Prime Minister Mario Draghi flies to the US to meet US President Joe Biden . Many issues at the center of the face-to-face, starting with the war in Ukraine : from sanctions against Putin and Russia to how to continue to help the Ukrainians.
The strengthening of NATO is also on the table: the US has long been asking the EU countries, including Italy, for more men and equipment and the meeting with the premier is an opportunity to renew the requests.
On the fighting front, the Ukrainian authorities have announced that the Russians have carried out a missile attack on the city of Odessa . Three loud explosions were heard from the city center and there are allegedly some injured and at least 5 buildings destroyed. The mayor of Mariupol - where the Azovstal steel mill is still under attack - spoke of 100,000 civilians who would like to leave the city.
Meanwhile, Volodymyr Zelensky announced "another very important and not only formal step on our way to the European Union ". "Ukraine - he wrote on Telegram - has submitted the second part of the answers to a special questionnaire that must be filled out by every country that aspires to be part of the European Union. It usually takes months. But we have done everything in a few weeks ".
“Our membership of the EU - said Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba -“ is a question of war or peace in Europe ”. "Now is the time to take the next step and bring Ukraine home, assigning it candidate status for EU membership," he added, explaining that if Ukraine does not receive candidate status for EU membership. 'EU will mean deception on the part of the EU.
Meanwhile, from the US 007 comes the prediction that Putin " has no intention of stopping in the Donbass and will bring the war to Transnistria ". To continue waging his war, the Tsar could also impose martial law on Russia. National intelligence director Avril Haines said this in a hearing at the Senate Defense Committee. The Kremlin leader, he warned, " is aiming for a long war and is counting on the fact that US and European support for Kiev will diminish over time ". But it will use the nuclear weapon "only if it is faced with an existential threat".
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The day by the hour:
White House: "It will be a long war, Putin still has ambitions"
That in Ukraine "will be a long war and we must prepare". The spokesperson for the White House said so confirming the assessment of the American intelligence services. "We believe Putin still has ambitions," he said.
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Draghi to Biden: "Putin wanted to divide us, he failed"
"Putin thought of dividing us, he failed." These are the first words spoken by Mario Draghi to Joe Biden in the meeting between the two at the White House. “Today Italy, the USA and the European Union are even more united”.
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Lukashenko: "We can inflict great damage on enemies"
The Belarusian army is capable of "inflicting intolerable damage to its enemies" in the event of an attack. This was stated by President Alexander Lukashenko, quoted by Belta, while meeting defense officials after sending special forces to the border with Ukraine, where according to Minsk there is a "growing threat" from NATO and its allies. "We are realists, we understand that we could not defeat NATO. But we have all the weapons to cause damage, in particular to the territories from which we would be attacked", added Lukashenko, stressing not "to allude to anything" but to want "everyone to understand the reach of the weapons we have ".
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US, more than 1,500 Stinger missiles delivered to Kiev
More than 1,500 Stinger missiles have been delivered to Ukraine. This was stated by a Pentagon official quoted by the Bloomberg agency.
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Biden: "Strong friendship with Italy, today Draghi in the White House"
"This afternoon I will host Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi at the White House. I look forward to reaffirming the friendship and strong collaboration between our two nations and to discuss our continued support for Ukraine." US President Joe Biden writes it on Twitter.
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Kiev: "Our EU membership is a matter of war or peace"
Ukraine's accession to the European Union is a "question of war or peace" in Europe. This was stated by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in a briefing with German colleague Annalena Baerbock, reports Ukrainska Pravda. "Now is the time to take the next step and bring Ukraine home, assigning it candidate status for EU membership," he added, explaining that if Ukraine does not receive candidate status for EU membership. 'EU will mean deception on the part of the EU and Ukraine will not swallow it.
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Usa: "Putin will use nuclear power only in the event of an existential threat"
"Putin will only use the nuclear weapon if he is faced with an existential threat". US National Intelligence Director Avril Haines said this in a hearing at the Senate Defense Commission. Haines warned that the Kremlin leader is aiming for a "long" war in Ukraine and is counting on US and European support for Kiev to diminish over time.
At the moment, added Haines, "the war has stalled and nobody is winning".
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Usa: "Putin will bring the war to Transnistria"
Vladimir Putin's forces have no intention of stopping in Donbass but will bring the war to Transnistria. American National Intelligence Director Avril Haines said this in a hearing at the Senate Defense Commission.
"It is likely" that Putin will also impose martial law in Russia to continue waging the war in Ukraine, Haines added.
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Xi Jinping and Macron support the negotiations
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French Emmanuel Macron agreed that "all parties involved should support Russia and Ukraine to restore peace through negotiations". The Beijing media reported on the telephone conversation the two leaders had today. Xi, reports the state network CCTV, stressed that China "has promoted peace talks in its own way and supports European countries in taking over the security of Europe. We must be particularly vigilant about confrontations between groups, which will represent a threat. larger and more durable for global security and stability. "
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Thousands of Russian soldiers died on refrigerated trains
"As Russia marches on Red Square, thousands of its dead soldiers are piled up in sacks on refrigerated trains." Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, writes on Twitter, quoting the report from Al Jazeera English. "The Russians refuse to take them, so Ukraine may even have to bury them at its own expense," he adds.
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8 million internally displaced persons
In Ukraine as of May 3 there are over 8 million internally displaced persons. The United Nations supports it.
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Over 22 thousand Ukrainian students welcomed in Italy
From February 24 to today, 22,788 Ukrainian students are welcomed, of which 5,060 in kindergarten, 10,399 in elementary school, 5,226 in middle school and 2,103 in high school. The report also contains information on territorial distribution: 21% is concentrated in Lombardy, 12% in Emilia-Romagna and 11% in Campania. This was announced by the Ministry of Education.
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"Kharkiv, streets strewn with corpses"
Dozens of corpses of Russian soldiers were abandoned on the battlefield and in the houses of villages liberated by Ukrainian soldiers in the Kharkiv region. This was stated on Telegram by the head of the regional military administration Oleg Sinegubov, reported by Ukrinform.
"We find their bodies on the streets, in homes, they weren't even buried, they left them in landfills. When they retreat, they don't take the bodies of their soldiers. This testifies once again to their ethics, principles and rules. of war, "said Sinegubov.
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One hundred civilians still in Azovstal
In Mariupol's Azovstal "in addition to the military, at least 100 civilians remain in the shelters". Mayor Petro Andryushchenko's adviser writes on Telegram. "However, this does not reduce the density of attacks by the occupiers. Heavy artillery and planes continued to bomb the facility throughout the day. Attempts to storm the ground continue to fail."
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EU embargo on Russian oil "soon"
France is optimistic about reaching an agreement between EU member states on the Russian oil embargo project, currently blocked by Viktor Orban's Hungary. An agreement is possible "during the week", French Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, told LCI microphones. "I think there may be an agreement in the week, we are working on it tirelessly. It is undoubtedly a matter of days", added the representative of the French EU presidency.
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"At least 100 civilians remain in Azovstal"
In Mariupol's Azovstal "in addition to the military, at least 100 civilians remain in the shelters". Mayor Petro Andryushchenko's adviser writes on Telegram. "However, this does not reduce the density of attacks by the occupiers. Heavy artillery and planes continued to bomb the facility throughout the day. Attempts to storm the ground continue to fail."
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44 corpses in Izyum
The bodies of 44 civilians were found under the rubble of a building in Izyum, in the Kharkiv region of western Ukraine. This was announced by the head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, Oleg Sinegubov, on Telegram, according to reports from the Ukrainian agency UNIAN.
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In Odessa used the new Kinzhal missiles
Three Kinzhal missiles - Russia's new hypersonic missiles - were fired last night from a plane on a hotel in the Odessa area, also hit a shopping mall with seven other missiles. This was announced by Sergey Bratchuk, spokesman for the Odessa regional military administration quoted by CNN.
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The Russians attack the Mariupol steel plant
Russian forces are conducting "assault operations" at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, where hundreds of Ukrainian fighters continue to hold out under the attacks. This was stated by the Kiev Ministry of Defense, according to reports from the BBC. An adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, Petro Andriushchenko, said the Russian army had begun to besiege the factory after a UN convoy left the Donetsk region. The Russians tried to blow up a bridge used for evacuations, he explained, to block the last remaining fighters inside.
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Destroyed a monastery
Russian troops destroyed the Monastery of St. George of the Holy Dormition in Svyatogorsk in eastern Ukraine with a missile. The news agency Ukrinform reports on its Telegram channel. The Hermitage, belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate, stands on the right bank of the river
Severskij Donec, a tributary of the Don, and the first records of its existence date back to 1526, described as "sentinel against the Crimean Tatars". In 1637 the Cathedral of the
Holy Dormition at the top of the mountain made of labyrinths and passages. During the conflict it offered refuge to civilians, already being damaged by an air attack last March 12 with
wounding many of the refugees.
Night of explosions in Odessa
Ukrainian authorities have announced that there was a missile attack on Odessa in the evening. The
reports the BBC stating that three loud explosions were heard from the city center. The first was loud enough to shake the windows and set off the alarms of nearby cars.
(Unioneonline)