Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podoliak sees an increased risk of the use of Russian nuclear weapons. Furthermore, 48 countries protested against Russia at the Unesco conference. All voices and developments on the Ukraine war in the ticker.
02:32: At the end of a UNESCO conference in Mexico City, the representatives of 48 countries protested against Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. Dozens of delegates temporarily left the hall on Friday (local time) when the Russian representative spoke up. Representatives from around 120 countries took part in the three-day Mondiacult conference organized by the UN organization for education, science and culture.
In a joint statement, delegates from the European Union, Canada, the United States, Japan and other countries first called on Russia to withdraw from Ukraine. They also denounced the vandalism and looting of cultural sites in Ukraine. Such statements are unacceptable, the Russian representative, Sergey Obryvalin, replied.
A good seven months after the start of the Russian invasion, Moscow annexed four areas in eastern and southern Ukraine. Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin signed the agreements on Friday that sealed the incorporation of the occupied regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Cherson.
Saturday, October 1st, 12:57 a.m.: The Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak sees a growing danger of nuclear weapons being used by Russia. “In view of the internal panic in the Russian Federation and increasing military defeats, the risk of using nuclear weapons is increasing,” Podoliak told the “Bild” newspaper.
However, it is not Ukraine that can and should stop Russia “in a nuclear frenzy.” “The problem of the possible use of nuclear weapons should be solved exclusively at the level of the member countries of the nuclear club and strictly within the framework of the nuclear deterrence doctrine,” Podoliak said. Russia must be aware of the responsibility and the possibility of “receiving an effective blow in response”.
Outgoing ambassador of Ukraine to Germany Andriy Melnyk told the newspaper that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats about the use of nuclear weapons must be taken seriously. The West should therefore show him “the apocalyptic consequences of this suicide step”. “It’s not too late to prevent this catastrophic scenario,” said Melnyk.
On Friday in Moscow, Putin signed agreements to annex four regions in Ukraine that are fully or partially controlled by Moscow. The regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Cherson and Zaporizhia are affected. Western governments have unanimously condemned this as a “land grab” contrary to international law, which was preceded by “sham referendums” forced by Moscow in the areas.
With the annexation, the Russian leadership made it clear that it would consider future attacks on these regions as attacks on Russian territory. In this case, the number two on the Russian Security Council, ex-President Dmitry Medvedev, threatened to use “strategic nuclear weapons”.
8:48 p.m.: Vladimir Putin today announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions. At the same time, activists left a message for him at the grave of his parents at the Serafimovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg. A page from a school diary was lying there. It read: “Dear parents. Your son is behaving horribly. He skips history class, fights with his neighbors at the table and threatens to blow up the entire school. Act!” The action was spread via Telegram in a channel called “Feminist Anti-War Resistance”.
6:12 p.m .: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has rejected the Russian annexation of four occupied Ukrainian territories as illegal and unlawful. “The NATO allies do not recognize any of these areas as part of Russia and will not do so in the future,” said the Norwegian in Brussels on Friday. All states are called upon to reject Russia’s blatant attempts to seize territory.
Stoltenberg was clear and described Putin’s move as “the most serious escalation since the beginning of the war”. It shows “that the war is not going according to plan for him”.
4:33 p.m .: In response to the Russian annexation of four occupied Ukrainian territories, the US imposes further sanctions on Russia. The punitive measures are aimed, among other things, at other Russian government officials, their family members and members of the military, as the US government announced on Friday in Washington.
3:01 p.m.: Then Putin ends his speech and signs the four decrees – together with the responsible governors. She and Putin then shook hands and shouted “Russia!” in unison.
2:59 p.m .: As a last point, Putin then adds: The West is responsible for the detonations of the Nord Stream pipelines. “They (the Anglo-Saxons) have resorted to sabotage. Strange but true. By organizing explosions on the Nord Stream international gas pipelines (…) they have effectively started destroying the common European energy infrastructure,” Putin said.
2:54 p.m .: Russia would refuse to accept standards set by the West. The West would allow people to change their gender, he cites as an example. “We will never want that in Russia,” said Putin.
2:52 p.m .: “Western countries will not get out of their economic crisis,” Putin continues. It is getting bigger and stronger due to the sanctions and the West will perish because of it. Again Putin says: “The West wants to destroy Russia.”
2:48 p.m .: The new form of American colonization is shown by the USA trying to keep other countries small. “Whenever the Americans don’t like something, they simply sanction the others,” Putin continues.
2:46 p.m .: The USA would continue to increase sanctions, and Europe would simply go along with it,” Putin continues to explain that the European countries are bowing to the USA. Only the USA would benefit from this, “that’s very clear.” Then he even says: ” The West lies like Goebbels”.
2:43 p.m.: Then Putin comes to discuss the attacks in Hiroshima, for which the United States should have been responsible. “To this day, the US occupies Japan, Korea and – even – Germany,” Putin claims.
2:39 p.m .: “The West’s anger stems from the fact that we didn’t allow them to continue robbing colonies,” said Putin.
2:37 p.m .: Western countries have always sought colonies and would expel all countries that do not participate. “Western elites think that their sins must be accepted by everyone,” says Putin and goes even further into the story, suddenly talking about the Middle Ages.
2:35 p.m .: “Russia is a great country and they treat us like idiots,” he continues and criticizes the West, which acts according to “double standards”. He doesn’t elaborate further.
2:34 p.m .: The United States would see Russia as a threat to its power, he says. “You don’t need Russia, we need Russia.”
2:32 p.m .: The West continues to oppose Russia “out of bad motivation”, Putin claims. The US would want other countries to surrender under them. American power is “aggressive and greedy for profit”. “They want power without restrictions”.
2:30 p.m.: He thanks the soldiers who “voluntarily” go to war after the announcement of partial mobilization. “I want to tell these people why they are fighting.” Then Putin says: “Because of the enemy, the West.”
2:30 p.m.: Then Putin says that Russia is ready to cease fire and return to the negotiating table.
2:29 p.m .: Russia will of course eliminate the destruction, build hospitals, schools and theaters, Putin continues. “We will heal these areas”. Putin stressed that the people of these regions are now “our citizens forever.”
2:26 p.m .: For Russia, you no longer need the history of the Soviet Union,” says Putin. “But there is something stronger – the will that people want to come back to us,” Putin continues. “People have made their decision. It has to Accept Kyiv”.
2:25 p.m .: “Our history carries the love for Russia,” says Putin and recalls the history of the Soviet Union.
2:23 p.m .: The Nazi regime in Kyiv would have attacked people, including Kyiv. That’s why people would want to belong to Russia, says Putin, to “good Russia”. Then Putin commemorates the soldiers who died in this battle. The politicians present rise.
2:22 p.m .: “The people voted, they voted directly,” said Putin. The four regions would be annexed to the Russian Federation, according to Putin, according to the people’s “free will,” Putin claims.
2:21 p.m .: Russian President Putin is already speaking earlier than announced.
12:22 p.m .: According to the Kremlin, Russia has yet to “clarify” the “exact borders” of two of the four Ukrainian regions that are to be formally annexed on Friday. The “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk would be recognized by Russia “within the 2014 borders,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow. Regarding the Cherson and Zaporizhia regions, “I still have to clarify that, I can’t answer this question at the moment,” Peskov added two hours before the official ceremony.
After the “referendums” in four Russian-controlled regions in Ukraine, Russian head of state Vladimir Putin wants to formally complete their annexation on Friday. At a ceremony in the Kremlin from 2:00 p.m. CEST, the agreements on the acceptance of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk and the southern Ukrainian regions of Zaporizhia and Cherson into the Russian Federation are to be signed. According to Peskov, Putin will make a long speech.
Friday, September 30, 6:24 a.m.: The destroyed gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea could have serious consequences for Germany’s security. This mine is Heiko Teggatz, head of the federal police union. Because important data cables that connect Europe with North America, for example, are now difficult to protect
“When I look at the personnel and technical condition of our Federal Police See, I get scared,” explains Heiko Teggatz to “Bild”. The federal police need at least four more ships to protect the infrastructure. According to Teggatz, the federal police need at least four more ships to protect the infrastructure.
That is why the federal government is investing more. “We have joined forces and ramped up protective measures,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser confirmed to “Bild”. She wants to “invest 20 billion euros in the protection of our networks and systems” because security is “not for free”.
Above all, the topic of cyber security is at the top of the agenda. In connection with the attack, the BSI (Federal Office for Information Security) assumes “that in principle all systems that supply the general public can be the target of attacks”.
Because of this fact, according to the “Bild” quote, Faeser wants to “create the necessary powers to avert danger for the security authorities.” Specifically, it is about fighting back an ongoing hacker attack and triggering a so-called “hack-back”.
11:35 p.m .: After the controversial “referendums” in four Russian-controlled areas in Ukraine, Russia wants to annex the regions on Friday. At a ceremony at noon in the Kremlin with President Vladimir Putin, the agreements on the admission of the regions are to be signed, as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced on Thursday. Putin will give a “comprehensive speech”. Kyiv, meanwhile, has been demanding more weapons from the West to continue its counter-offensive.
In the “referendums” in the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Cherson, which Western states criticized as bogus votes, overwhelming majorities are said to have spoken out in favor of the annexation, according to the separatists there.
The four regions form an important land corridor between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, annexed in 2014. Together with Crimea, they make up around 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory.
The separatist chiefs of the four regions have meanwhile arrived in Moscow to complete the annexation, according to Russian news agencies. On Wednesday they formally asked Putin to include the regions in the Russian Federation.
US President Joe Biden stressed that the US would “never, never, never” recognize Russia’s claims to Ukrainian sovereignty. The so-called referendum was “a fraud, an absolute fraud”. Other western governments made similar statements.
The West also warned Putin against using nuclear weapons. The Kremlin boss had previously indirectly threatened to defend the four regions with nuclear weapons if necessary.
Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) renewed her criticism of the “referendums”. People were “taken from their homes or their jobs” at gunpoint “to cast votes in glass ballot boxes,” she said in Berlin. “This is the opposite of free and fair elections.”
After the “referendums”, Kyiv had called for further western sanctions against Russia and more weapons. “Ukraine cannot and will not tolerate attempts by Russia to take any part of our land,” said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council for Friday.
About a month ago, Kyiv launched a counteroffensive in the east and south of the country. The advance of the Ukrainian troops prompted Moscow to quickly organize the so-called referendums and hastily mobilize hundreds of thousands of reservists. The recruitment campaign had prompted a number of Russians to leave the country. At the same time, Moscow continued to mobilize the reservists.
At a Russian Security Council video conference in Moscow on Thursday, Putin called for “correcting” “mistakes” in the partial mobilization. Fathers of families, the sick and the elderly should not be drafted, Putin stressed. Such mistakes should not be repeated.
The Ukrainian army on Thursday gained complete control of the city of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region in the north-east of the country, reporters from the AFP news agency reported. Kyiv had already recaptured a large part of the railway junction at the beginning of the month, and now Kiev’s armed forces are also pushing back the remaining Russian troops.
Alongside this, Ukrainian forces appear to be focused on recapturing Lyman, a key railway junction in the Donetsk region. The Ukrainian troops have not commented on this, but pro-Kremlin authorities in the region have acknowledged heavy fighting.
“The enemy regularly launches attempts to encircle the city,” senior Donetsk official Alexei Nikonorov said on Russian television. According to the US research center Institute for the Study of War, after recapturing Lyman, Ukraine could advance further in both Donetsk and Luhansk.
8:59 p.m .: A week after the start of partial mobilization for his war against Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized errors in the recruitment of reservists. “All mistakes must be corrected,” Putin said at a National Security Council meeting on Thursday. For days, reservists have been complaining that they were being drafted into military service despite fatal chronic illnesses, old age or other exclusion criteria.
There are many questions, mistakes should not be allowed, said Putin. Anyone who was mistakenly sent to the front must return home. This also applies to fathers of large families. The Kremlin chief called on the Prosecutor General’s Office to pursue violators of the mobilization.
Putin has also denounced the alleged sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines as an “act of international terrorism”. In a telephone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Putin expressed his opinion “about this unprecedented act of sabotage, which is in fact an act of international terrorism,” the Kremlin said on Thursday.
8:37 p.m.: After discovering several leaks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, NATO has stated that the military alliance would repel attacks on critical infrastructure. “NATO is committed to deterring and repelling hybrid attacks,” Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrote on Twitter. “Any deliberate attack on the allies’ critical infrastructure would be met with a joint and decisive response.” Stoltenberg also affirmed that the leaks were the result of sabotage.
7:31 p.m .: After seven months of war in Ukraine, the Russian arms manufacturer Kalashnikov is already talking about a 20-year “record” in sales of its legendary assault rifle. Sales of Kalashnikovs have increased by 40 percent, said the company’s president, Alan Luzhnikov, in the city of Izhevsk on Thursday. He gave no absolute sales figures for the most widely used weapon in the world.
Luzhnikov emphasized that the Russian Ministry of Defense gave priority to its own army. “Ensuring the country’s defense capability, especially under the current conditions, is the task that all departments of the company without exception are aimed at fulfilling.” Kalashnikovs are also used in the war in Ukraine.
According to Luschnikov, the increase in sales is also due to exports. Already in September it exceeded the total exports of the previous year. “Our production capacities are being used quite intensively this year,” he said. According to earlier reports, India will receive around 70,000 AK-103 Kalashnikovs. The Russian arms export group Rosoboronexport had announced that it was now selling more than 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles of various models abroad every year.
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