Live: Russia no closer to using nuclear weapons, says Biden

G7 finance ministers will try to agree today in India on a new package of economic sanctions against Russia. The meeting, in which France, the United States and Japan participate in particular, will be held on the sidelines of a meeting of finance ministers and heads of central banks of the G20, organized in Bangalore (south).

“As part of the G7, we will plead for a strengthening of economic sanctions against Russia,” warned Monday, the French Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Maire. “These economic sanctions are effective, they have practically halved Russia’s oil revenues,” said the minister.

Despite nine sets of sanctions from the European Union, the Russian economy has only experienced a limited decline in its GDP in 2022. A “resilience” of the Russian economy hailed on Tuesday by President Vladimir Putin during his state of the nation address. However, some Western observers and politicians point to blind spots in the official statistics provided by Moscow.

>> Read the article by our journalist Grégoire Sauvage.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced his visit to Kyiv, ‘one year after the start of the war’ caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in a message published in Spanish and Ukrainian on Twitter.

“We will support Ukraine and its people until peace returns to Europe”, assures the Spanish head of government in this message, accompanied by video images where we see him getting off a train in Kiev, one day before the first anniversary of the war.

Civilian drones, smartphone applications and innovations of all kinds: one year after the outbreak of the invasion war in Ukraine, there is much less talk about the technological creativity of Ukrainian soldiers. However, this very tech D system marked this war and will probably count for the conflicts to come.

>> Read the article by our journalist, Sébastian Seibt.

“I appeal to you: this is a decisive moment to show support, unity and solidarity”, launched the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kouleba, at the UN platform, on the first day of the debates devoted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022.

“Never in recent history has the line between good and evil been so clear. One country just wants to survive. The other wants to kill and destroy,” he added.

The reception of Ukrainian refugees in France cost nearly 500 million euros, mainly for accommodation and the allowance paid to some 100,000 displaced people living in the territory, announced the French Ministry of the Interior, a year after the start of the conflict in Ukraine.

Since the start of the war on February 24, which generated the largest movement of refugees in Europe since the Second World War, France has spent more than 490 million euros to offer an “unprecedented reception scheme”, in the words of the Home Office.

In detail, almost 220 million euros were spent “under the allowance for beneficiaries of temporary protection” granted to Ukrainians, about 260 million “under accommodation” and 10.1 million ” under day care and transport”, detailed Place Beauvau to AFP.

Accommodation, which represents half the cost of hosting displaced people, includes in particular requisitioned hotels and holiday centres, emergency accommodation places mobilized – 30,000 at the height of the crisis in March and April 2022 – or the reception “airlocks” set up everywhere in France. In addition, approximately 30,000 displaced Ukrainians have been housed with citizens.

The first major European festival of the year, the Berlinale, which ends on Saturday, shows its solidarity with Ukrainian producers, directors and actors by programming films and discussions on the attacked country.

It was President Volodymyr Zelensky who opened the event last Thursday by calling, in a video message, for art and cinema to get involved. The man who was an actor before becoming a leader of a Ukraine at war is at the heart of a documentary directed by American star Sean Penn and premiered in Berlin.

US President Joe Biden said his Russian counterpart’s decision to suspend Russia’s participation in the New Start treaty did not mean that Vladimir Putin was planning to use nuclear weapons.

Joe Biden, however, called Russia’s decision a “big mistake” in an interview with ABC News. “That’s a big mistake. It’s not very responsible. But I don’t think he’s considering using nuclear weapons or anything like that,” the US president said.

Joe Biden added that there was “no evidence” that Russia plans to use nuclear weapons or intercontinental ballistic missiles.

With AFP and Reuters