Putin rejected his agreement with Ukraine to avoid an entry into NATO

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has published on Twitter the first images of the “torture camps” that Russian troops had used against Ukrainian prisoners in the recently liberated city of Balakliia.

On the cell wall you can see how one of the prisoners he had carved the Our Father in Ukrainian.

Russian torture chamber in liberated Balakliya.
The Lord’s Prayer was carved on the wall by Ukrainian prisoners.
Russia must be held accountable for this blatant genocide. pic.twitter.com/ObQJGjfEQw

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 14, 2022

The United States and five other countries announced on Wednesday an agreement to forgive debt payments to Ukraine until the end of 2023 in an attempt toeconomically help the country, devastated by the war with Russia.

The call “group of Ukrainian lenders”made up of the US, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK, signed a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday aimed at implementing a debt suspension until the end of next year.

The US Treasury Department announced in a statement the agreement reached by the responsible for finances of the six western countries during a meeting.

The temporary suspension of debt payments will allow Ukraine to have more money available to serve the population and confront the invasion that Russia began last Februaryexplained US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in a statement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing mounting pressure to review his Ukraine strategy following the humiliation that the withdrawal from northeastern Ukraine has brought to hawks and nationalists, who believe the “special military operation it can end in disaster.

Officials and politicians of different stripes took advantage of the resumption of the debates in the Duma or Chamber of Deputies to speak for the first time in public about a possible defeat on the battlefield if the military campaign does not radically change course.

Everyone agrees that Russia cannot afford a defeat, so it calls for the mobilization of all human and material resources, a call that the Kremlin vhe forgot to reject.

The visit today of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to the liberated city of Izium, a bastion abandoned by the Russian troops in the Kharkov region, added more salt to the wound.

Citizens want to know if the Government plans to strengthen its military support for Ukraine to collaborate “in defense of their sovereignty” after it has managed to recover a part of the territory that had been invaded by Russia.

The ‘orange’ party alludes to the victories of the Ukrainian Army in the east of the country, which it recognizes do not represent a victory in the invasion but does believe that they show that, “with adequate international support”, Ukraine can show Russia that its offensive “it’s not going to be free”.

In any case, he believes that this military advance does show that the shipment of weapons from abroad and the financial aid to Ukraine are “fundamentals” to increase the chances of repelling the Russian invasion.

For Ciudadanos, international assistance is now “more important than ever” and the Ukrainian troops have shown that they are sufficiently prepared to repel the Russian Army if they have Western equipment and weapons.

The European Commission announced this Wednesday a special call for five million euros within the framework of its annual program for support cultural institutions in Europewhich will go to help Ukrainian artists and organizations.

These funds will support Ukrainian cultural activity in their own country or in any country participating in the EU cultural program ‘Creative Europe’, in an attempt to promote the recovery of the Ukrainian cultural and creative sector in the context of war.

Specifically, the call will reward three cultural projects and will also distribute grants to Ukrainian organizations to distribute among smaller cultural actors.

Vladimir Putin’s top envoy to Ukraine told the Russian leader at the start of the war that he had reached an interim agreement with kyiv that would satisfy Russia’s demand that Ukraine remain outside NATObut Vladimir Putin rejected it and went ahead with his military campaign, according to a exclusive to Reuters citing three people close to the Kremlin.

???? According to sources close to the Kremlin, Putin rejected, prior to the invasion, a Moscow-kyiv agreement that guaranteed that Ukraine would not enter NATO. If true, it would confirm that security was a false pretext for Putin to declare war.https://t.co/g1WcnuHsIh

– Arsenio Cuenca (@arseniocuenca) September 14, 2022

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, made a symbolic visit to the town of Izium, located in the Kharkov region and recently “liberated” from Russian troops, where he has attended the official flag-raising ceremony. “Before, when looking up, we were always looking for the blue sky, the sun. Now, especially in the occupied territories, we are looking for only one thing: the flag of our country,” he said in the presence of the military “heroes”, according to his office.

Під час робочої поїздки на Харківщину Президент Володимир Зеленський взяв участь у церемонії підняття Державного прапора України в місті Ізюмі, яке українські військові звільнили від російських окупантів.

Подробиці: https://t.co/YdpDwC88mH pic.twitter.com/wefUYztOyz

— Офіс Президента (@APUkraine) September 14, 2022

The Ukrainian police have identified more than 5,000 Russian soldiers allegedly involved in war crimes in the region of Kyiv since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February. The head of the kyiv Police, Andriy Nebitov, has pointed out in information collected by the Ukrinform news agency that the agents are trying to identify these Russian soldiers, who “have been involved in what has happened in the territory, have violated sovereign borders and committed crimes against Ukrainians”, as he explained. Likewise, he has confirmed that their names and positions are being established while their relatives and their places of residence in Russian territory are identified. However, he has warned that many of them have been transferred to other areas of the front line.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has assured this Wednesday that the European Union is not “complete” until Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia or the countries of the Western Balkans become member states. “I want the people of the Western Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia to know: you are part of our family, you are the future of our Union and our Union is not complete without you”, stated the policy during the State of the Union Debate delivered in plenary session of the European Parliament. Albania, Moldova, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Ukraine are candidate countries to join the Union, while Georgia this year submitted a formal application to join the community club, but was not granted candidate status by Brussels.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has advanced this Wednesday that she will travel to kyiv from today to meet with the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski. The president made this announcement during the Debate on the State of the European Union before the European Parliament.

Ukraine seeks to liberate all territory occupied by the invading Russian forces after driving them back in a swift counteroffensive in the northeast. In a speech on Tuesday night, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyhas said that some 8,000 square kilometers have been released so far, apparently all in the northeastern Kharkov region.

The Ukrainian National Police in the Kharkov region denounced this Tuesday at the last minute that Russian troops had organized “torture camps” in the Kharkiv region. Balakliya after Ukraine has recovered it in recent days due to its counter-offensive in the east of the country. This has been expressed by the head of the Investigative Department of the Ukrainian National Police in Kharkov, Sergei Bolvinov, in a statement, in which he has pointed out the evidence that the Russian Army would have used the basements of some buildings as a prison and as a place where torture certain locals. “During the occupation, the Russians always held at least 40 people captive, feeding them twice a day and doing nothing else. They were looking through local collaborators for those who served or had relatives in the Ukrainian secret services,” he detailed. Also, the Russian military would have been looking for people who had helped the Ukrainian Army at the front, according to the head of the Ukrainian Police Investigation Department in Kharkov.

“In case they let a lot of people out and there were no new ones, they grabbed people on the street near the capital’s police station. One man was in ‘prison’ for 46 days because Russian troops found a photo of his brother in a Ukrainian military uniform,” added Bolvinov, detailing that torture with electricity was one of the “mildest” carried out by the Russian military.

Police agents have assured that the Russian Army in Balakliya fired at civilians from the Checkpoints during his last day in the region, before Ukrainian troops regained control of part of Kharkov.