live blog
Status: 09/09/2022 10:42 a.m
Latvia’s parliament has voted to completely separate the country’s Orthodox Church from the Moscow Patriarchate. Ukraine reports further land gains in the south and east. All developments in the live blog.
10:23 a.m
Wollseifer: The wave of bankruptcies is rolling towards crafts
Fear of a wave of bankruptcies is rampant in German SMEs. The high energy prices, the supply chain problems and the shortage of skilled workers are worrying many entrepreneurs. “Every day we receive emergency calls from companies that are about to stop their production because they can no longer pay the enormously increased energy bills,” complains Hans Peter Wollseifer, President of the Central Association of Crafts. “Because of the energy crisis, an insolvency wave is rolling towards the trade.”
10:20 a.m
Latvia’s Orthodox Church breaks away from Moscow Patriarchate
Latvia’s parliament has decided in an emergency to completely separate the country’s Orthodox Church from the Moscow Patriarchate. According to local media reports, 73 MPs voted in favor of a corresponding legislative initiative by President Egils Levits – three spoke out against it and one MP abstained.
Levits thanked Parliament for “supporting the autocephaly (independence) of the Latvian Orthodox Church”. Any influence of the Patriarch of Moscow on the religious community is now legally excluded, he wrote on Twitter.
10:14 a.m
Hungary against price cap on Russian gas
Hungary has spoken out clearly against a price cap on Russian gas. This is against European and Hungarian interests, the Eastern European country’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said in a Facebook video ahead of the special meeting of EU energy ministers on skyrocketing energy prices. A price cap would lead to an immediate halt to Russian energy supplies. Hungary is particularly dependent on Russian oil and gas supplies.
10:07 a.m
Lindner appeals to EU countries to support price caps for Russian gas
Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) has called on the EU countries to support a price cap for Russian oil. “We want to avoid revenue for Russia and maintain the price level for our economies,” said Lindner on the sidelines of an informal meeting with his EU colleagues in Prague. He referred to the example of the seven important industrialized countries (G7).
09:58 am
Ukraine reports land gains in south and east
In the course of its counter-offensive, the Ukraine reports further territorial gains in the south and east. The Ukrainian military said Russian troops were trying to remove injured soldiers and damaged military equipment near the eastern city of Kharkiv. This is happening in the villages of Wilchuvatka southwest and Borodoyarkse southeast of Kharkiv.
Shaded in white: advance of the Russian army. Shaded in green: Russian-backed separatist areas. Crimea: annexed by Russia.
Image: ISW/08.09.2022
In the evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video speech that the Ukrainian armed forces had “liberated dozens of towns” and recaptured an area of more than 1,000 square kilometers in the east and south since September 1. The Russian side partially contradicted this. The information could not be independently verified.
Should the Ukrainian gains in territory be correct and, above all, be maintained, it would be a heavy blow for the Russian military. However, according to earlier reports, Russian troops occupied around 125,000 square kilometers in Ukraine. That is one-fifth of the country’s territory, including the Crimean Peninsula.
conflicting parties as a source
Information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body in the current situation.
9:40 a.m
Gas trader VNG applies for state aid
After the Uniper Group, the East German gas importer VNG now also needs help from the state due to the rapid rise in energy prices. “In order to avert further damage from VNG and to ensure the ability of the VNG Group to act as a whole,” the company felt compelled to submit a corresponding application, the utility announced today.
9:33 a.m
Lindner: Fighting inflation must be a priority
Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) said in Prague that combating high inflation must now have top priority. Fiscal policy, which was extremely loose with record debt for years during the corona pandemic, must switch to a neutral mode.
Before the meeting of EU finance ministers, Lindner added that he would promote the price cap on Russian oil proposed by the seven leading industrialized nations (G7) throughout Europe.
7:14 a.m
Morawiecki travels to Kyiv
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is traveling to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv today. There will be a series of meetings, his government spokesman Piotr Muller tells Polsat. Important issues related to the geopolitical situation would be discussed, including energy and military security.
06:37 a.m
Lower Saxony’s Economics Minister warns of problems in supply chains
Lower Saxony’s Economics Minister Bernd Althusmann has warned of serious problems if supply chains are broken. “The chemical industry in Germany complains, for example, that there is a lack of enriched hydrochloric acid, which automotive suppliers or municipal utilities need,” says the CDU politician in an interview with the Reuters news agency. “Some energy suppliers are already announcing that they will have to cut back on supplies in a few weeks if they don’t get enough enriched hydrochloric acid.”
Althusmann also warned of problems in the auto industry. “The automotive supplier Hanomag in Hanover is both a gas and electricity-intensive company. If its production of chassis parts or gears for cars comes to a halt, almost the entire German automotive industry comes to a standstill within a week,” he warns. Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck underestimated the drama of the situation.
06:03 a.m
Esken against continued operation of German nuclear power plants
The Federal Chairwoman of the SPD, Saskia Esken, clearly rejects the FDP’s call for the three German nuclear power plants that are still in production to continue operating until 2024. “There will be no extension of the terms with the procurement of new fuel rods,” Esken told the “Handelsblatt” according to the preliminary report.
3:14 a.m
Ukraine wants war reparations from Russia
Ukraine is seeking an international deal to receive more than $300 billion in war reparations from Russia. “We want compensation for all the damage that Russia has caused in Ukraine through its war of aggression,” Ukrainian Justice Minister Denys Maliuska demanded, according to a preliminary report by the Funke media group. To do this, Ukraine also needs access to the reserves of the Russian central bank of around 300 billion dollars, which are already frozen in the G-7 countries.