Ukraine live blog: ++ Berlin appoints North Korean diplomat ++

liveblog

As of: October 23, 2024 1:46 p.m

The Foreign Office in Berlin has summoned a North Korean diplomat. According to the Air Force, Ukrainian air defense shot down 57 Russian drones over twelve regions of the country. The developments in the live blog.

1:46 p.m

The EU is urging participants at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, to call on President Vladimir Putin to end the war against Ukraine. It is trusted that “all participants in the summit” – more than 20 heads of state and government – will address Putin accordingly, says an EU spokesman. The government in Moscow has not yet issued a statement.

Among those taking part in the summit are China’s head of state Xi Jinping, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Massoud Peseschkian. There is an arrest warrant against Putin from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in connection with the war against Ukraine.

1:01 p.m

After the violent death of two Ukrainian soldiers in Murnau, Upper Bavaria, the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office has filed murder charges against a Russian. The 57-year-old is said to have killed the two men, who were operated on in the Murnau accident clinic after war injuries, in April of this year. This is said to have been preceded by a dispute over the situation in Ukraine.

“As a supporter of exaggerated Russian nationalism, he fully supports the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine,” said the public prosecutor’s office in announcing the charges against the 57-year-old. The defendant is said to have felt “his national pride hurt” by the argument.

12:27 p.m

According to the US, North Korean soldiers are in Russia. There is evidence of this, says US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, according to the Reuters news agency. What exactly they were doing is still unclear. “We still have to find out.”

South Korean lawmakers had previously said that North Korea had sent 3,000 soldiers to Russia, citing their country’s intelligence service. Previously there was talk of 1,500. In total, about 10,000 soldiers from North Korea were to be sent to Russia, probably by December.

12:15 p.m

Along with countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands, Germany is one of the project’s most important financial supporters. Fiala described the cooperation between the donor countries as trusting. Fiala also expects a continuous stream of deliveries for next year, without giving a specific schedule.

So far, 15 EU and NATO countries have pledged around 1.6 billion euros for the project to buy up to 800,000 rounds of ammunition from third countries. Others contribute in kind, such as help with transport. Details about the origin of the armament material are kept strictly secret.

11:58 a.m

SPD leader Saskia Esken has reiterated the need for the planned stationing of US medium-range missiles in Germany. It serves as a deterrent, wrote Esken in a guest article for the t-online portal.

“If Putin attacks us or our allies, he must expect a counterattack.” Esken wrote that she could well understand that many people are worried about the war in Ukraine and also about the announced stationing of US missiles in Germany. She emphasized: “The aggressor is in Moscow.”

Only Russian President Putin can end the war, “but he is not prepared to give up his war goal of subjugating Ukraine and expanding his national territory.” Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and the federal government nevertheless made “constant and repeated efforts” to hold talks with Russia and other countries on a possible negotiated solution.

11:10 a.m

The Foreign Office has summoned a North Korean diplomat. “If the reports about North Korean soldiers in Ukraine are true and North Korea supports the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine with troops, this would be serious and a violation of international law,” the Foreign Office said on X.

Supporting the Russian war of aggression would also threaten Germany’s security and the peace order in Europe, the Foreign Office said. A North Korean so-called chargé d’affaires was summoned. After ambassadors and envoys, these are diplomats of the third highest rank.

11:02 a.m

According to South Korean lawmakers, North Korea has already sent 3,000 soldiers to Russia, presumably to be used in its war against Ukraine. The MPs spoke to the press after being briefed by South Korean intelligence.

Accordingly, around 10,000 soldiers are expected to be in Russia in December. North Korea and Russia agreed on this. The soldiers should be trained to operate drones, it was said.

10:32 am

Russia and Belarus are deepening military cooperation to maintain their sovereignty, according to Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin. The military commanders of both countries have begun preparing further joint exercises to take place next year.

Belarus is a close ally of its neighbor Russia and also borders Ukraine as well as the NATO and EU countries Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. When the large-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Belarus served as a staging area for the Russian military. Belarus has also massed troops on the border with Ukraine.

10:13 am

According to Russian Defense Minister Andrei Beloussov, the increasing involvement of Western countries in the conflict in Ukraine could lead to a direct confrontation between the nuclear powers. Your interference increases the risk of this, says Beloussov, according to the Russian news agency RIA.

9:27 a.m

Russia welcomes the peace initiative on Ukraine put forward by China and Brazil, which was discussed at bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the BRICS Forum in Kazan. This was reported by the Interfax news agency with reference to Yuri Ushakov, a high-ranking Kremlin adviser.

Putin yesterday hosted a dinner for the heads of state who came to Russia for the meeting and held one-on-one talks with a number of them, Ushakov said. Like host Russia, China and Brazil are founding states of the Brics Group. According to the peace initiative, the conflict area should not be expanded. Ukraine and Russia are to take part in a peace conference and all plans for peace are to be discussed.

8:30 a.m

According to the Air Force, Ukrainian air defense shot down 57 Russian drones over twelve regions of the country. According to the Air Force, Russian forces shot down 81 drones and attacked the southern Odessa region with a missile.

Conflict parties as a source

In the current situation, information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian parties to the conflict cannot be directly verified by an independent body.

8:30 a.m

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has arrived in Kazan, Russia, for the summit of the so-called BRICS group. The local authorities announced this on the Telegram online service. The Kremlin had announced that Guterres would also be received by Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit – it would be the first meeting between the two since April 2022.

Against the backdrop of growing international concern over conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, Guterres wants to meet a “large number” of high-ranking participants at the summit, according to the UN. The UN Secretary General’s last meeting with Putin took place just a few weeks after the start of the Russian military offensive against Ukraine. At that time, Putin assured Guterres that he believed in a “positive” outcome to the negotiations with Ukraine.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arrives at Kazan airport to attend the BRICS summit.

Since then, Moscow and Kiev have not held official negotiations and their positions currently appear irreconcilable. In Kazan, Guterres will “reaffirm his well-known positions on the war in Ukraine and on the conditions for a just peace based on the Charter and resolutions of the United Nations and international law,” emphasized his deputy spokesman, Farhan Haq. Guterres sees himself as a mediator in the conflict. In February he said that the annexation of Ukrainian territories had “no place in the modern world.”

6:33 a.m

Russia says it destroyed 14 Ukrainian drones overnight. The Russian Defense Ministry said ten of them were shot down over the Crimean peninsula. In addition, four unmanned boats traveling towards Crimea were intercepted in the Black Sea.

06:00 am

Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner is proposing a new legal status for refugees from Ukraine in order to reduce the costs of citizen’s benefit and bring more benefit recipients into the labor market. “We should consider a separate legal status for refugees from Ukraine,” he told the magazine “WirtschaftsWoche” according to the preliminary report. He has in mind a combination “of benefits for asylum seekers in conjunction with the labor market policy instruments of citizens’ benefit.”

This means that asylum seekers would still not have to go through the asylum procedure, but would not automatically receive citizen’s benefit, “which is aimed at a socio-economic subsistence level with social participation even without work.” In addition, the Finance Minister wants to fundamentally reorient citizens’ money. “When it comes to citizens’ money, I am in favor of flat-rate accommodation costs. Including additional costs,” Lindner told the newspaper. “The benefit recipients can then decide whether they want to move into a smaller apartment and how they heat it. I believe that we can save billions of euros here.”

9:13 a.m

According to UN figures, the Ukrainian population has fallen by eight million since the start of the Russian war of aggression. From the perspective of former NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, military support for Ukraine is the best path to peace.