A senior official of the Ukrainian secret service is said to have spied for Moscow. And Zelenskyj fires two high-ranking employees from his circle. All voices and developments on the Ukraine war here in the ticker.
8:55 a.m .: Canada flew the overhauled turbine for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Germany on Sunday. This is reported by several Russian media unanimously. The turbine is then to be brought to Russia by land via Helsinki. If there are no problems with customs and transit, the turbine should arrive in Russia on July 24, Kommersant writes. It continues: “Taking into account the required turbine installation time at the Portovaya compressor station, the gas compressor unit should be ready to pump gas in Nord Stream by early August.”
06:32: Ukraine has raised a total of $12.4 billion from the sale of gold reserves since the Russian invasion began on February 24, 2022. This was announced by the deputy head of the Ukrainian central bank, Kateryna Roschova. The country wanted to ensure that the goods necessary for the country could continue to be imported, said Roschowa.
Monday, July 18, 6:14 a.m .: After a second protest against Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, the television journalist Marina Ovsyannikova has been temporarily arrested according to several reports. Photos were posted on her Telegram channel on Sunday that allegedly show police officers taking her into a minibus. The civil rights portal “OVD-Info” in Moscow and the organization Cinema for Peace in Germany also reported on the arrest. The former employee of the Russian First Channel was taken to the Krasnoselsky police station in Moscow. On the night of Monday, “OVD-Info” reported, citing lawyer Dmitri Sachwatov, that Ovsyannikova was free again.
Ovzyannikova posted photos on Friday of her standing with a protest poster within sight of the Kremlin. “Putin is a murderer,” said the poster, and: “His soldiers are fascists.” 352 children have already been killed in Ukraine. “How many more children have to die before you stop?” It was unclear when the pictures were taken and how long Ovsyannikova stood on the Moskva River embankment. Usually, the Russian police put a stop to such protests in a matter of minutes.
Surf tip: Russia – woman with protest poster: This is known about Marina Owsjannikova
The Russian state television employee showed a protest poster against the war in a live broadcast in March. It read: “Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. Here you will be lied to”. For this, the editor, who had previously been considered loyal to the line, received worldwide recognition. Fines were imposed on them in Russia. After the action, she lived abroad for a while.
9:01 p.m .: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed two key figures in his security agencies on Sunday. In a decree he dismissed the head of the SBU secret service, Ivan Bakanov. According to the decrees published by the Presidential Office in Kyiv, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova was also dismissed. Oleksij Simonenko is to take over her position. Reasons were not given in the short documents. A successor for the post of secret service chief was not initially named.
According to Ukraine reporter Denis Trubetskoy, Bakanov is a childhood friend of Zelenskyy. There had been speculation about his dismissal for a long time. Venediktova’s dismissal, on the other hand, came as a surprise. Trubetskoy suspects that, among other things, the quick fall of Cherson is blamed on the secret service and its boss.
6:56 p.m .: In response to the war in Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) called for a “geopolitical European Union”. The EU must close its ranks in all areas in which it has previously disagreed – “e.g. on migration policy, on building a European defense, on technological sovereignty and democratic resilience,” wrote Scholz in a guest article for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. Monday. He announced concrete proposals from the federal government “in the next few months”.
“Letting Putin get away with it would mean that violence can break the law with virtually no consequences. Then ultimately our own freedom and security would also be in danger,” said Scholz.
6:23 p.m .: SPD Secretary General Kevin Kühnert emphasized that the federal government had ensured that a turbine for the Nord Stream 1 pipeline could be delivered from Canada back to Russia. “The federal government, together with the Canadian government, has now ensured that an important turbine, which is necessary for operation, can be brought to Russia so that the pipeline can function again.
Technically, nothing stands in the way of continuing operations,” Kühnert told RTL/ntv. This was the “crucial step,” said Kühnert, adding: “So if no gas should flow soon, it’s only because Putin wants it that way and not because Germany has failed to exercise any due diligence.”
4:08 p.m .: According to British Chief of Staff Tony Radakin, speculation about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s poor health is wishful thinking. “Some of the comments that he’s not well or that someone will surely murder him or take him out I think are wishful thinking,” Radakin told the BBC on Sunday.
As professional military men, he and his colleagues see “a relatively stable regime in Russia.” Kremlin chief Putin managed to “suppress any opposition,” said Radakin. “No one at the top has the motivation to challenge President Putin.”
Speaking about the Ukraine war, the chief of staff said Russia’s ground forces may now pose less of a threat after setbacks in Ukraine. But Russia “remains a nuclear power,” Radakin said.
The country also has “cyber capabilities, space capabilities and special underwater programs.” These programs could threaten the undersea cables that carry data across continents, the chief of staff said.
3:41 p.m .: A high-ranking member of the Ukrainian secret service SBU has been arrested in Ukraine. Investigators said so. He is said to have passed sensitive information to Russia. According to a report by Ukrainska Pravda, the arrested man is the ex-deputy chief of Crimea’s secret service, who was removed from his post in early March.
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