More than forty missiles fired by Russia were intercepted by anti-aircraft defenses, killing at least 11 people.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna is visiting Odessa today. Arriving slightly later than expected due to the bombing, she was received at the base by Ukrainian representative Dmytro Kuleba. Although Germany and the United States announced on Tuesday that they would send heavy tanks to Kyiv, the French diplomatic chief’s fourth visit to Ukraine was intended to signal France’s support, amid fears of a new Russian offensive. “Russia’s most obvious objective is to recover from the spring, activate the steamroller and use the influence of numbers to break the Ukrainian resistance”They say in M ​​Parivar^me Colonna.

The French minister was to visit a center for displaced Ukrainians from the Kherson region. The Quai d’Orsay Crisis Center and a platform supported by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded by France. He will visit electricity infrastructure destroyed by Russian bombing on January 14.

The minister was to take a stroll through the old city of Odessa, which was listed the day before on the World Heritage List in Danger by UNESCO. Finally, he will visit the premises of shipowners CMA CGM and Louis Dreyfus in the port of Odessa, two French groups involved in exporting Ukrainian grain under an agreement negotiated this summer under the auspices of the United Nations.

A year after the outbreak of the Russian invasion, Paris considered Odessa a strategic city on the shores of the Black Sea: “If Russia’s aim is to deprive Ukraine of all access to the sea, one day it will have to go all the way to Odessa, and know that this is the gateway to an even stronger destabilization of Moldova, Romania and European countries throughout the territory. »

The French minister then left by road for Chisinau to meet Moldovan President Mia Sandu. He will travel to Romania on Friday to, among other things, meet with President Klaus Iohannis and visit French troops stationed in the country with his Romanian and Dutch counterparts.