflict to maintain relations with Kyiv and Moscow and has offered his mediation to open talks between Russia and Ukraine, to which Ankara contributes combat. . drones

But after having met his counterpart Vladimir Putin on several occasions and having reached agreements in particular on gas supplies, partly payable in rubles, he now seems to be distancing himself more clearly, calling on the UN platform for a “way out”. worthy for all” of war.

Under American pressure and fear of retaliation, Turkish banks that accepted it gradually withdrew this week from the Russian Mir payment system, which allowed Russian citizens to continue withdrawing money in Turkey.

The facade of the Russian consulate in New York was vandalized with red paint, police said on Friday, in what appears to be a gesture of protest over Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions.

As of noon Friday, large smears and streaks of red paint covered the facade of the Consulate, a Renaissance-style building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, several feet high and wide, an AFP photographer said. The front door has also been covered in red paint.

Police were notified around 1:30 am, an NYPD spokesman told AFP. “There were no arrests and the investigation is ongoing,” the official added, adding that the incident was considered “possibly motivated by hostility.”

More information here.

It is a new Russian stronghold that could fall in eastern Ukraine. As our report on Saturday shows, the occupying army is partially surrounded in Lyman.

The city, taken over by the aggressor during the first weeks of the conflict, borders the breakaway republic of Lugansk.

The day after the announcement of the annexation of the four occupied regions of southern and eastern Ukraine to Russia by Vladimir Putin, the people of Kyiv expressed their anger and anguish in front of our cameras.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, evoked a “farce” on Friday.

Igor Murachov, director of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, was arrested Friday afternoon by the invader’s forces. This was announced by Petro Kotine, head of the Energoatom company, which manages the site in normal times, this Saturday on Telegram, according to the Reuters agency site here.

“They took him out of the car, blindfolded him and took him by car to an unknown place,” said Petro Kotin, who stressed that he had no knowledge of the fate of the detained director since then. This arrest “compromises the security of the activities of the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine and Europe,” he continued, and he called on the Russians to release Igor Morachov immediately.

More information here.

The suffering of Ukrainians and the martyrdom of Afghan women will be at the center of the 29th edition of the Bayeux Prize for War Correspondents, which kicks off on Monday with a series of exhibitions and screenings ahead of the award ceremony the following Saturday. .

The international jury chaired by the German photojournalist Thomas Dworzak, a specialist in the Caucasus, will examine on Friday and Saturday a selection of 51 reports whose themes “mainly deal with Ukraine, Afghanistan, Mozambique and Syria”, explains Patrick Gomont, mayor of Bayeux. The city of Calvados is co-organizer, with the department and the region, of the Prize that exhibits “40,000 visitors each year”. Just over 350 reports were candidates.

The 50-year-old German reporter, who ran the Magnum agency, said he was “impatient and curious to be able to discuss the treatment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine with his colleagues,” according to the press kit.

US President Joe Biden said on Friday that the United States and its allies would not be “intimidated” by Russian President Vladimir Putin, vowing that NATO would defend “every inch” of its territory. “The United States and its allies will not be intimidated” and Vladimir Putin “will not scare us,” he said during a White House speech.

Joe Biden then addressed the Russian president directly, pointing a finger at the camera warning him against any attack from NATO territory. “The United States and its allies are fully prepared to defend every inch of NATO territory,” he said. “Vladimir Putin, understand what I’m saying: every inch.”

The US president spoke shortly after the formalization of the annexation of four Ukrainian territories by Vladimir Putin, who promised victory to his country during a festive concert in Moscow’s Red Square.

Canada, for its part, announced that it would impose new sanctions against Russia, through a press release from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday, after “mock referendums” and “attempted annexation” of Ukrainian territories by Moscow.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday denounced Russia’s “illegal and illegitimate” annexation of Ukraine’s four regions and warned Moscow against using nuclear weapons in the conflict. “These regions are Ukraine, just as Crimea (annexed in 2014 by Moscow) is Ukraine,” he said, adding: “Allies will never recognize these territories as part of Russia.”