The essentials in brief:
- Federal President Steinmeier strengthens opponents of the war in Russia
- Putin plans to announce annexations as early as Friday
- Pope reports help with prisoner exchange
- Czech Republic receives more than 100 million euros in US military aid
- Finland is closing its border to Russian tourists
“Millions of people in Russia are supporting this criminal war,” said Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at an award ceremony, according to the text of the speech. “But it’s also true: There are the brave, the upright, the unruly – and they deserve our support, our encouragement and also our protection.” Steinmeier spoke in a video message at the presentation of the special prize of the Federal Association of German Foundations for special commitment to civil society – this year it goes to the Russian organization Memorial International. The traditional Russian human rights organization was banned there by a court in December. It was founded in Soviet times in the late 1980s by dissidents around Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov.
Memorial is fighting “for sincere remembrance and against forgetting,” said Steinmeier, according to the text of the speech. “How infinitely important this commitment is and how fragile it is at the same time has been shown more than ever since the Russian attack on Ukraine.”
The war, which violates international law, brings “death, destruction and appalling suffering to the people of Ukraine,” lamented the Federal President. It is a “brutal campaign” against human rights, freedom and democracy. “And we see how those in power in Moscow weaponize history, how Putin spreads false myths to justify his imperial madness and justify war and violence.”
Putin wants to announce annexations as early as Friday
As early as this Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to annex four occupied Ukrainian territories in violation of international law. “A ceremony to sign agreements on the accession of new territories to the Russian Federation will be held at 3:00 p.m. (2:00 p.m. CEST) in the Grand Kremlin Palace,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
There will certainly be no lack of splendor and symbolic power when the annexations are carried out
Meanwhile, separatist leaders from four Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine have arrived in Moscow. After the so-called “referendums” they want to take part in the annexation of these areas by Russia. The heads of the pro-Russian administrations in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk and in the southern Ukrainian regions of Zaporizhia, Cherson and Luhansk are to be received by the Russian president. They had formally asked Putin to include the four regions in the Russian Federation.
Zelenskyj convenes the National Security Council
The National Security Council is meeting in Ukraine this Friday in view of the planned Russian annexation of parts of eastern and southern Ukraine. “President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urgently convenes a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine tomorrow,” his spokesman Serhiy Nykyforov said on Facebook. The agenda will be communicated later. The Security Council includes the heads of the army and intelligence services, defense and interior ministers and other government officials.
Pope Francis is involved in the prisoner exchange
Pope Francis has reported on his efforts to exchange prisoners in Ukraine. At a meeting with Jesuits in Kazakhstan, the 85-year-old did not specifically explain when he had helped and whether his mission was ultimately successful. Francis told the clergy of the Jesuit order, to which he himself belongs, that people and officials from Ukraine keep visiting him and reporting on the war.
Pope Francis in Kazakhstan (archive)
“A military chief also came to take care of prisoner exchanges,” the pope said. “They brought me a list of more than 300 prisoners. They asked me to do something to facilitate an exchange. I immediately called the Russian ambassador to ask if anything could be done, if a prisoner exchange could be expedited .”
At the end of June, the Ukrainian and Russian armed forces exchanged almost 300 prisoners of war. This was described at the time as the largest exchange of prisoners since the outbreak of war in February. The Pope, who sees the war of aggression against Ukraine as a “Third World War,” had already met the Kazakh Jesuits the week before last. His statements only became known today.
Baerbock on sham referendums: “The opposite of peace”
The German Foreign Ministry Annalena Baerbock has described the so-called referenda in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine as part of a Russian dictated peace. In the mock referendums, people were sometimes forced to vote at gunpoint, said Baerbock at a conference on crisis prevention in Berlin.
“This is the opposite of free and fair elections,” she criticized. “As long as this Russian dictate applies in the occupied territories, no citizen is free and safe.”
New US sanctions against Russia
According to the United States, it is preparing new sanctions against Russia. The government in Moscow will have to pay a high price for the sham referendums in the occupied parts of Ukraine, said the coordinator of punitive measures at the State Department, James O’Brien. We are working with allies and partners to this end. The focus of the punitive measures continues to be on military supply chains and vulnerable areas in the Russian economy.
Mobilization: Russia loses many of its brightest minds
According to British estimates, the flight of tens of thousands of Russian men because of the partial mobilization has led to an enormous intellectual bloodletting for Russia. “The better-off and the well-educated are over-represented among those who are trying to leave Russia,” the Defense Ministry in London announced, citing intelligence findings. If one also takes the conscripts into account, the domestic economic effects are likely to be enormous, they say.
The authority points to the lower availability of workers and a rapid “brain drain”, i.e. a loss of skilled workers in the technology sectors, for example. “In the seven days since President (Vladimir) Putin announced “partial mobilization,” a significant exodus of Russians seeking to avoid conscription has begun,” it said in London. Exact numbers are unclear. But the number of those who left the country probably exceeds the strength of the invading army with which Russia attacked Ukraine in February. According to estimates, Moscow had deployed around 150,000 soldiers on the border with the neighboring country before the deployment.
Russia makes it difficult to travel to Kazakhstan
In view of the mass flight of Russian conscientious objectors to the Central Asian neighboring country of Kazakhstan, Russian authorities now want to filter out conscripts at the border. In the next few days, a temporary mobilization center will be opened at the Karausek border crossing in the Astrakhan region of Russia, the regional administration said.
Russian refugees in Kazakhstan
At the border, a mile-long queue of men of draft age had formed, it said. At the border crossing, the passports of those leaving the country would in future be compared with the draft lists. Anyone who falls under the mobilization criteria and does not have an official deferment or an exit permit from the military is not allowed to leave the country.
Finland is closing its border to Russian tourists
In Finland, significantly tightened visa rules for travelers from Russia will come into force at midnight. The events surrounding the leaks in the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea and the sham referendums in Ukraine have accelerated the government’s decision, said Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto.
The Finnish radio station Yle reports that it is not a complete entry ban. Exceptions should apply so that Russians can continue to come to Finland, for example to meet close family members, to work or to receive medical care. The big difference will now be that Russians can no longer travel to Finland for tourist purposes – and from there to other Schengen countries. Finland has a border with Russia that is around 1,340 kilometers long, making it by far the longest of all EU countries.
US grants Czech Republic military aid of more than 100 million euros
The Czech Republic receives more than 100 million euros in military aid from the United States. “We see this gift as an expression of recognition of how the Czech Republic has helped Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict,” stressed Defense Minister Jana Cernochova in Prague. The US Embassy in the Czech Republic has confirmed that $100 million will come from a program called Foreign Military Financing. The funds can only be used to buy US armaments. Additional funds equivalent to more than six million euros will be made available for equipping a cyber protection center.
Czech Defense Minister Jana Cernochova
US chargé d’affaires in the Czech Republic, Christina Agor, thanked the country for its “enormous leadership” in supporting Ukraine. According to the Czech Republic, it has so far delivered weapons and ammunition worth more than 160 million euros to Ukraine. The Czech Republic has been a member of NATO since 1999.
Russian gunsmith Kalashnikov achieves sales record
After seven months of war in Ukraine, the Russian arms company Kalashnikov is already talking about a 20-year record in sales of its legendary assault rifle. Sales of Kalashnikovs have increased by 40 percent, said company president Alan Luzhnikov 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. “Ensuring the country’s defense capability, especially under the current conditions, is the task that all departments of the company are aimed at, without exception.”
The Kalashnikovs are also used in the war in Ukraine. According to Luschnikov, the increase in sales can also be attributed to exports. Already in September this exceeded the total exports of the previous year. “Our production capacities are being used quite intensively this year,” he explained. According to earlier information, India will receive around 70,000 Kalashnikovs of the type AK-103. 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.
