finland is to have a fence more than 130 kilometers long on the border with large neighbor Russia. All parties represented in parliament have expressed their support for this, said Prime Minister Sanna Marin after a meeting of party leaders on Tuesday evening in Helsinki.
“It’s about making sure that the border is well controlled,” the prime minister told Yle. “And that we can preventively influence the situations that could arise at the border.”
According to a proposal by the Finnish border guard, the fence should have a length of 130 to 260 kilometers. The border between the two states is more than 1,300 kilometers long. The government will now work out proposals for a pilot project, Marin announced after the deliberations. Parliament is expected to vote on this later this year. The final decision is then planned for next year.
Border guards estimate the costs at “hundreds of millions of euros”. Construction is expected to take three to four years. The opposition has criticized the cost and duration of the construction. Like Sweden, Finland also wants to become a member of NATO after decades of rejection because of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. The final decision on admission is still pending.
All developments in the live ticker:
11:35 am – Ukrainian Ambassador to Kazakhstan fired
The Ukrainian ambassador to the ex-Soviet republic of Kazakhstan has been fired after statements that were heavily criticized. Petro Wrublewskyj has been dismissed from his post, the Ukrainian Presidential Office said. An explicit reason was not mentioned in the decree.
Asked in August about Russia’s war against his country, Wrublevskyj quoted a fallen Ukrainian fighter as saying: “We are trying to kill as many of them (the Russians) as possible. The more Russians we kill now, the fewer of them our children will have to kill.”
Moscow reacted with outrage and demanded Wrublewskyj’s expulsion. Kazakhstan denied it but asked Ukraine to replace the diplomat, who served in Astana for more than two years.
11:14 am – Crew administration leaves Kherson
In the face of advancing Ukrainian troops, the pro-Russian administration has begun evacuating the city of Kherson on the Dnipro River. “Starting today, all government structures of the city, civil and military administration, all ministries, will be transferred to the left bank of the river,” said the head of administration Vladimir Saldo. Russian state media showed pictures of people being taken to the other side by ferries across the Dnipro River.
The city of Kherson is located on the western side of the Dnipro River
Credit: AFP/ANDREY BORODULIN
11:07 am – 150,000 homeless people in Kharkiv
In Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, more than 150,000 residents are homeless after months of Russian attacks, according to local authorities. “Many of them left the city, traveled to western Ukraine or other regions or abroad,” Mayor Ihor Terekhov said, according to Unian agency. But many stayed. “Because Kharkiv was considered the student capital of Ukraine before the war, we make the dormitories available to people who have nowhere to live and provide them with everything they need.”
10:27 am – Russia shells energy infrastructure again
According to Ukrainian information, the Russian armed forces continued shelling the energy infrastructure on Wednesday night. During the night and in the morning, parts of Enerhodar, the city closest to the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, lost power and water supplies after hits.
Mayor Dmytro Orlov said initial reports said a substation had been hit. Governor Oleksandr Starukh said critical infrastructure in the Zaporizhia region was hit with S-300 rockets. This type was actually developed for anti-aircraft purposes.
According to Ukrainian sources, two areas in the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk also came under heavy fire.
09:45 – Von der Leyen: Russian attacks are war crimes
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has described Russian attacks on energy plants and other critical infrastructure in Ukraine as war crimes. The targeted attacks on civil infrastructure with the clear aim of cutting off water, electricity and heating for men, women and children in the coming winter are pure acts of terrorism, says von der Leyen in the EU Parliament in Strasbourg. “The international order is very clear. These are war crimes.”
08:50 – Russia: Ukrainian advance on Zaporizhia NPP repelled
According to the state-controlled Russian news agency RIA, Ukrainian forces have failed in an attempt to recapture the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. “The fight lasted several hours, at least three to three and a half hours,” RIA quoted Russian official Vladimir Rogov as saying. The Russian troops repelled the attack.
8:36 a.m. – Merz warns of energy bottlenecks in winter 23/24
After Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) put his foot down in the nuclear dispute, CDU leader Friedrich Merz warns of the unclear energy supply in winter 23/24. “None of us knows what the energy supply situation will look like next winter,” said Merz on Deutschlandfunk. The pending decision in the cabinet on changing the Atomic Energy Act will only last until spring.
7:45 a.m. – Commander-in-Chief on Kherson: “The situation is difficult”
The Russian army expects a massive Ukrainian attack to liberate the occupied city of Cherson. “The situation is difficult on this section of the front,” said the new commander-in-chief of Russian troops in Ukraine, Sergey Surovikin, on television on Tuesday evening. It was an unusual performance by the army general, who even seemed to suggest that Russia might consider withdrawing from the city. Surovikin said “difficult decisions” may be necessary.
Commander-in-Chief of the troops in Ukraine: Sergey Surovikin
Source: via REUTERS
Surovikin’s television appearance was the first of its kind in almost eight months of war, and the general painted a bleak picture of the situation in and around Kherson in southern Ukraine. Ukraine is shelling residential buildings and the city’s infrastructure. Artillery hits made Ukraine’s crossings over the Dnipro River impassable. This complicates the supply of the city.
“We will act carefully and in a timely manner, and we will not rule out difficult decisions,” said Surovikin. This passage in particular was understood as an indication of a possible retreat. The head of Russia’s occupation administration in Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, said civilians in some regions on the north right bank of the Dnipro should be evacuated.
07:38 – Ukraine reports 14 drone strikes in 24 hours
According to Ukrainian information, the Russian armed forces have used 14 Iranian-made kamikaze drones in addition to missiles in the past 24 hours. The Ukrainian military announced that ten of these drones were shot down. Dependence on Iranian-made drones exposed Russia as “militarily and politically bankrupt,” said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his video address on Tuesday evening.
4:39 am – Top Republican McCarthy: No ‘blank check’ for Ukraine
The US Republicans could cut financial aid to Ukraine if they win the midterm elections. If his party wins a majority in the House of Representatives, there will be no “blank check” for the country, said Republican minority leader in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, in an interview with the online newspaper “Punchbowl News” on Tuesday. He referred to the economic situation of the voters. At a time when people were stuck in recession, they would not give Ukraine a blank check. “They just won’t.”
4:28 a.m. – IAEA chief Grossi: Return to Ukraine soon for talks on Zaporizhia nuclear power plant
According to his own statements, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, intends to travel to Ukraine and Russia again soon for negotiations on the establishment of a security zone around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which is occupied by Russia. “There is a possibility that I will return to Ukraine and Russia. We agreed on that in principle, and at the moment we are continuing negotiations to set up the protection zone,” he told Reuters during a trip to Argentina.
The talks are seen as key to defusing concerns that have been growing since August about the risks of hostilities around Zaporizhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Russia and Ukraine blame each other for the shelling.
1:34 am – New York Times: Iranian drone trainers stationed in Crimea
Iran has reportedly sent instructors to Crimea to teach Russians how to operate Iranian drones. The New York Times reported Tuesday, citing current and former officials familiar with intelligence information. The Iranian trainers were supposed to help the Russians deal with problems with the drone fleet acquired from Tehran. This is another sign of the growing closeness between Iran and Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine eight months ago.
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