The US government believes that Iran wants to supply combat drones to Russia. Military expert Gustav Gressel explains why Ukraine should wait with its counter-offensive in the south. All voices and developments on the Ukraine war here in the ticker.
7.47 p.m .: The Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob expects an agreement with Germany on a weapons ring exchange by the end of the summer. According to this, the country is to hand over T72 tanks to Ukraine, among other things, and receive military equipment from Germany as replacements. “The ring exchange is a good idea,” Golob defended the planned agreement in an interview with the news agency Reuters on Tuesday.
Ukraine has the right to defend itself against Russian attacks and needs weapons to do so. Golob rejected the allegation of a time delay due to the ring exchange. The biggest delay is also with the Slovenian weapons because the discarded military material first has to be made functional again. When asked by when he expects an agreement with Germany and what equipment Slovenia will receive in return, Golob said: “By the end of the summer.”
7.35 p.m .: Delegations from Russia and Ukraine are discussing the resumption of grain deliveries across the Black Sea in Turkey on Wednesday. According to Ankara, representatives of the UN and Turkey will also be involved in the meeting in Istanbul. Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat and other grains.
Millions of tons of wheat are stuck in Ukrainian ports that are under Russian control or blocked by Russian troops. Since the start of the Ukraine war on February 24, grain supplies have deteriorated in many countries. Turkey has traditionally maintained good relations with both Ukraine and Russia and is trying to mediate between the conflicting parties.
6:18 p.m .: According to official information, Russia achieved a budget surplus of more than 20 billion euros in the first half of 2022 despite the war and sanctions. Overall, thanks to increased income, the plus is 1.374 trillion rubles (about 23 billion euros), the Ministry of Finance said on Tuesday, according to the Interfax news agency.
The background is the increased oil price, from which Russia is benefiting. Revenues from the oil and gas sector were well above plan. In the first half of the year, Russia earned more than 100 billion euros from the sale of oil and gas. That is 66 percent of the planned revenue from the sale of fossil raw materials for the whole of 2022.
So far, Western sanctions have primarily made it more difficult to import Western goods to Russia. However, the punitive measures are not considered particularly effective when it comes to the export of Russian raw materials – primarily oil and gas. The high prices on the raw material markets meant that Russia was able to make higher profits from it, despite lower export volumes.
6:07 p.m .: The US Treasury Department has announced another payment of $1.7 billion in financial aid to Ukraine. The amount, which is part of the $7.5 billion aid package signed by President Joe Biden in May, is to be disbursed by the World Bank and used to fund “critical services,” the US Treasury Department said on Tuesday. According to this, the wages of Ukrainian health workers are to be paid with the money.
US President Joe Biden continues to fulfill his obligation to support the Ukrainian government in defending democracy against “Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
4:46 p.m.: Russia has blamed the US for an increased risk of direct military confrontation between the two major powers. America and other states have provoked “an aggravation of the Ukrainian crisis,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in Moscow on Tuesday. She was apparently alluding to Western arms deliveries to Ukraine as a result of the Russian war of aggression.
Zakharova added: “Washington and its allies are poised dangerously on the brink of open military confrontation with our country – and that means: direct armed conflict between nuclear powers.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman also explicitly criticized Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for statements about a nuclear threat emanating from Russia. It is “absolutely unacceptable” to portray Russia as a country that threatens others with nuclear weapons, Zakharova criticized.
3:01 p.m .: Ukrainian Justice Minister Denys Maljuska is convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will go to prison for the war of aggression against his country. “It will undoubtedly happen, but the question is: when,” Maljuska said in Prague on Tuesday. He hopes this will be “sooner rather than later”. Aggressive states should not be protected from criminal prosecution. It is also clear who gave the order to attack.
Such a step would also send a signal against possible imitators of the Russian expansion policy, the politician argued. So far, however, customary international law protects heads of state through immunity.
11:18 a.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin is traveling to a summit on July 19 with Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Turkey’s President Erdogan. The summit will therefore take place in Tehran. The Kremlin announced on Tuesday.
The trip is currently being prepared. The meeting with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Turkish Head of State Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be about Syria, and bilateral talks are also planned with Erdogan.
Tuesday, July 12, 6:41 a.m.: Ukraine is currently planning a major counter-offensive in the south of the country to drive out the Russian army there. Up to a million soldiers are to be deployed in the campaign. According to military expert Gustav Gressel, the counter-offensive has been going on “for three or four weeks.” Gressel said “t-online.”
But is now the right time for such an offensive? “From a military point of view, everything speaks for waiting,” says Gressel. Because an offensive in September or October could be carried out with better trained volunteers, and there would also be more time to bring weapons supplied by the West to the front. And Ukraine could also have a decisive advantage in terms of timing: According to Gressel, many contracts expire at this time, and entire units of Russian soldiers would then have to be replaced. “Ukraine could then hit Russia in its weak phase,” Gressel told “t-online.”
If the offensive is successful and the city of Cherson is recaptured, Gressel says that would be a strategic advantage for Ukraine. Kherson is the only territory that Russia holds west of the Dnipro River. Retaking it would allow Ukraine to use the river as an additional, natural defense.
11:47 p.m .: The United States has indications that Iran wants to support Russia in the war of aggression against Ukraine. “Our information shows that the Iranian government is preparing to rapidly deploy several hundred unmanned aerial vehicles, including those capable of carrying weapons,” US President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in Washington on Monday.
Iran will also train Russians to use these aircraft, often referred to colloquially as drones, Sullivan said. According to US knowledge, such training could begin as early as mid-July. However, it is unclear whether such weapons have already been delivered. Sullivan interpreted the information as indicating that Russia’s progress in the war in eastern Ukraine was having an impact on maintaining its own weapons stocks.
10:48 p.m .: The United States assumes that Iran wants to deliver combat drones to Russia. In addition, Russian soldiers are to be trained in how to operate the Iranian drones. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Monday afternoon (local time).
Sullivan relied on information from US intelligence agencies. Accordingly, the Iranians are said to have offered different drones, at least one of which could also carry weapons. However, it is unclear whether deliveries have already taken place.
5:05 p.m .: Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte promised Ukraine more weapons on his first visit to Kyiv since the beginning of the war. “It is important that we help here now and ensure that Ukraine can defend itself,” Rutte told Dutch TV broadcaster NOS. According to the Netherlands, the Netherlands has so far delivered arms worth almost 173 million euros to Ukraine, including self-propelled howitzers. Five of the heavy guns have already been delivered, and three more are to follow.
2:52 p.m .: Russia is making it easier for all Ukrainians to obtain Russian citizenship. “All citizens of Ukraine have the right to apply for citizenship of the Russian Federation through a simplified procedure,” said a decree issued by President Vladimir Putin on Monday. The simplified procedure has already applied to residents of the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia.
At the end of May, Putin decided to fast-track naturalization for the two southern Ukrainian regions of Cherson and Zaporizhia, which are largely occupied by Russia. According to their own statements, the Russian occupation authorities there are already working on a referendum on union with Russia.
Accelerated naturalization has been possible since 2019 for residents of the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, which are occupied by pro-Russian separatists.
For years, Russia has been accused of issuing Russian passports in neighboring countries in order to strengthen its own influence. Among other places, this practice applies in the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia controlled by pro-Russian separatists, as well as in the Moldovan region of Transnistria.
9:18 a.m .: According to the President of the Federal Network Agency Klaus Müller, there are different signals from Moscow about future gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline Siemens turbine from Canada will deliver significantly more gas again, said Müller on Monday in the ZDF morning magazine. On the other hand, there were also very martial announcements. “Honestly, no one knows,” said Müller.
In the worst case, if Russia stops gas deliveries through Nord Stream 1 even after the maintenance from this Monday, there are several scenarios in which Germany slips into a gas emergency. It depends on several factors, such as the procurement of terminals for liquid gas and how quickly you can save gas, said Müller. From the point of view of the Federal Network Agency, it is also important to prevent a north-south divide in Germany in terms of gas supply. The storage facilities in the south would therefore be filled in a targeted manner.
Regarding the debate about a longer term for the remaining three nuclear power plants, Müller said that Germany had a gas problem, a heat problem. Gas is used as a raw material in industry, “nuclear power plants don’t help us at all”. And when it comes to generating heat, nuclear power plants would not have their strength either.
If Nord Stream 1 remains permanently sealed, there would probably not be a gas shortage in Germany immediately, according to model calculations by the Federal Network Agency. However, Germany could not fill up its gas storage facilities as much as planned before the heating season. In addition, there could be a shortage under certain circumstances. A diagnosis by several economic research institutes, on the other hand, comes to the conclusion that even in the worst case scenario, there is no risk of gas bottlenecks this year and next year only in rather unfavorable scenarios.
7:57 a.m .: According to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, the federal government will do everything possible to prevent a split in society in the event of a shortage of Russian gas supplies. “If we have less energy, if we have less heat supply, then we will ensure that things are fair,” said the Green politician on Monday after meeting her Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi in Tokyo. Union demands for a longer term of the remaining three German nuclear power plants, she rejected again.
The gradual shutdown of the last most important connection for Russian natural gas to Germany began on Monday morning. A spokesman for Nord Stream AG told the German Press Agency that the gas flow through the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline has been shut down since 6 a.m. for the maintenance work that has been announced for a long time. The concern is that Russia will not turn on the gas tap once the work is complete.
Baerbock said: “We are trying to do everything we can to prepare everything so that, with a view to winter, the question of warmth does not lead to a division in society.” This is exactly the goal of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hybrid warfare. The federal government will not allow the energy supply to become a social issue.
Monday, July 11, 6:24 a.m.: On Monday morning, the gradual shutdown of the last most important connection for Russian natural gas to Germany began. A spokesman for Nord Stream AG told the German Press Agency that the gas flow for the long-term maintenance work has been shut down since 6 a.m. It will take a few more hours for the actual flow to be completely zero. No more deliveries are already estimated for the market. According to the operating company, the work should last until July 21. In these ten days, no gas will be transported through the pipeline to Germany.
According to the information, among other things, safety systems, power supply, fire and gas protection as well as shut-off and isolation valves are checked and repaired or calibrated if necessary. Software updates are also carried out.
According to the Federal Network Agency, the work is not taking place directly on the line, but at the compressor stations, for example in Lubmin. Under normal circumstances, the work should be completed within the planned period, the authority said. In the past, the duration of the work sometimes deviated slightly from the scheduled time.
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