Vladimir Putin was re-elected, unsurprisingly but with a higher score than expected, as President of the Russian Federation on Sunday March 17, according to initial estimates and a quarter of the ballots counted. Early Sunday evening, two exit polls gave the outgoing president an estimated score of around 87%. The electoral commission communicated, at the same time, a result of 87.97% of the votes in favor of Vladimir Putin after counting 24.4% of the ballots.
The three days of voting took place generally peacefully, despite several incidents recorded in polling stations and regular drone strikes launched from Ukraine in the border area. At midday, the opposition’s call to the Kremlin to go to the polling stations at the same time to make anger against Vladimir Putin visible was followed in many regions of Russia, as well as in the stranger.
One person died and 11 others were injured on Sunday in new strikes on the Belgorod oblast, bordering Ukraine and targeted by numerous attacks, the local governor said. Transnistria, a pro-Russian separatist region of Moldova, said on Sunday that an explosive drone, coming from neighboring Ukraine, had struck a military base in its capital. According to the Ministry of State Security of the self-proclaimed republic, cited by Russian and local media, the device came from the Ukrainian oblast of Odessa. For its part, Moldova has not confirmed that the attack came from Ukraine.
Furthermore, the Russian defense minister ordered his naval forces in the Black Sea to increase their firepower and intensify their training to better counter Ukrainian drones, which managed to defeat Moscow’s powerful fleet .
For his part, Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed, in an interview published on Saturday evening by Le Parisien, that ground operations in Ukraine by Westerners might be necessary. “Perhaps at some point – I don’t want it, I won’t take the initiative – we will have to have operations on the ground, whatever they may be, to counter the Russian forces,” he said. he declared in this interview conducted on Friday upon his return from Berlin, where he met the German and Polish leaders. “The strength of France is that we can do it,” he added.
Deprived of a grand slam, Ireland still retained its title on Saturday in the Six Nations Tournament ahead of France, subscribed to second place, and an England which is gaining strength, like Gonzalo Quesada’s Italy. The XV du Trèfle, second in the world rankings, confirmed its domination of European rugby by winning the Tournament for the second time in a row, a first since England in 2016 and 2017.
The French finished in second place in the competition for the fourth time in five editions (2020, 2021, 2023, 2024) since the start of the Fabien Galthié era. This is rather flattering after a chaotic start to the competition, marked by a scathing defeat against Ireland (38-17) and an unprecedented draw at home against Italy (13-13). In the wake of its third place at the World Cup, the XV de la Rose, for its part, confirmed its revival, with a more ambitious game from the English than in the fall of 2023.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday that “international pressure” would not prevent Israel from launching an offensive in Rafah, a town in the south of the Gaza Strip where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are massed, according to the UN. “We will act in Rafah, it will take a few weeks but it will happen,” he added, regretting that “within the international community, some are trying to stop the war now, before all the objectives have been achieved”.
Furthermore, Mr. Netanyahu assured German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday that Israel would not launch a military operation in Rafah as long as the population was “locked in place.” He also made it clear that he would not accept a peace that would make Israel “weak” against its Middle East neighbors, while a possible truce in the Gaza Strip is currently being negotiated after more than five months of war.
On Saturday, the cargo of the first humanitarian aid boat, which arrived Friday in the Gaza Strip from Cyprus, was unloaded and will be able to be distributed to the population, threatened with famine, the non-governmental organization (NGO) announced on Saturday ) Spanish World Central Kitchen (WCK), in charge of the operation. According to the spokesperson for the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a second aid boat is ready and is expected soon.
A new version of the decree relating to the organization of teaching in college classes, published in the Official Journal on the night of Saturday to Sunday, clarifies the executive’s strategy after several weeks of uncertainty as to the extent of the so-called “level group” reform desired by the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, since his visit to Rue de Grenelle, but nuanced on several occasions by the current Minister of Education, Nicole Belloubet.
The text formalizes the timetable announced by the government: for French and mathematics lessons, classes can be divided into groups formed according to the skills of the students, in 6th and 5th from the start of the 2024 school year, then in 4th and 3rd at the start of the 2025 school year. Classes will be able to leave this system and be grouped together for these lessons for a period ranging from “one to ten weeks in the year”, also says the decree.
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