The situation at a glance: EU is sending new money to Ukraine, Russia is sending new missiles

The situation at a glance
EU sends new money to Ukraine, Russia sends new missiles

The port city of Odessa is repeatedly bombarded by Russia with drones and missiles (archive image) Photo: Kay Nietfeld/dpa

The port city of Odessa is repeatedly bombarded by Russia with drones and missiles (archive image) Photo

© Kay Nietfeld/dpa

The EU is clearing the way for billions in aid to Ukraine. Their President Zelensky is expected in Great Britain, France and Germany. Russia attacks a city again with missiles.

The EU states have introduced new financial aid for the benefit of the Ukraine organized. An agreement in principle reached in Brussels provides for a loan of up to 35 billion euros to be arranged for the country attacked by Russia, as the representative of the member states announced. This should then be repaid with interest income from frozen assets of the Russian Central Bank.

The money is intended to be part of an even larger support package that was approved by the group of large western industrialized countries (G7) in the summer. It provides for loans of up to $50 billion (approx. €46 billion) financed with Russian money.

As part of the sanctions imposed by the EU against Russia, around 210 billion euros in assets of the Russian central bank have been frozen since February 2022. The extraordinary interest income from this is currently estimated at up to 2.5 to 3 billion euros per year. The EU is home to the majority of the world’s immobilized assets.

Zelensky is touring across Europe

US President Joe Biden postponed his trip to Germany because of Hurricane Milton, which is threatening the southeast of the United States, where, among other things, further aid for Ukraine was to be discussed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj is still coming to Berlin. On Thursday night he flew from Dubrovnik towards Great Britain. He had previously taken part in a summit of the Balkan states in Croatia.

Twelve Southeast European states and Turkey agreed that Russia’s withdrawal from all occupied territories in Ukraine was a condition for peace. They spoke out in favor of Zelensky’s peace plan and Ukraine’s admission into NATO. This emerges from the final declaration of the summit meeting.

First Starmer and Macron, then Scholz and Steinmeier

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will receive Zelenskyj in London today, and a conversation with the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is also planned, as the British news agency PA reported. There will be broad strategic discussions during this important time, PA quoted a government spokesman as saying.

Later in the day, the Ukrainian president is expected to meet French head of state Emmanuel Macron in Paris. In the Elysée Palace, Zelensky is likely to be interested in further military support to defend against the Russian war of aggression. It was only on Wednesday that France announced the promised delivery of Mirage fighter jets for the first quarter of 2025. Training of Ukrainian pilots and mechanics for the machines is already underway in France.

On Friday, Zelensky will travel to Berlin to meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Zelensky’s separate trips to London, Paris and Berlin follow the postponement of the major Ukraine solidarity summit in Ramstein, which was originally planned for Saturday.

Six dead in Russian rocket attack on Odessa

Ukraine is under heavy pressure at the front. Russian troops are slowly advancing in the east of the country. At the same time, the shelling of cities and civilian objects in the hinterland continues unabated. According to authorities, at least six people were killed in a Russian rocket attack on the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa late in the evening. Eleven others were injured, seven of them seriously. “The enemy’s target was once again the port infrastructure,” the region’s military governor, Oleh Kiper, wrote on Telegram. According to him, a civilian container ship flying the Panama flag was hit. The victims are Ukrainian citizens.

According to Kiper, this is the third attack on a civilian ship in the last four days. Russia is trying to block the grain corridor set up by Ukraine. Already at the beginning of its war of aggression, Russia sealed off the Ukrainian seaports. Because of Ukraine’s importance for the global agricultural market, both countries agreed to establish a grain corridor for a limited period of time. Moscow allowed the agreement to expire in July 2023. Later, Kiev itself organized a sea route – including by driving Russian warships out of the western Black Sea.

Ukraine attacks drone camp in southern Russia

The Ukrainian military, for its part, said it destroyed a drone camp in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar in an attack. According to the General Staff in Kiev, around 400 Iranian Shahed drones were stored in the attacked building. “The destruction of the Shahed drone camp will significantly reduce the ability of the Russian occupiers to terrorize peaceful residents of Ukrainian cities and villages,” it said.

Russian authorities confirmed at least one fire in a warehouse near the town of Oktyabrsky. The area was cordoned off and around 800 square meters of area were in flames, said the regional operations staff in the Krasnodar region. The coordinates match the drone strike reported by Kyiv. However, the operations staff did not provide any information about the cause of the fire or the objects stored there.

dpa

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