Ukraine makes participation in the G20 summit dependent on the further course of the war. Scholz fears that Putin can continue the war against Ukraine for a long time. Dependence on Russian crude oil is greater than previously assumed. All voices and developments on the Ukraine war in the ticker.
11.16 a.m .: The SPD party leader Lars Klingbeil is concerned about the gas shortage in Germany. “We are facing dramatic months,” said Klingbeil on RTL/ntv Frühstart and appealed to citizens to help: “We also have to save in the private sector.”
Klingbeil points out that one must ensure that gas is not rationalized in industry. “That would have dramatic consequences for the labor market. We have to avoid that, and everyone can contribute to that.”
With regard to the upcoming maintenance work on the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, Klingbeil says: “There is a likelihood that Putin will no longer turn on the gas tap after the maintenance work.” This would have dramatic consequences for Germany and Europe and therefore one would have to deal with this scenario, says Klingbeil and emphasizes: “You have to expect the worst with Putin.”
11.02 a.m .: The Russian national ice hockey player Ivan Fedotov, arrested for alleged conscientious objection, will probably be transferred to a military base on the Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya. The Tass news agency reported on Sunday evening, citing an informant in the Russian security organs. Fedotow wanted to leave his previous club CSKA Moscow to play in the North American ice hockey league NHL.
Fedotov was arrested by strangers in St. Petersburg on Friday after training and taken to a pickup truck. Later it became known that he was taken to a district military replacement office and held there. After staying there for several hours, the athlete became ill and had to be taken to a clinic by ambulance.
Fedotov was then taken to the Severomorsk naval base north of Murmansk on Sunday. “He will probably serve in one of the military units based on the island of Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean,” said an anonymous spokesman for the Russian security organs. Novaya Zemlya is also known as the former Soviet nuclear test site.
Fedotow wanted to play for the Philadelphia Flyers in the NHL from the coming season. Last season, the Russian international won the Gagarin Cup as a goalkeeper with CSKA Moscow. His contract expired at the end of June. Columnist Anton Orech suspects that Fedotov’s call-up has something to do with the CSKA leadership’s anger at the change. As a CSKA player, Fedotov, 25, was an official member of the Russian Armed Forces.
10.16 a.m .: The Russian Ministry of Finance has proposed reducing the country’s spending by 1.6 trillion rubles, the equivalent of around 27.9 billion euros, within the next three years. This is reported by the Kyiv Independent. Accordingly, Moscow wants to cut the financial resources for transport systems, science and numerous other areas.
Monday, July 4, 8:15 a.m.: Turkish customs authorities have arrested a Russian freighter. This is said to have transported stolen wheat from Ukraine. That’s what Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey, Vasyl Bodnar, said on Sunday, according to Reuters news agency.
Ukraine had previously asked Turkey to detain the Russian-flagged ship Zhibek Zholy. A Reuters reporter eventually spotted the freighter about a kilometer off the coast of the Turkish city of Karasu. It has been there for 39 hours now.
Ambassador Bodnar confirmed: “We have full cooperation. The ship is currently anchored at the entrance to Karasu Port. It was confiscated by the customs authorities. Investigators would now decide on the future of the ship on Monday. Ukrainians hope they can confiscate the wheat.
Ukraine has long accused Russia of stealing hundreds of tons of grain and shipping it out of the country. Russia has always denied this.
9:00 p.m .: Ukraine is making its participation in the G20 summit in Indonesia in November dependent on the situation in the country and on wartime opponents Russia. “Our participation depends on whether the Russian Federation will be there,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in Kiev on Sunday, according to the Interfax-Ukraine agency. “I told the Indonesian President (Joko Widodo) that we are grateful for the invitation, but we have a security situation.” Russia had invaded Ukraine a good four months ago.
He has doubts whether many states will take part in the summit if Russian representatives go there, Zelenskyy said. If there were even more violence by Russian soldiers against Ukrainian civilians, such as the murder of residents in the Kiev suburb of Bucha, Russia would have to reckon with “complete isolation”.
6.30 p.m .: According to Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Russian President Vladimir Putin made the decision to launch a war of aggression against Ukraine well in advance. “I think the decision for this war was made a year before it started, or possibly earlier,” he said in an interview with CBS, which was published in full on Sunday. “And so he will be able to continue the war for a very long time,” Scholz continued in English. The conversation took place after the NATO summit in Madrid, which lasted until Thursday.
Scholz also admitted that it was wrong to become unilaterally dependent on Russian energy in the past. “So we should have invested in an infrastructure across Europe that gives us the opportunity to change the offer from one day to the next,” said Scholz. That is a lesson that has now been learned in Europe. When asked how much money Germany is spending on energy from Russia, Scholz only replied that the amount is falling. Because of the sanctions, Putin cannot spend the money on products from the West – for example in the field of modern technology.
According to analyses, Russia made 93 billion euros in revenue from fossil fuel exports in the first 100 days of the war alone. A report published in mid-June by the Finnish institute CREA also revealed that among the individual states, Germany was the second most important customer after China, at 12.1 billion euros.
5.40 p.m .: Russia has brought back 70 diplomats and other employees of its representations in Bulgaria who were expelled from the EU country. Together with their families, the Russians left the capital Sofia on Sunday in two special planes. They were declared “undesirable persons” by the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday. Russia is therefore threatening to completely close its embassy in Sofia, which would be unique within the European Union.
Bulgaria had given the 70 Russians a deadline on Tuesday to leave the country by the end of the week. The expulsion was justified by the fact that the majority of the diplomats worked “directly for foreign services” – a paraphrase for secret services. The former Eastern Bloc state had previously expelled Russian diplomats from the country – a total of 21 since 2019.
4:55 p.m .: The federal government believes that sustainable reconstruction of war-ravaged Ukraine should already be tackled in concrete terms. The course for a reform-oriented reconstruction, which strengthens Ukraine’s course towards the European Union, must be set now, said Development Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) before the start of the Ukraine reconstruction conference this Monday in Lugano, Switzerland. The goals are a modern administration, effective fight against corruption, sustainable infrastructure and energy security.
“Rebuilding Ukraine will be an immense task that will take decades and cost hundreds of billions of euros. That’s exactly why we have to talk about reconstruction now,” said Schulze, who is taking part in the two-day conference in Lugano, the German Press Agency. Russian troops invaded Ukraine four months ago.
2:58 p.m .: Russia has accused the West of preventing peace negotiations with Ukraine and thus prolonging the war. “Now is the moment when Western countries are doing everything they can to continue the war,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on state television on Sunday. Under US leadership, the West is allowing Ukrainians “not to think about, talk about, or discuss peace.” In doing so, Peskov was reacting to statements by Western politicians that they did not want to press Ukraine into negotiations.
At the moment there is apparently no need to calm the situation, the spokesman for President Vladimir Putin suspected. Nevertheless, the moment for negotiations will come. For peace, however, Ukraine must accept Russian demands, said Peskov. Putin has named the recognition of the illegally annexed Black Sea peninsula of Crimea as Russian territory and the cession of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as war goals. In addition, it is about the “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine and its renunciation of NATO membership.
2:03 p.m .: The chairman of the European People’s Party, Manfred Weber, spoke about the current situation in the “Tagesspiegel”. He made it clear: “Germany and the EU are not at war. But we are a war target, everyone should be aware of that. Putin wants a Eurasian Union from Lisbon to Vladivostok. And so far Putin has been doing what he says. Putin himself defines when we would be at war. He hates our way of life. He hates it. Freedom, democracy, the rule of law. It’s about nothing less than that, and that has to be described with all clarity.”
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