Germany calls for peace talks, but Moscow says the West must accept the annexations
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to find a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict as soon as possible, “including the withdrawal of Russian troops,” when the two leaders spoke recently.
According to the Reuters news agency, Scholz’s spokesman said:
The chancellor in particular condemned Russian airstrikes against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and underlined Germany’s determination to support Ukraine to ensure its defense capability against Russian aggression.
The Kremlin said Putin told Scholz that the German and Western line on Ukraine was “destructive” and urged Berlin to rethink its approach. His reading of the call served to highlight the chasm between Russia and Western governments over Ukraine, although Moscow and Washington have said in the past 24 hours that they are open in principle to talks, Reuters reports. The Kremlin said:
Attention was drawn to the destructive line of Western states, including Germany, which are pumping the Kyiv regime with weapons and training the Ukrainian army. All this, as well as comprehensive political and financial support for Ukraine, makes Kyiv completely reject the idea of any negotiations.
Kyiv has said that peace talks are only possible if Russia stops attacking Ukrainian territory and withdraws its troops from Ukrainian soil.
The Kremlin has indicated it wants a diplomatic solution and has said Putin has always been open to talks, but said this was complicated by Washington’s refusal to recognize “the new territories” as Russia was hampering the search of any possible commitment.
Separately, a German government spokesman confirmed that Berlin is not in talks with Ukraine about transferring or deploying Patriot air defense systems there.
Reuters reports that Germany offered Poland the Patriot system last month to help protect its airspace after a stray missile crashed and killed two people. Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak later asked Germany to send firefighting units to Ukraine.
Updated at 15.26 GMT
Key events
Show only key events
Please enable JavaScript to use this feature
UN-appointed investigators are looking into whether Russia’s attacks on critical infrastructure in Ukraine amount to war crimes, one of the inspection teams said on Friday.
Russia has been hitting Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure since early October, causing blackouts and leaving millions without heating as temperatures plummet, Reuters reported.
Russia says the assaults do not target civilians and are intended to reduce Ukraine’s ability to fight and push it to negotiate, although Kyiv says the attacks are a war crime.
“Part of the analysis we are currently engaged in … is whether the attacks constitute war crimes,” Pablo de Greiff told a news conference, speaking from Kyiv.
If they do, the team would look at what “it can do to contribute to accountability for these crimes,” he added.
The three-member commission of inquiry established by the UN Human Rights Council in March has already concluded that Russia committed war crimes in the areas it occupied in Ukraine.
Moscow regularly dismisses these accusations as a smear campaign.
Julian Borger
When Alina Trebushnikova woke up Thursday morning, the light was on and she knew the day had already started badly.
The electricity in her Novomoskovsk neighborhood had come back on in the middle of the night, and that meant it wouldn’t be on for much longer. As a result, the shed would be colder and darker for much of the day.
It is now getting dark at 4pm in Ukraine and temperatures are below freezing after nightfall. A deep freeze is expected next week and the days will get even shorter as Ukrainians approach their worst winter since the second world war.
Alina’s husband Oleksii was away at his construction job and wouldn’t be back until well after dark. Their two sons, nine-year-old Ilia and Yakov, three years younger, were at Alina’s parents’ house, which has a wood-burning stove, regardless of the vagaries of the network.
Alina is 31 and has lived in Novomoskovsk since she was seven, when her parents moved from a block of flats in nearby Dnipro to live closer to the land, they say. Now she spends most of her days alone with Polina, born three months ago, as she cooks for the family, juggling light, heat and limited ingredients.
The Ukrainian embassy in Madrid receives a “bloody package”
Spanish police have cordoned off the area surrounding the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid after receiving a “bloody package” similar to those sent to other embassies abroad, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said.
This comes after a series of six-letter bombs targeting high-profile targets in Spain linked to the Ukraine war, including the US embassy, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the Defense Minister, a arms manufacturer, an air base and a European satellite center. .
On Friday, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said several of the country’s embassies abroad had received “bloody packages” containing animal eyes.
EU proposes fines and prison terms to break sanctions on Russia
Companies that breach EU sanctions against Russia face fines of at least 5% of their global turnover, under proposals put forward by the European Commission.
The plan, which needs approval from the European Parliament and the 27 EU member states before it comes into effect, also said people who breach EU sanctions would face possible jail terms of at least five years, reports Reuters.
Breaking sanctions on Russia is already a criminal offense in some EU countries, but in others it is treated as an administrative offense and penalties vary across the bloc. Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said the proposed rules would bring clarity, adding:
There are still too many gaps between member states when it comes to sanctioning the violation of EU sanctions.
Several Ukrainian embassies abroad have received “bloody packages” containing animal eyes, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said, after a series of letter bombs were sent to locations in Spain, including the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid.
The packages, soaked in a liquid with a distinctive color and smell, were sent to the embassies of Kyiv in Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Croatia and Italy, the consulates general in Naples and Krakow and the consulate in Brno, he wrote spokesman Oleg Nikolenko. Facebook.
The Ukrainian government will draft a law banning Russian-affiliated churches, in steps President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described as necessary to prevent Moscow from “weakening Ukraine from within,” Reuters reports.
Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, which brings together security, military and political figures, told the government to draft the law after a series of attacks on parishes that Kyiv says may be receiving orders from Moscow .
The security council also ordered investigations into alleged “subversive activities of Russian special services in the religious environment of Ukraine” and called for sanctions against unspecified individuals.
Further searches were carried out on the church premises on Friday. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it was searching at least five parishes belonging to a branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that until May was subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church.
The agency also announced on Friday that it had notified a former head of a diocese in central Ukraine of suspicion of coordinating a pro-Moscow information campaign with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The branch has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but many Ukrainians fear it could be a source of Russian influence in the country.
We must create conditions where no actor dependent on the aggressor state (Russia) has the opportunity to manipulate Ukrainians and weaken Ukraine from within. We will never allow anyone to build an empire within the Ukrainian soul,” Zelenskiy said in his evening address to the nation on Thursday.
A church spokesman, Metropolitan Kliment, told Reuters his organization “has always acted within the framework of Ukrainian law.”
Therefore, the state of Ukraine has no legal basis to pressure or repress our believers.
Germany calls for peace talks, but Moscow says the West must accept the annexations
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to find a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict as soon as possible, “including the withdrawal of Russian troops,” when the two leaders spoke recently.
According to the Reuters news agency, Scholz’s spokesman said:
The chancellor in particular condemned Russian airstrikes against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and underlined Germany’s determination to support Ukraine to ensure its defense capability against Russian aggression.
The Kremlin said Putin told Scholz that the German and Western line on Ukraine was “destructive” and urged Berlin to rethink its approach. His reading of the call served to highlight the chasm between Russia and Western governments over Ukraine, although Moscow and Washington have said in the past 24 hours that they are open in principle to talks, Reuters reports. The Kremlin said:
Attention was drawn to the destructive line of Western states, including Germany, which are pumping the Kyiv regime with weapons and training the Ukrainian army. All this, as well as comprehensive political and financial support for Ukraine, makes Kyiv completely reject the idea of any negotiations.
Kyiv has said that peace talks are only possible if Russia stops attacking Ukrainian territory and withdraws its troops from Ukrainian soil.
The Kremlin has indicated it wants a diplomatic solution and has said Putin had always been open to talks, but said this…