EU extends reception of Ukrainian refugees
EU countries agreed on Wednesday July 15 to extend for one year, until March 2028, the protection granted to Ukrainian refugees on their territory, but will henceforth refuse it to people who can be mobilized.
More than 4.4 million Ukrainians today benefit from this unique status, created a few weeks after the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. It allows them to stay, work and access aid in the European Union. These refugees mostly live in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Deadly Russian strikes in Sumy and Odessa
Russian strikes killed six people and injured around twenty in Sumy, in northern Ukraine, and in Odessa, a large port in the south of the country, local authorities announced.
In Sumy, three people were killed and 17 injured, including a 16-year-old teenager, by Russian hovering bombs, Oleg Grygorov, the governor of this region bordering Russia, said on Telegram.
The Odessa region was targeted by Russian missiles and drones for the fifth consecutive day, leaving three dead and three injured, regional governor Oleg Kiper announced on Telegram. According to him, a warehouse, a gas pipeline and another building were damaged.
The head of Turkish diplomacy in Ukraine Wednesday and Thursday
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is traveling to Ukraine on Wednesday and Thursday and will meet President Volodymyr Zelensky, his services announced. Turkey has maintained close relations with kyiv, whose sovereignty and territorial integrity it has defended since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 by Russia and the Russian invasion in February 2022, without however breaking its relations with Moscow.
According to a source at the ministry in Ankara, Hakan Fidan will also meet with his counterpart Andrii Sybiha, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Rustem Umerov and the head of the Crimean Tatars, a Turkish-speaking and Muslim community, whose interests Ankara intends to defend.
