Dhe President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, believes that warnings of unrest in the fall due to high energy prices are exaggerated. “I do not expect protests that are more violent than at the height of the demonstrations against the state corona measures,” said Haldenwang of the “picture on sunday“. The chief intelligence officer contradicted Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) and the Thuringian intelligence chief Stephan Kramer, who had warned of an escalation.
“We currently have no signs of violent mass riots,” said Haldenwang, referring to the demonstrations that had been announced. Nevertheless, the security authorities are prepared for all conceivable scenarios. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution looks closely to see whether the legitimate protest against the high energy prices is being hijacked by enemies of democracy, emphasized Haldenwang.
The head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution ruled out that left-wing and right-wing extremists would do things together in the energy crisis. “The right-wing extremist scene can only dream of such a transverse front, in which the camps join forces,” he told BamS. “For left-wing extremists, cooperation is out of the question because they see right-wing extremists as fascists.”
Haldenwang emphasized that right-wing extremism is the greatest threat to security and democracy in Germany. In no other area of extremism have there been so many deadly acts of violence since 1990. “What particularly worries me: right-wing extremists are trying to connect with the middle-class,” said Haldenwang. “The fact that normal citizens demonstrate with extremists is a phenomenon that we have seen since the protests in Chemnitz in 2018.”
As with the Corona protests, right-wing extremists are now trying to hijack the protests against high energy prices. It is almost their business model to abuse crises for their own purposes. “They look where it is fermenting and sit on it. The content behind the protests seems to be of secondary importance. The main thing is to get people out on the street and emotionalize the whole thing with populist terms like Anger Citizens or Anger Winter,” said Haldenwang.
All developments in the live ticker:
15:45 – Ukraine receives hundreds of bodies of killed soldiers from Russia
According to Ukraine, it has already received hundreds of the bodies of fallen soldiers from its own ranks from Russia. The Ukrainian Missing Persons Commissioner Oleh Kotenko named the number 541 in a statement published on a government portal on Sunday. It was possible to contact the Russian side via the International Committee of the Red Cross. “Negotiations with the aggressor are difficult,” he wrote. 428 bodies alone were taken from the long-fought city of Mariupol in the east of the country.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged the bodies of dead soldiers on several occasions. Numbers of how many dead were transferred to the Russian side were not given.
1:40 p.m. – No increased radiation measured at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant
After the shelling of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which was occupied by Moscow’s troops, no increased radioactive radiation was detected, according to Russia and Ukraine. The radiation situation remains normal, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Sunday in Moscow. The Ukrainian state operator Enerhoatom made a similar statement.
Both sides accuse each other of shelling the nuclear power plant. Russia also announced at noon that there had been two artillery attacks in the past 24 hours. A grenade hit near Block 6, others at a pumping station that provides cooling. This information could not be verified.
After the nuclear power plant was temporarily disconnected from the Ukrainian power grid after an emergency shutdown on Thursday, two blocks are back on the grid, according to Enerhoatom. The nuclear power plant was captured by Moscow’s troops in early March, shortly after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It has been shot at repeatedly for several weeks. Concern about a nuclear catastrophe is growing internationally.
12:25 p.m. – Millions of tons of grain shipped from Ukraine via the Danube
According to Ukraine, more and more grain is being shipped via the Danube. On Saturday alone, eleven ships were heading towards the Ukrainian Danube ports of Izmail, Reni and Ust-Dunaisk – more than at any time since the war began six months ago, the Infrastructure Ministry said on Sunday. They have therefore loaded a total of 45,000 tons. According to the ministry, more than four million tons of grain have been shipped out of the country via the Ukrainian Danube ports since March.
After the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine, the Black Sea ports of the attacked country and thus important export routes were initially blocked for months. On July 22, Ukraine and Russia, brokered by the UN, each separately signed an agreement with Turkey to allow exports from Ukraine from three ports. It is estimated that more than 20 million tons of grain products are stored in Ukraine.
The coordination center established in Istanbul with the grain deal at the end of July announced at the weekend that a million tons of grain and other foodstuffs had been exported via the Black Sea route to date. A total of 103 ships have set sail, 46 from Ukrainian ports and 57 towards Ukraine.
11:00 a.m. – British experts say that Russian combat power will hardly be increased by army replenishment
Great Britain doubts that the announced increase in the Russian army by almost 140,000 troops will increase the effectiveness of the troops in the war against Ukraine.
“In any case, under the current legislation, the order is unlikely to bring any significant progress in strengthening Russia’s combat capability in Ukraine,” the Ministry of Defense said in London on Sunday. “That’s because Russia has lost tens of thousands of soldiers,” it said, citing intelligence findings. In addition, very few new contract soldiers are currently being hired and conscripts are not required to serve outside Russian territory.
On August 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree ordering an increase in the coming year by 137,000 soldiers to around 1.15 million. “It remains unclear whether Russia will attempt to meet this increase by recruiting more contract volunteers or by raising annual targets for conscripts,” a London spokesman said.
5:00 a.m. – Ukrainian Ambassador Melnyk unloads Michael Kretschmer
The outgoing Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, has withdrawn an invitation from the CDU politician to his homeland because of statements made by Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer about the Ukraine war. “With your absurd rhetoric about freezing the war, you are playing into Putin’s hands and fueling Russia’s aggression,” Melnyk wrote on Twitter early on Sunday. Therefore, his invitation to Kretschmer to visit Ukraine was “cancelled”.
“You are not wanted. Period,” added the ambassador. Melnyk was reacting to statements made by the Saxon head of government in the ZDF program “Markus Lanz” on Wednesday. In it, Kretschmer said it was important “to stand up for the fact that this war has to be frozen, that we need a ceasefire, that we need negotiations to end this war”. However, he experiences this “very little in the public debate”. more on the subject
4:38 a.m.: NATO wants to show more presence in the Arctic because of Russia
In view of possible new threats from Russia, NATO wants to become more active in the Arctic in the future. “NATO must increase its presence in the Arctic,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Welt am Sonntag. The defense alliance is “already investing in maritime reconnaissance aircraft to get a clear picture of what’s going on in the far north. But we will continue to step up our efforts.”
According to Stoltenberg, Russia has recently intensified its activities in the resource-rich region. “We are seeing a significant increase in Russia’s military presence in the Arctic,” said the NATO chief. Moscow is “in the process of reopening Soviet-era bases and deploying and testing new, state-of-the-art weapons such as hypersonic missiles there.” China is also showing increasing interest in the Arctic.
From Stoltenberg’s point of view, the Arctic is of “great strategic importance” for NATO. The North Pole region is “the crucial connection between North America and Europe” and at the same time forms “the shortest distance between North America and Russia”. In addition, the Arctic is becoming increasingly important for shipping as a result of global warming and melting ice.
3 a.m.: Baerbock assures Ukraine of years of support if necessary
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) has promised Ukraine years of support in the war against Russia if necessary. “Unfortunately, we have to assume that Ukraine will still need new heavy weapons from its friends next summer,” said Baerbock of “Bild am Sonntag”. “Ukraine also defends our freedom, our peaceful order. And we support them financially and militarily – for as long as it is necessary. Period.” The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has now been going on for more than half a year.
Baerbock expressed the expectation that the war “could last for years”. Russian President Vladimir Putin had a “delusional idea” that he could take Ukraine within a very short time. However, this project did not work out. The foreign minister also defended Ukraine’s claim to the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea annexed from Russia. “Crimea is also part of Ukraine. The world never recognized the illegal annexation of 2014.”
Baerbock warned against talking about war fatigue in Germany in view of the months of fighting. “Of course everyone is now feeling the consequences of Putin’s energy war on their own wallets. The social division of Europe is part of Putin’s warfare. We must prevent this. It will be a rocky road, but it is part of our political responsibility to cushion the social imbalances resulting from high energy prices.”