According to the Times newspaper, citing information from the US secret service, Russia is buying artillery and shells from North Korea. This would apparently be related to the Western sanctions against Russia, which are now having an effect and affecting the war of aggression. Two US government officials told the newspaper. With their recent counter-offensives in southern and eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian troops destroyed Russian ammunition dumps.
According to one analysis, Russia’s revenues from fossil energy exports in the first six months of the Ukraine war significantly exceeded the costs of the invasion. As the Finland-based Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) announced on Tuesday, revenue in the period amounted to the equivalent of 158 billion euros. On the other hand, the war costs are estimated at one hundred billion euros.
The analysis records the exports of oil, gas and coal between February 24 and August 24 of this year, while data from shipping and pipeline transport was evaluated. These showed that the EU was the largest purchaser of the supplies with 85 billion euros, followed by China with 35 billion euros.
Within the EU, Germany was ahead with a volume of 19 billion euros, making it the second largest buyer of Russian fossil fuels in the world, right behind China. CREA analyst Lauri Myllyvirta explained that Russia is “still making record profits” from fossil fuels despite falling export volumes.
“To combat this, governments must impose tariffs or price caps on imports from Russia and speed up energy saving measures,” Myllyvirta said. Above all, oil and gas consumption must be reduced “by accelerating the use of clean energy and electrification through heat pumps and electric vehicles”.
According to the General Staff in Kyiv, the Russian army again shelled dozens of places in the Donbass with artillery and aircraft. The evening report by the Ukrainian military leadership also listed eight places in the east where Russian assaults had been repelled. This included the area around the town of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, where the Russian advance has been stuck for weeks.
According to local authorities, a Russian rocket hit a fuel depot near the industrial city of Kryvyi Rih. The shelling also hit other places in the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine. A woman was killed and three were injured, it said.
The Kremlin on Monday blamed the West for the lack of gas supplies and demanded that sanctions against Russia be lifted. The gas giant Gazprom referred to technical reasons that make it impossible to transport gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in the Baltic Sea: A Siemens Energy turbine could become dangerous due to a design flaw and should not be operated under Russian law. There is a risk of fire and explosion.
As feared abroad, Gazprom did not resume gas supplies to Europe on Saturday after scheduled turbine maintenance. The company justified this with allegedly leaking oil from the unit. The problem has also been observed in other turbines of this type, Gazprom explained. This suggests that the error was created in the construction.
Siemens Energy rejected the representation. A spokesman said the reported finding was no reason to stop operations. “Such leaks do not normally affect the operation of a turbine and can be sealed on site.” The federal government considers the alleged technical problems with Nord Stream 1 to be a Russian pretext.
Ukrainian power plant operator Enerhoatom countered fears on Monday evening that control over radiation at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant had been lost. It was only because of an internet failure earlier in the day that no measurement data on radiation was transmitted to the responsible authority for a short time.
In the nuclear power plant, which had been endangered by fighting for weeks, the sixth and last reactor was shut down on Monday due to a fire in a high-voltage line. Connection to the electricity grid of Ukraine was lost for the second time since August 25. Because of the great concern of the international community, IAEA experts visited Zaporizhia last week. IAEA Director Rafael Grossi wants to publish the report on the mission on Tuesday and also present it to the Security Council in New York in the evening.
Ukraine hopes that close cooperation with Great Britain will continue under future Prime Minister Truss, Zelenskyy said in his video address. “We know them well. She has always been on the light side of European politics.”
Before that he had said goodbye to the outgoing Prime Minister Johnson with emotional words. “They say there are no friends in politics. But Boris – that’s the case where you understand each other on demand.” Under Johnson’s leadership, Britain has given Ukraine strong military, political and financial support against Russia. Since the beginning of the war on February 24, the prime minister has traveled to Kyiv three times.
That will be important on Tuesday
Russian President Vladimir Putin is traveling in his country’s Far East. Among other things, he wants to attend a major military maneuver there, in which soldiers from China and India also take part.
The Ukraine update in the evening – “Preserve the Russian world”: Putin issues new foreign policy decree
