People who have fled Ukraine have been entitled to normal basic security since June. Therefore, the Federal Employment Agency expects 410,000 Ukrainians to be entitled to unemployment benefits. All voices and developments on the Ukraine war here in the ticker.
8.45 a.m .: The Federal Employment Agency assumes that unemployment will increase and expects “410,000 Ukrainian employable beneficiaries” in the coming weeks. This emerges from a confidential paper, the so-called “Scenario calculation for the access of Ukrainian refugees to SGB II”, which is available to “Welt”. received.
Should the scenario materialize, the proportion of migrants among the unemployed will rise to over 50 percent. At the end of the year, the job center expects even higher numbers. The paper states that “746,000 employable Ukrainian beneficiaries are expected in the job centers by the end of the year”.
According to the Federal Agency, due to open borders, it is not possible to register entries and exits exactly. The “figures derived from this on Ukrainian employable beneficiaries” are “for guidance and must be interpreted accordingly,” the paper says.
7.41 a.m .: In an interview, the former Health Minister Jens Spahn spoke, among other things, about the security of the energy supply in Germany. “The bitter truth is: the energy supply is not secure. Not now and especially not in winter,” the CDU politician complained in the “Bild am Sonntag”. “Then gas could become scarce. Because Putin can turn off the gas tap at any time, with fatal consequences for companies, employees and private households.”
In order to avert a gas crisis, Spahn calls for the shutdown of gas-fired power plants, the additional reserve of coal-fired power plants and the examination of a lifetime extension for the remaining nuclear power plants by a few years. “Nobody can tell me that the federal government and power plant operators are not able to get new fuel rods in a joint effort,” Spahn replied to concerns expressed by the Greens. “We have already lost three months in terms of security of supply by hesitating at the traffic lights. At some point we get to a point where it really is too late.”
Economics Minister Robert Habeck, who is responsible for this topic, is heavily criticized by Spahn. While the former health minister praises Habeck’s communication on social media as “impressively open”, he also accuses him of “being tight-lipped or quarreling when it gets concrete. I call on Robert Habeck to finally present a roadmap detailing how concretely he wants to become independent of Russian energy and by when, and to put the facts on the table for Parliament.”
As an example, he cited Habeck’s trip to Doha two months ago, during which he wanted to arrange LNG deliveries at short notice. “How much gas Germany gets from Qatar and other countries and above all when, we don’t know to this day,” criticizes Spahn and draws a comparison to the pandemic. “During the pandemic, the federal government regularly published how much vaccine was bought, delivered, vaccinated and where. I have absolutely no idea why that shouldn’t work with gas.”
2:09 a.m .: Greens leader Omid Nouripour has named a victory for Ukraine in the war against Russia as a goal. “Ukrainians must regain their sovereignty, their territorial integrity and their freedom,” he told Funke media group newspapers. “We will not recognize an inch of occupied Ukrainian soil.” When asked whether Ukraine should win the war against Russia, Nouripour answered “yes”.
He added: “But we are not telling Ukraine what to do. If they want to reclaim those territories, we support them. And if they want to negotiate, then we support them too.”
Sunday, June 5, 12:35 a.m.: After his talks with Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin about the global supply bottlenecks due to the Ukraine war, the President of the African Union (AU), Senegal’s head of state Macky Sall, also wants to hold talks in Kyiv. “Yes (…), I will also travel to Kyiv,” Sall told journalists on Saturday upon his arrival at the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) summit in Accra. This is “important to contribute to a return to peace”.
Sall did not give details of his travel plans. He was received by Putin in the Black Sea city of Sochi on Friday. With regard to the fighting in Ukraine, the AU chief had made it clear that “the crisis and the sanctions are causing serious problems for economically weak countries such as those in Africa”. After the meeting, Sall expressed “very reassured and happy about our exchange” with the Russian leader.
African countries get more than half of their grain imports from Ukraine and Russia. Tens of millions of tons of grain are currently stored in Ukrainian ports, which cannot be exported due to the conflict with Russia. Ukraine is one of the leading growing countries for corn, wheat and sunflowers. Russia is also one of the world’s most important grain producers.
11:41 p.m .: The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj has accused Russia of massive destruction of cultural monuments, churches and other religious sites in his war. That is reason enough to exclude the country from UNESCO, the cultural and educational organization of the United Nations, Zelenskyj said in his video address in Kyiv on Saturday. 113 churches have already been destroyed or damaged. At the end of May he had already demanded that Russia be excluded from UNESCO.
In two video messages, Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of shelling and setting fire to a large wooden church in Svyatohirsk (Swjatogorsk). Pictures showed that the building with the onion domes was ablaze. The Russian Defense Ministry denied the allegations and accused the Ukrainian armed forces of having fired themselves.
9:19 p.m .: Western sanctions would not affect Russian oil exports, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday. As reported by the Russian news agency Tass, Lavrov predicted increasing profits from energy supplies this year. “Considering the price levels that have been established as a result of Western policies, we have not suffered any budgetary losses. On the contrary, this year we will significantly increase profits from the export of our energy resources,” Tass quoted the Russian foreign minister in an interview with a Bosnian TV channel. This information is not verifiable.
6:56 p.m .: Ukraine will only agree to talks with Russia again after it has made up ground in the war. “Until we have strengthened our position and the Russian troops have not been pushed back as far as possible, there is no point in negotiations,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s adviser Mykhailo Podoliak on Saturday on television when asked about a mediation offer from France President Emmanuel Macron. Ukrainian negotiator David Arachamia made a similar statement. “Our army is ready to use the new weapons and then we can start a new round of talks from a strengthened position,” he said.
5:28 p.m .: According to strategy expert and military theorist Edward Luttwak, referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are the only way out of the Ukraine war. This idea for solving the war should become part of the discourse, according to Luttwak. More about this here.
3:26 p.m.: According to Dmytro Krasylnykov, one of the top brigadier generals in the Ukrainian army, until the start of the Russian invasion, Ukraine did not expect that Russia would attack the entire country. The Ukrainian army would have expected that the Russian troops would only invade the Donbas region. “Until the end, we believed that our enemy would not launch a large-scale invasion on all fronts and on all lines,” the commander of Ukraine’s task force “North” said, according to the Kyiv Independent.
11:28 a.m .: The confiscation of a plane from the Russian airline Aeroflot in Sri Lanka caused a dispute between Russia and the South Asian island state. Sri Lanka’s largest airport, Bandaranaike, denied on Saturday that the government in Colombo had ordered the confiscation of the Airbus A330. The matter was “purely commercial” and there was no reason for state interference, the airport administration said.
The Russian plane was confiscated on Thursday by order of the Commercial Court in Colombo. Flight SU289 with 191 passengers and 13 crew members on board was stopped shortly before returning to Moscow. The background is a dispute with an Irish airline, for which there is to be a hearing on Wednesday.
Sri Lanka’s top envoy in Moscow was summoned by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday, where a “firm protest” was sent to him, according to the Russian state news agency Tass.
The plane was parked at the International Airport in northern Colombo, the passengers were accommodated in hotels.
9.55 a.m .: The SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil has shown himself open to the proposal of a so-called excess profit tax. “A tax on war and crisis profits is an instrument that is on the table and that I think is very worth considering,” he told the newspapers of the Funke media group (Saturday editions). Such a tax is already being used in Great Britain and Italy, and the European Commission is also in favor of it. “Of course we have to deal with that in Germany.”
In view of the relief packages worth billions, he was working intensively on the question of “how we deal with those who profited from the crisis and the war, who are benefiting massively from the current situation,” explained Klingbeil. “We have to use them more to finance the common good.”
The Left Party has been calling for an excess profit tax for a long time. The Greens are also currently open to this.
3:41 a.m .: Switzerland has reiterated its blocking stance on the export of Swiss arms to Ukraine via third countries. The Federal Council announced on Friday that Bern could not agree to the delivery of ammunition and wheeled armored personnel carriers from Germany and Denmark to Kyiv due to “the principle of equal treatment under neutrality law”. According to the War Material Act, export requests could not be approved if the recipient country is in an international armed conflict.
Germany had therefore asked in Bern whether it could deliver 12,400 cartridges for the Gepard anti-aircraft tank to Kyiv. It was also about the transfer of 22 Piranha III wheeled infantry fighting vehicles, which Denmark had originally bought in Switzerland and which have been stored in Germany since they were decommissioned.
However, the Federal Council decided that “assemblies and parts” can be supplied to European defense contractors – even if they are used to manufacture weapons that could later end up in Ukraine. According to this, companies from Germany and Italy had asked for components for anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft systems.
Saturday, June 4th, 1:24 am: The Ukrainian ambassador in Ankara has accused Russia of “stealing” Ukrainian grain and exporting it in particular to Turkey. “Russia shamelessly steals grain from Ukraine and exports it from Crimea abroad, especially to Turkey,” Ambassador Vasyl Bodnar wrote on Twitter on Friday. “We asked Turkey for help to solve the problem.”
NATO member Turkey is trying to take a neutral position in the war. On the one hand, Ankara has supplied combat drones to Ukraine and is trying to mediate in the conflict. On the other hand, Turkey has refrained from imposing sanctions on Russia, on which the country depends for grain and energy supplies.
At the request of the UN, Turkey has also offered to help secure maritime trade routes through which Ukrainian grain could be exported. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is scheduled to visit Turkey on Wednesday to discuss the matter.
10:43 p.m .: An Aeroflot airliner has been arrested in Sri Lanka because of international sanctions against Russia. The Foreign Ministry therefore summoned the ambassador of the island state in the Indian Ocean to Moscow on Friday. The government of Sri Lanka should clarify the situation as soon as possible, the Russian side demanded.
The Airbus A330 plane was supposed to be taking Russian tourists home but was detained Thursday at Colombo airport until at least June 16. According to the information, the trigger was a court order at the request of an Irish leasing company that claims the aircraft. No information was given on the number of stranded passengers.
Because of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, not only have many Western countries closed their airspace to Russian planes; More than 700 machines leased abroad had their approval revoked. Moscow therefore transferred these aircraft to its own Russian register. However, this threatens to confiscate the machines at many airfields worldwide. To avoid this, Russian airlines have now bought some jets from the leasing companies. This is not considered a violation of the sanctions.
Aeroflot is trying to repatriate the passengers stuck in Sri Lanka, the company announced on Friday. However, the sale of new airline tickets to Colombo has been halted.
9:17 p.m .: 100 days after the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko has shown himself confident of victory. Russia is waging a “barbaric war to annihilate Ukraine and Ukrainians,” he said in a selfie video posted to his Telegram channel on Friday. You can also hear air raid alarms, which are repeated in the Ukrainian capital. 100 days of war are full of bloody battles, casualties and deaths, said Klitschko.
“But it is also a time of courage and perseverance,” said the former world boxing champion. “We all stand and fight together. Everyone in their place. We admire our armed forces,” he said. Ukraine will free itself from the “Russian barbarians”. “Yes, it will be difficult. But I believe that each of us will come through these trials with dignity. For this is a war of evil and good. And goodness and justice still win.”
Ukraine has become stronger and more successful, said the 50-year-old. “That’s why we’re going to win!” Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the attack on Ukraine on February 24 and attacked the neighboring country from several directions. The fighting is now concentrated primarily in eastern Ukraine.
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