According to military expert Carlo Masala, the Ukraine war could last into next year. Ex-CIA chief David Petraeus is optimistic about Ukraine’s chances of success – but he still has his doubts. All voices and developments on the Ukraine war here in the ticker.
Because for Petraeus, a residual doubt remains – despite the defense that Ukraine has so far “mastered with flying colors”: “But they have not yet demonstrated the same competence in conducting offensive operations with combined arms, in which they use the actions of tanks, infantry, artillery, mortars, anti-aircraft artillery, engineers, electronic warfare, attack helicopters, close air support, and so on, as well as the myriad logistical support functions needed to maintain offensive forces.”
But here, too, the former CIA chief is optimistic: “I think that the Ukrainians have the expertise, motivation, determination and skills to pull this off, but the coming days will show if this is really the case .”
11:56 p.m .: The first Bundeswehr soldiers of a new brigade arrived in Lithuania on Sunday to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank. Around a hundred soldiers from Panzergrenadierbrigade 41 and military material arrived in Klaipeda on a ferry from Kiel. They should set up an advanced command post there in order to hold joint training and exercises in coordination with the Lithuanian armed forces, as the Bundeswehr announced in the short message service Twitter.
The Bundeswehr is thus making a contribution to the tactical planning of the joint alliance defense on NATO’s eastern flank, it said. The Bundeswehr is thus creating the conditions to be able to immediately relocate the parts of the brigade remaining in Germany to Lithuania if the threat situation intensifies.
As a reaction to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, NATO decided at its summit in Madrid at the end of June to strengthen the eastern flank. Germany held out the prospect of a multinational “combat brigade”. A brigade consists of around 4000 soldiers. It is now important “to show a visible presence in Lithuania for a year with a high degree of flexibility and resilience” and to coordinate the exercises with the requirements on site, Brigadier General Christian Nawrat said on Twitter.
Speaking to journalists in Klaipeda, he said the “message to our local allies on the eastern flank” was that Germany was committed to ensuring security there. According to a senior Bundeswehr representative, the first exercises could be held in October. Around 1,500 Bundeswehr soldiers are currently stationed in Lithuania. The new German-led brigade is to be set up in addition to the multinational NATO task force that Germany has been leading in Lithuania for more than five years.
NATO has increased its presence on the eastern flank in recent years, especially since the Ukrainian annexation of the Black Sea island of Crimea. In 2017, she began relocating soldiers to the Baltic States and Poland. After the start of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine at the end of February, NATO decided on four new so-called battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
4:14 p.m .: Ex-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused Germany of “hybrid warfare” against Russia and justified the Russian gas supply stop with Berlin’s “unfriendly” behavior in the Ukraine conflict. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has accused Russia of no longer being a reliable energy supplier, Medvedev wrote on Sunday in the Telegram online service. In fact, it is Germany that is “an unfriendly country,” has imposed sanctions “on the entire Russian economy,” and is supplying “deadly weapons” to Ukraine.
“In other words, Germany has declared a hybrid war on Russia. Germany is behaving like an enemy of Russia,” announced the ex-president and current deputy chairman of the Russian National Security Council. “And this uncle (Scholz) is surprised that the Germans encounter small problems with the gas!” he added ironically. The background to this is the continued suspension of gas deliveries by Nord Stream 1. Both Siemens Energy and the Federal Network Agency sharply reject the justifications for a delivery stop by the Russian operator Gazprom. He argues with maintenance work and an oil leak on the pipeline.
2:24 p.m .: After gas deliveries stopped via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, the Kremlin blamed the EU for this. “If the Europeans make an absolutely absurd decision to refuse to maintain their facilities, or rather, facilities owned by Gazprom, then it is not Gazprom’s fault, but the fault of the politicians who made sanctions decisions have,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on the state television program “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin,” the Interfax news agency reported on Sunday.
According to Peskov, the Europeans are contractually obliged to maintain the plant of the Russian energy giant Gazprom. Politicians are now making sure “that their citizens suffer strokes when they see their electricity bills,” said Peskow, referring to the rapidly rising energy prices. “Now that it’s getting colder, the situation will get worse.”
Gazprom announced on Friday evening that it would no longer route gas through the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline, citing a technical defect in the Portovaya compressor station. The group had previously justified a three-day delivery stop from Wednesday to Friday with maintenance work.
1:50 p.m .: Despite the severe tensions with the West, the Kremlin expects that relations will eventually return to normal. “Every confrontation ends with detente, and every crisis situation ends at the negotiating table,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on the state television program “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin,” the Interfax news agency reported on Sunday. “That will also be the case this time.” It is likely that it will not happen so quickly, but it will happen.
With the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24, the West imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow. Even before that, relations were heavily strained.
Russia is an advocate of international harmony based on mutual respect and benefit, Peskov said. Without naming it directly, he accused the United States of pursuing a kind of cowboy approach.
8:21 a.m .: Despite the stop in natural gas deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, the German gas storage facilities have reached a level of 85 percent earlier than expected. This emerges from data on the website of the European gas infrastructure companies on Saturday evening.
The federal government has a fixed plan for the filling levels of German gas storage facilities: 75 percent by September 1st, 85 percent by October 1st and 95 percent by November 1st. Filling the storage facility is considered a crucial element in ensuring that Germany can get through the winter without having to cut off gas.
Sunday, September 4, 8:08 a.m.: The BND has no indication that the Russian President could lose his power in the foreseeable future, said BND President Bruno Kahl of the newspaper “Welt”. And this despite the fact that, according to the BND, Putin actually assumed that the war would last only a few days and end with a regime change in Kyiv.
In the meantime, war has been raging in Ukraine for more than six months – with heavy losses on both sides. According to information from several Western secret services, up to 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and more than 50,000 injured. The Kremlin rarely publishes figures on fallen soldiers. The last official report was in March, at that time there was talk of 1351 dead.
10:02 p.m .: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj has accused Russia of an energy war and called for more unity in Europe. “Russia these days is trying to increase the energy pressure on Europe even more – the pumping of gas through the Nord Stream has completely stopped,” Zelenskyy said in his daily video message on Saturday evening. “Russia wants to destroy the normal life of every European – in all countries of our continent.”
It is about weakening and intimidating the states in Europe. In addition to tanks and missiles, Russia also uses energy as a weapon. This winter Russia is preparing the “decisive blow” in the energy sector. On the other hand, only greater cohesion would help, said Selenskyj. The Europeans should coordinate their countermeasures better and give each other more help. In addition, the pressure on Russia must be increased in order to limit the country’s oil and gas revenues.
4:57 p.m .: In view of the debate about rising consumer prices in Europe, Ukrainian First Lady Olena Selenska recalled the human costs of the war in her country. “While you start counting the pennies in your bank account or in your pocket, let’s do the same and count our victims,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s wife said in a BBC interview scheduled to air in full on Sunday .
The 44-year-old said that the stories of the people fleeing the war or even losing their lives and their faces should be known all over the world. “Not the number of bombs dropped or the sums spent, but human stories – and there are thousands of them.”
About her husband’s journey from actor to war president, Selenska said she was offended when people wondered about it. “He’s the same man I’ve always known.” Volodymyr Zelenskyj and his wife have known each other since they were students, have been married since 2003 and have two children together.
3:52 p.m .: The Russian war of aggression in Ukraine has been going on for more than six months. And according to military expert Carlo Masala, the fighting won’t end anytime soon. “The war won’t be over in six months,” the political scientist told Stern magazine. According to Masala, it will remain a war of position and attrition. What speak for a quick end of the war? “My optimistic answer: nothing.”
Russia would show no sign of backing down. Likewise, peace negotiations, which are also face-saving for Ukraine, are currently not in sight. In addition, according to Masala, neither party has the clout to inflict massive losses on the opponent.
With attacks on ammunition depots or the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia, the Ukrainians would “trigger chaos among the Russian troops”, but this would not be enough to turn the war in their favor, according to Masala. In October, he expects less fighting, the terrain will then be “hardly usable for either side because of rain and mud.” His prognosis: “The war will drag on into next year.”
2:15 p.m .: According to Economics Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, the EU is well prepared for a possible complete Russian gas supply stop. “We are well prepared to withstand Russia’s extreme use of gas as a weapon,” said the EU commissioner on the sidelines of an economic forum in the Italian town of Cernobbio on Lake Como. He referred to the increased storage of natural gas in the European Union and measures to save energy.
1:24 p.m .: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offers his country as a mediator in the dispute over the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. This was announced by the presidential office in Ankara after Erdogan had a telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The heads of state have also emphasized their determination that work on the nuclear power plant planned in Akkuya, Turkey, should continue.
According to an administrative representative recognized by Russia in the Zaporizhia region, Ukrainian units had fired on the nuclear power plant of the same name several times on Saturday night. An important power line was interrupted as a result, Vladimir Rogov explains. That’s why emergency power generators were activated. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said on his return from Zaporizhia on Friday evening that the plant of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant had been damaged several times by the fighting.
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