04/20/2022
Ukraine war on live ticker +++ 02:44 Hofreiter: Germany is still doing very little +++
European green politician Anton Hofreiter is again demanding the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine. The chancellor’s announcement that he would support partner countries in Eastern Europe that supply weapons directly to Ukraine is “another step in the right direction,” Hofreiter told ZDF. In view of the “violent war of attrition”, Germany itself must deliver heavy weapons directly to Kiev. Scholz justified his hesitation with his concern that Germany would go it alone, said Hofreiter, who heads the European Bundestag Committee. “But we’ve been doing it alone for a long time – that is, we’re doing less than all our neighbors when they think about the fact that France, for example, is now also demanding an oil embargo.”
+++ 01:53 Canada delivers heavy weapons to Ukraine +++
Canada wants to send heavy artillery weapons to Ukraine. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in New Brunswick on Tuesday that this is in response to a request from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Details on the weapons and their cost should be available in the coming days. Trudeau also announces new sanctions against 14 other Russian confidants of President Vladimir Putin, including his two adult daughters. Your assets in Canada will be frozen and you will no longer be able to do business there.
+++ 01:02 Zelenskyj: Russia blocks evacuations from Mariupol +++
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to see the situation in the port city of Mariupol as “as difficult as possible”. The Russian military is blocking all attempts to organize humanitarian corridors and rescue Ukrainian citizens, Zelenskyy said in his nightly video message. City residents who are in the hands of Russian units are being tempted to be “deported” or mobilized by Russian troops. Zelenskyy complained that no response was received to the proposed exchange that would allow the rescue of civilians and city defenders. The information could not be independently verified.
+++ 00:25 UNHCR expects 5 million displaced people +++
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that more than five million people have fled Ukraine to escape Russia’s war of aggression. “That’s five million individual destinations filled with loss and trauma,” UNHCR Deputy Commissioner Kelly Clements told a UN Security Council meeting in New York. António Vitorino of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) adds that there are also around 7.1 million people who have left their homes in Ukraine. At the meeting, member states will discuss the need for more support for refugees and an end to the war.
+++ 23:34 Melnyk criticized: heavy weapons are missing from the help list +++
Despite recent announcements by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk is dissatisfied with German arms aid to Ukraine. In the ZDF’s “heute journal”, he refers to a list of possible arms deliveries that Ukraine received from Germany a few weeks ago. However, according to Melnyk, there are no heavy weapons in it. “The weapons we need are not on this list.” According to Melnyk, the Bundeswehr would be able to supply Ukraine with the weapons it needs, such as the Marder infantry fighting vehicle. “According to our information, the Bundeswehr has more than 400 people, and only a small proportion of them are involved in missions.” The German armaments industry could replace these tanks within a few weeks.
+++ 23:00 Pentagon: Ukraine received fighter jets +++
According to the US, Ukraine received additional fighter jets. The country now has more fighter jets than it did two weeks ago, said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. Ukraine received additional aircraft and individual parts. It does not provide further information about its origin and design. Kirby mentions “other nations that have experience with this type of aircraft”. The US reportedly helped transport “some additional spare parts”, but did not transport complete aircraft.
+++ 22:25 Gabriel admits bugs in Nord Stream 2 +++
Former Foreign and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel admits personal omissions regarding the German-Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. It was a mistake “not to listen to Eastern Europeans when it came to objections to Nord Stream 2,” Gabriel told “Welt”. But it is wrong to “make the SPD and its policy of détente solely responsible for Germany’s heavy energy dependence on Russian natural gas”. Many, and not just Germans, assumed that close trade and, above all, raw materials relations could integrate Russia into a stable European order, Gabriel told the paper. “Eastern Europeans have always called it an illusion – and they were right.” Blaming the Social Democrats alone for Germany’s dependence on Russian energy “is nothing more than looking for an Old Testament ‘scapegoat’.”
You can read about past developments here.