live blog
The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany sees his country better prepared for winter than last year. Nevertheless, Ukraine needs more air defense systems. Russia’s participation in the Paralympics is being re-examined. All developments in the live blog.
A storm over the Black Sea caused severe damage to Ukrainian coasts, the Russian-occupied Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and southern Russia. In the port city of Odessa, a 110-meter-high chimney of a thermal power plant collapsed during the night due to the snowstorm, according to Ukrainska Pravda. A number of power lines were cut and substations failed.
According to official information, almost 150,000 households in the area were still cut off from power in the morning. The heat supply, however, has now been restored after the thermal power plants in Odessa were switched off for hours on Sunday due to power fluctuations.
The Crimean peninsula, which has been annexed by Russia since 2014, has also been hit hard. According to media reports, seven people were injured; a 50-year-old man was swept into the sea by the waves and drowned. The Moscow-appointed governor of the region, Sergei Aksyonov, declared a state of emergency.
Flooding occurred in several towns in Crimea
The Ukrainian government is pushing for more anti-aircraft systems from its allies, even as it believes it is better prepared for Russian winter attacks than last year. “We are better (…) prepared because our partners have also recognized that air defense systems provide the best protection against this Russian attack with missiles and drones,” said the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, in Deutschlandfunk.
Nevertheless, according to Makeiev, there is still a need for additional military aid: “Today we are better equipped – but is there enough? Unfortunately not.” The territory of Ukraine is very large. The appeal to our partners is therefore: “We need more anti-aircraft systems to protect ourselves from this Russian rocket terror.”
SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert believes the consequences of the war in Ukraine are sufficient grounds to suspend the debt brake this year and next. The general prerequisite for this is that “external circumstances (…) cause enormous costs and this was not foreseeable in the long term,” said Kühnert in rbb. This is “exactly what qualifies the situation since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.”
“That’s why this is a completely correct statement for 2023,” added Kühnert. And his assessment is that “this will of course also apply to next year.”
The admission of Russian and Belarusian athletes under a neutral flag to the 2024 Paralympics in Paris is under review again. “Events have become known,” said the President of the German Disabled Sports Association, Friedhelm Julius Beucher, to the dpa news agency: “It must be verified under what conditions Russia may have won nations for this position in the vote in Bahrain. That’s why it’s starting “There will be an extraordinary conference of the European Paralympic Committee in March, which we have supported in convening.”
There are also “further questions,” explained Beucher, after the International Paralympic Committee decided by a narrow majority at the end of September to let the athletes compete under a neutral flag despite the war in Ukraine. “To date, the IPC has not answered what the criteria are,” said Beucher: “With the best will in the world, I cannot imagine how a Russian or Belarusian can currently be neutral.”
In view of the onset of winter, President Zelensky has drawn the attention of the population to the particularly difficult situation of the soldiers at the front. Moscow says it shot down eleven Ukrainian drones. The live blog to read.