04/01/2023
Ukraine war in the live ticker
+++ 02:13 grenade explodes in Lviv +++
One person is killed in a grenade hit in Lviv. As the portal “Kyiv Independent” reports, citing the city council, the explosion occurred in a high-rise building in the north of the city.
+++ 23:55 Selenskyj demands justice +++
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged justice in the wake of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. “Justice for our state, for all our people who have lost their relatives, their friends, their health, their home and their normal life because of the Russian aggression, because of the terror of the occupying forces,” he said in his nightly video address. Zelenskyj commemorated the victims of the short Russian occupation on Friday in the Kiev suburb of Bucha with international guests.
+++ 22:59 EU should help farmers because of imports from Ukraine +++
Five EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe are calling on the EU Commission to help farmers who have come under pressure from cheap Ukrainian agricultural products. Brussels must provide additional funds to support farmers in the region, according to a letter to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen published on Friday. It was signed by the heads of government of Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia. The EU should also buy up excess grain from Ukraine in cooperation with the UN World Food Program.
+++ 22:18 Zelenskyj: Russia has lost a sense of reality +++
For Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia’s intention to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is a sign that the meeting between Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin and China’s head of state Xi Jinping was not crowned with success. “One should have shown Russia a sense of reality, which the country has completely lost under President Putin,” quotes “Ukrajinska Pravda” Zelenskyj on the sidelines of his visit to Bucha to mark the first anniversary of the massacre in the Kiev suburb. Zelenskyj says that Putin has not managed to achieve successes on the battlefield. “It’s also about him not caring about our people and killing them, but he doesn’t spare his own people either.”
+++ 21:59 Strack-Zimmermann: Armistice alone is not a solution +++
The FDP defense politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann does not consider a ceasefire to be the ultimate solution in the Ukraine war. Such a scenario alone is certainly not enough. “Putin would rebuild his army to attack again,” says the chairwoman of the Bundestag’s defense committee of the “Westdeutsche Zeitung”. “In 2014 he was not yet militarily in a position to do so. He has used the time since then because he noticed that the West reacted little or not at all to its attack on the Donbass,” she says, referring to the conflicts in eastern Ukraine after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. In her opinion, there must be a peace treaty, emphasizes Strack-Zimmermann. Under no circumstances should there be a dictated peace. Because history teaches that a dictated peace would only have resulted in more wars. “It must come down to Putin withdrawing his army and restoring Ukraine’s borders, including Crimea under international law,” emphasized the FDP politician.
+++ 21:20 Brandt son appeals to Scholz: “Create peace!” +++
Former high-ranking SPD politicians and trade unionists are appealing to Chancellor Olaf Scholz to advocate for early negotiations to end the fighting in view of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. “With each passing day, the danger of an escalation of hostilities grows. The shadow of a nuclear war is hanging over Europe. But the world must not slide into a new major war,” says the appeal “Create peace!”, which will be published this Saturday . “We encourage the Federal Chancellor, together with France, to persuade Brazil, China, India and Indonesia in particular to mediate in order to achieve a ceasefire quickly,” write the initiators. The appeal was written by the historian Peter Brandt, a son of the former chancellor Willy Brandt, as well as by the former head of the German trade union federation Reiner Hoffmann and the ex-SPD member of the Bundestag Michael Müller.
+++ 20:56 arrest of US journalist: Russia warns USA of threats +++
Russia warns US of threats in the case of arrested American journalist Evan Gershkovich. The United States made no attempt to understand what was happening, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Russian television. “They immediately resort to threats and reprisals against Russian journalists,” she told broadcaster Rossiya 1. If this approach continued “in public space,” the United States would “reap a storm.”
You can read about previous developments here.