War in Ukraine: A terrible strike, two versions, and Putin in a bad situation

Have you missed the latest events on the war in Ukraine? 20 Minutes takes stock for you every evening. Here is the gist of this Friday, May 22, 2026, on the 1,549th day of the conflict.

Fact of the day

Did the Ukrainian drones hit the “headquarters” of a Russian military unit, as kyiv claims, or a high school as Moscow says? The damage is in any case impressive in Starobelsk, in the Lugansk state, an area occupied by Russia. According to the latest provisional assessment provided by the Kremlin, the bombing left six dead, around fifteen missing and around forty injured.

Vladimir Putin considers that the attack “was not accidental”. It took place “in three waves, with 16 drones targeting the same place,” he told Russian television, promising retaliation. His spokesperson even speaks of a “monstrous crime”.

The Ukrainian General Staff claims to have targeted elements of the Rubikon group, a Russian unit specializing in drone strikes and which “regularly” attacks civilians in Ukraine.

Today’s statement

« This new financial commitment […] is not financed and will not be, because Ukraine will never be able to repay this loan. »

In an interview with PointJordan Bardella, possible candidate for the 2027 presidential election in France, was at the very least skeptical about the 90 billion euros loan to kyiv decided by the European Union. If he says he wants to “help Ukraine”, the president of the National Rally does not want to “send him money that France doesn’t have”.

The number of the day

5.000. The number of American soldiers that Donald Trump intends to send to Poland, taking his NATO allies by surprise since he has also just announced that he was going to withdraw 5,000 from Germany. There was nothing “punitive” about it, assured Marco Rubio, the American Secretary of State who came to Sweden to prepare for the NATO summit in Ankara (Turkey) in July, in the presence of Volodymyr Zelensky. More generally, the head of American diplomacy warned his European allies that they should learn to live with fewer GIs on their continent.

Today’s trend

A cheap and tense May 9 parade, the discontent of Russians deprived of Internet on their cell phones, a cryptic sentence on the “end” of the war in Ukraine, and much less blatant conquests on the battlefield. Some analysts think that Vladimir Putin is in a bad way. “We have crossed the psychological threshold of four years, some have understood that everything is not going quite as planned,” underlines Konstantin Kalatchev, a Russian political scientist interviewed by AFP.

All our file on the war in Ukraine

At the same time, the Russian economy, focused on the war effort and under Western sanctions, is showing serious signs of running out of steam. Gross domestic product contracted by 0.2% in the first quarter, recording its first quarterly decline in three years. “What is happening in Moscow?”, asks French expert Michel Duclos of the Montaigne think tank in an article. “We would be tempted to refer to the 1980s,†he writes, “when in the Kremlin things began to move: today’s Russia stumbles against the Ukrainian obstacle just as the USSR once stalled in the face of Afghan resistance…