The Russian occupiers have announced the first results of the mock referendums. The Ukrainian President announces the “liberation” of the occupied territories. Now Turkish President Erogan wants to talk to Putin about it. All voices and developments on the Ukraine war in the ticker.
Friday, September 30, 6:24 a.m.: The destroyed gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea could have serious consequences for Germany’s security. This mine is Heiko Teggatz, head of the federal police union. Because important data cables, which connect Europe with North America, for example, are now difficult to protect
“When I look at the personnel and technical condition of our Federal Police See, I get scared,” explains Heiko Teggatz to “Bild”. The federal police need at least four more ships to protect the infrastructure. According to Teggatz’, the federal police need at least four more ships to protect the infrastructure.
That is why the federal government is investing more. “We have joined forces and ramped up protective measures,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser confirmed to “Bild”. She wants to “invest 20 billion euros in the protection of our networks and systems” because security is “not for free”.
Above all, the topic of cyber security is at the top of the agenda. In connection with the attack, the BSI (Federal Office for Information Security) assumes “that in principle all systems that supply the general public can be the target of attacks”.
Because of this fact, according to the “Bild” quote, Faeser wants to “create the necessary powers to avert danger for the security authorities.” Specifically, it is about fighting back an ongoing hacker attack and triggering a so-called “hack-back”.
11:35 p.m .: After the controversial “referendums” in four Russian-controlled areas in Ukraine, Russia wants to annex the regions on Friday. At a ceremony at noon in the Kremlin with President Vladimir Putin, the agreements on the admission of the regions are to be signed, as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced on Thursday. Putin will give a “comprehensive speech”. Kyiv, meanwhile, has been demanding more weapons from the West to continue its counter-offensive.
According to the separatists there, in the “referendums” in the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Cherson regions, which Western states criticized as sham votes, overwhelming majorities were said to have spoken out in favor of the annexation.
The four regions form an important land corridor between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, annexed in 2014. Together with Crimea, they make up around 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory.
The separatist chiefs of the four regions have meanwhile arrived in Moscow to complete the annexation, according to Russian news agencies. On Wednesday they formally asked Putin to include the regions in the Russian Federation.
US President Joe Biden stressed that the US would “never, never, never” recognize Russia’s claims to Ukrainian sovereignty. The so-called referendum was “a fraud, an absolute fraud”. Other western governments made similar statements.
The West also warned Putin against using nuclear weapons. The Kremlin boss had previously indirectly threatened to defend the four regions with nuclear weapons if necessary.
Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) renewed her criticism of the “referendums”. People were “taken from their homes or their jobs” at gunpoint “to cast votes in glass ballot boxes,” she said in Berlin. “This is the opposite of free and fair elections.”
After the “referendums”, Kyiv had called for further western sanctions against Russia and more weapons. “Ukraine cannot and will not tolerate attempts by Russia to take any part of our land,” said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council for Friday.
About a month ago, Kyiv launched a counteroffensive in the east and south of the country. The advance of the Ukrainian troops prompted Moscow to quickly organize the so-called referendums and hastily mobilize hundreds of thousands of reservists. The recruitment campaign had prompted a number of Russians to leave the country. At the same time, Moscow continued to mobilize the reservists.
At a Russian Security Council video conference in Moscow on Thursday, Putin called for “correcting” “mistakes” in the partial mobilization. Fathers of families, the sick and the elderly should not be drafted, Putin stressed. Such mistakes should not be repeated.
The Ukrainian army on Thursday gained complete control of the city of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region in the north-east of the country, reporters from the AFP news agency reported. Kyiv had already recaptured a large part of the railway junction at the beginning of the month, and now Kiev’s armed forces are also pushing back the remaining Russian troops.
Alongside this, Ukrainian forces appear to be focused on recapturing Lyman, a key railway junction in the Donetsk region. The Ukrainian troops have not commented on this, but pro-Kremlin authorities in the region have acknowledged heavy fighting.
“The enemy regularly launches attempts to encircle the city,” senior Donetsk official Alexei Nikonorov said on Russian television. According to the US research center Institute for the Study of War, after recapturing Lyman, Ukraine could advance further in both Donetsk and Luhansk.
8:59 p.m .: A week after the start of partial mobilization for his war against Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized errors in the recruitment of reservists. “All mistakes must be corrected,” Putin said at a National Security Council meeting on Thursday. For days, reservists have been complaining that they were being drafted into military service despite fatal chronic illnesses, old age or other exclusion criteria.
There are many questions, mistakes should not be allowed, said Putin. Anyone who was mistakenly sent to the front must return home. This also applies to fathers of large families. The Kremlin chief called on the Prosecutor General’s Office to pursue violators of the mobilization.
Putin has also denounced the alleged sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines as an “act of international terrorism”. In a telephone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Putin expressed his opinion “about this unprecedented act of sabotage, which is in fact an act of international terrorism,” the Kremlin said on Thursday.
8:37 p.m.: After discovering several leaks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, NATO has stated that the military alliance would repel attacks on critical infrastructure. “NATO is committed to deterring and repelling hybrid attacks,” Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrote on Twitter. “Any deliberate attack on the allies’ critical infrastructure would be met with a joint and decisive response.” Stoltenberg also affirmed that the leaks were the result of sabotage.
7:31 p.m .: The Russian arms manufacturer Kalashnikov is already talking about a 20-year “record” in sales of its legendary assault rifle after seven months of war in Ukraine. Sales of Kalashnikovs have increased by 40 percent, said company president Alan Luzhnikov on Thursday in the city of Izhevsk. He gave no absolute sales figures for the most widely used weapon in the world.
Luzhnikov emphasized that the Russian Ministry of Defense gave priority to its own army. “Providing the country’s defense capability, especially under the current conditions, is the task that all departments of the company, without exception, are aimed at fulfilling.” Kalashnikovs are also used in the war in Ukraine.
According to Luschnikov, the increase in sales is also due to exports. Already in September it exceeded the total exports of the previous year. “Our production capacities are being used quite intensively this year,” he said. According to earlier reports, India will receive around 70,000 AK-103 Kalashnikovs. The Russian arms export group Rosoboronexport had announced that it was now selling more than 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles of various models abroad every year.
You can read more news on the following pages.
