Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Schmyhal is calling for anti-aircraft weapons as soon as possible. The mayor of the city of Stralsund should propose his city as a place for peace negotiations with Olaf Scholz. All voices and developments on the Ukraine war in the ticker.
More on the course of the war in Ukraine
9.45 a.m .: The Prime Minister of Ukraine, Denys Schmyhal, spoke in the “FAZ” about the situation in Ukraine. He continued to demand more weapons from international partners, including Germany. “First of all, we need anti-aircraft defenses. Germany has already delivered the IRIS-T system to us. It has been in use for a week and has already saved many, many lives, especially in the Kyiv area. Unfortunately, we only have such a system at the moment and we are impatiently awaiting the next shipment of ammunition,” says Schmyhal.
Time is the biggest factor. “It’s literally a matter of days. The Russians use twenty to thirty Iranian kamikaze drones against us every day. They’re hard to shoot down. That is why we ask our partners here for special repellents.”
8:52 a.m .: In a letter to Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) and Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) call for more money for the coming year to provide military support to Ukraine. The letter is in front of the “Spiegel”.
The two ministers therefore have a special pot for weapons aid of 2.2 billion euros in mind. Only with this budget, they wrote in a letter on Thursday, could Germany “concretely and visibly assume the responsibility that our international partners expect of us”.
5:48 a.m .: Against the background of the energy crisis and massive price increases, Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) warned of a social split. “The difficult situation we are in has to do with Putin’s war of aggression. It is his calculation to damage us economically and divide us socially,” he told the Bayern media group (Saturday edition) with a view to the invasion of Ukraine ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A “strong welfare state” counteracts this, Heil added. In order to keep the country together economically and socially, the labor market must be kept “stable” with the instrument of short-time work, for example. In addition, the current peak in employment subject to social insurance contributions is strengthening social insurance, particularly in unemployment and pension insurance.
“We must not allow Putin to divide our society socially,” demanded Heil. “That’s why we keep an eye on everyone who is hit particularly hard at the moment – people on low incomes as well as the needy.”
Saturday, October 22, 1:55 am: Germany, France and the UK have called for an “impartial” UN probe into reports of Iranian drone shipments to Russia. They are “deeply concerned about the transfer of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from Iran to Russia,” the UN ambassadors of the three states said in a joint letter to the UN Security Council and UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday.
“These UAVs are used by Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine to attack civilian infrastructure and cities in Ukraine, resulting in the deaths of innocent civilians,” the letter said.
Ukraine says it has shot down more than 200 Iranian drones over the country since mid-September. The United States also accused the Iranian military on Thursday of having supported Russia in drone operations against Ukraine from Crimea.
The Kremlin denies using Iranian drones in Ukraine. Iran has also dismissed the reports as “unsubstantiated claims”.
11:40 p.m.: The US sees no way to negotiate with Russia as long as the country presses ahead with the war of aggression against Ukraine. “As far as diplomacy to end the war goes, that depends entirely on whether Russia will be interested in stopping the aggression it has started,” Blinken said in Washington on Friday.
Currently, however, there are no indications of this, but the opposite. Among other things, Blinken referred to the partial mobilization in Russia ordered by President Vladimir Putin. However, Putin has the problem that the Ukrainians are not only very brave, but also successful and reconquered their territory. Unlike Russia, they fought for their country and their future. “The sooner President Putin understands this, the sooner we will be able to end this war.”
At the same time, Blinken made it clear that the US continued to maintain diplomatic channels of communication with Russia. “Whenever we have something important to tell the Russians, we will do so.” He spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about certain issues that were important to US national security.
6:42 p.m .: After the recent escalations in the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the US and Russian defense ministers called each other for the first time after a long break. The two countries announced this on Friday. The Pentagon in Washington said that US Secretary Lloyd Austin had emphasized in the conversation with his Russian colleague Sergei Shoigu how important it was to maintain communication channels in the midst of the ongoing war. A Pentagon spokeswoman said Austin initiated the call. When asked why the conversation had taken place just now after a long radio silence, she simply said that the opportunity arose to exchange ideas.
The United States had announced the day before that, according to the US government’s findings, Russia was being supported by Iranian forces in the use of combat drones. Russia denies that. The Ministry of Defense in Moscow only said that the conversation was about current international security issues. One topic was the situation in Ukraine.
3:50 p.m .: The EU wants to support Ukraine next year with 18 billion euros in view of the Russian war of aggression. “It is very important for Ukraine to have a predictable and stable flow of income,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen after an EU summit in Brussels on Friday. Accordingly, Ukraine needs three to four billion euros a month to cover its basic needs. This should be financed by the EU, the USA and the financial institutions. “That’s why it was about 1.5 billion per month for Ukraine, which is financed by the European Union,” said von der Leyen. The EU finance ministers are now to work out a mechanism for this.
According to von der Leyen, the EU and the EU states have supported Ukraine with a total of 19 billion euros since the beginning of the war. Among other things, the EU has promised Kyiv macro-financial assistance of nine billion euros, of which only part has been paid out so far. In the summit conclusions, the heads of state and government called for the remaining three billion euros to be made available quickly.
3:29 p.m .: The Stralsund citizenship offers the Hanseatic city’s town hall for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. Mayor Alexander Badrow (CDU) was commissioned by the citizens on Thursday evening with a large majority to inform the federal government about the offer, as a city spokesman said. The city wants to help the warring parties finally get to the negotiating table. There is nothing more important than peace on earth.
“In Stralsund we have a great history of creating peace,” the resolution says. Reference was made to the Peace of Stralsund of 1370 and to a visit by Olof Palme in 1984. At that time, the focus was on creating a nuclear-weapons-free containment belt in Central Europe. In 1370, a compromise was found in Stralsund between the Danish King Waldemar IV and the Hanseatic cities.
1:13 p.m .: A month after the announcement of a partial mobilization in Russia, the Kremlin does not want to give a date for the end of the measure. President Vladimir Putin said on October 14 that it would be completed in about two weeks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday in Moscow, according to the state news agency TASS. “There is no precise date.” Putin signed the decree on September 21. A week ago he said 222,000 recruits had been drafted out of a total of 300,000.
Peskow said initial mistakes in organizing the partial mobilization no longer occur. But it is too early for an overall assessment. Putin will continue to inform himself about the course. The day before, the President had visited a military training area near Moscow and fired a sniper rifle there, among other things. Peskow said he could not say anything about possible similar visits to other areas.
Putin had ordered the convocation in view of heavy defeats by Russian troops, especially in eastern Ukraine. In Russia itself, the measure triggered a veritable mass exodus to neighboring ex-Soviet states such as Georgia and Kazakhstan.
Friday, October 21, 7:54 a.m.: Russia intends to export almost 1.8 million tons of grain from the occupied territories in Ukraine this year. Around a million tons of it have apparently already been shipped via seaports in the annexed Crimea. This emerges from Russian documents that the NDR was able to see, as well as from the evaluation of ship data and satellite images.
Since the beginning of the war, around 20 ships have left the port of Sevastopol in the annexed Crimea loaded with wheat and other grain. Most of the transports go to Syria, Russia or Turkey. Freight lists show that almost 40 more deliveries are planned from Sevastopol by the end of the year. The lists viewed by the NDR show the loading dates and quantities for future trips for the first time. This suggests that the Russian occupiers have apparently already organized the logistics for future grain theft.
Should the planned exports come about, Russia could generate around 600 million US dollars with the illegal exports at this year’s world market prices.
According to the Ukrainian government, the amount stolen is equivalent to about a quarter of the total grain harvest in the Russian-occupied territories. In an interview with NDR, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Taras Visotzky, also warned of the social consequences for the farmers affected by the theft: “It’s unbelievable and an enormous problem, including a social one. It’s about thousands of farmers.”
Ukrainian agrarian entrepreneurs report that Russian occupiers confiscated grain left behind by peasants fleeing the occupied territories. Other farmers would be expropriated or would have to sell their grain at dumping prices.
The Russian transport ships park their tracking devices in Crimea before loading. Therefore, even before they call the ports, they have disappeared from the maps of the location services. This makes it difficult to trace the destination ports of the ships. However, the movements of the grain fleet can be traced through the evaluation of satellite images, the images of ship observers and the fragmentary transponder data.
By expropriating the harvest, Russia may be breaking international law, experts say. According to international law expert Paulina Starski from the University of Freiburg, the illegal appropriation of grain on a large scale, which is arbitrary and not justified by military necessity, can be a war crime. David Crane of the American University in Washington told NDR that depriving civilians of their livelihood through theft is just as cruel as shooting at them with rockets or artillery.
When asked by NDR, the Russian embassy said it was “undisputed that the Russian Federation not only covers its own grain needs, but also responds to export requests from all parts of the world.” However, there is no need for Ukrainian wheat on the part of Russia, especially since this “is inferior to the Russian product in quality”. The embassies of Syria and Turkey left inquiries unanswered.
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