Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba will have the opportunity on Monday to express directly, during a meeting of his EU counterparts in Luxembourg, Kiev’s concern about the quarrels that are hampering the implementation implementation of a project to acquire more ammunition to help Ukraine in the face of the Russian offensive.
Russian authorities said Monday they repelled a surface drone raid on the port of Sevastopol in annexed Crimea, headquarters of the Black Sea fleet, without causing any casualties or damage.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia will summon Chinese ambassadors to their respective capitals on Monday after remarks by the Chinese ambassador to France questioning “the status of sovereign country” of the territories of the former USSR.
Sevastopol targeted by attack, says Russia
“An attempted attack on Sevastopol was repelled from 3:30 a.m.,” Russian-appointed Governor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvojayev said on Telegram. “A surface drone (naval) was destroyed by the anti-sabotage forces, the second (drone) exploded on its own,” he added, adding that the attack had been repelled in a roadstead outside. outside the port and that “no infrastructure” had been damaged.
Naval surface drones are craft that operate on the surface of the water, without a crew. “Currently, everything is calm in the city. But all forces and services are in combat readiness,” Mikhail Razvojayev added.
Sevastopol is the home port of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Since the launch of the offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, has repeatedly been the target of aerial and naval drone attacks.
Ammunition: Ukraine still calls for the implementation of the EU agreement
The head of the Ukrainian diplomacy expressed last week, via Twitter, his frustration that the unprecedented agreement reached by the member countries of the EU to jointly buy ammunition in order to supply it to Ukraine has not not yet implemented, due to differences within the block on the volume of production to be carried out in Europe. For Ukraine, “the cost of inaction is measured in human lives,” wrote Dmytro Kuleba on the social network.
EU diplomats have said they expect the Ukrainian minister to raise the issue directly when he speaks by videoconference during a regular meeting of his EU counterparts in Luxembourg. Approved last month by EU foreign ministers, the munitions deal has several strands, one of which sets up a billion-euro budget to reimburse European governments delivering to the Ukraine of the ammunition they have, while another allocates one billion euros for the joint purchase of new ammunition.
Europe’s military spending at an all-time high
Military spending in Europe will rise again in 2022 to its level at the end of the Cold War, with a record increase for more than three decades boosted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a benchmark report published on Monday. Across continents, military spending hit a new high of $2.24 trillion last year, or 2.2% of global GDP, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). .
“They are pulled by the war in Ukraine, which is pushing up European budgets, but also by the unresolved and growing tensions in East Asia” between China on the one hand and, on the other, the United States and their Asian allies, underlines to AFP the researcher Nan Tian, one of the co-authors of the study.
Ukraine alone increased its spending sevenfold, which jumped to $44 billion – a third of its GDP. And this without counting several tens of billions of armament donations from abroad, specifies the Sipri. Russian spending has increased by 9.2%, according to his estimates.
Chinese ambassador to France’s comments on Crimea spark outcry in Europe
“Parrot” of “Russian propaganda”: the controversial remarks of the Chinese ambassador to France who, questioned about the Ukrainian province of Crimea, annexed since 2014 by Moscow, denied the sovereignty of the former Soviet republics, provoked a lifting of shields among the States concerned.
“It is strange to hear an absurd version of the history of Crimea from a representative of a scrupulous country about its thousand-year-old history,” Mykhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, tweeted. “All the countries of the former USSR have a clear sovereign status enshrined in international law,” he continued, before ironically: “If you want to be a major political player, don’t repeat like a parrot Russian propaganda.”
Asked Friday evening on the French channel LCI, the Chinese ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, had indicated about Crimea, occupied by Moscow since 2014: “It depends on how we perceive this problem. There is History. Crimea was originally Russia’s. It was Khrushchev who gave Crimea to Ukraine in the days of the Soviet Union.” He continued his argument, believing that the countries of the former USSR “do not have effective status in international law because there is no international agreement to concretize their status as sovereign countries”.
In response, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia will summon Chinese ambassadors to their respective capitals on Monday. For its part, China assured Monday to respect the “sovereign state status” of the countries of the former USSR.
No visas for Russian journalists accompanying Lavrov to the UN
Moscow “will not forgive” the United States for refusing to issue visas to Russian journalists accompanying the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergey Lavrov, Monday and Tuesday at the UN, said Sunday the minister before his departure for New York. “We will not forget, we will not forgive,” Sergei Lavrov warned the press, denouncing a “cowardly” decision by Washington. Russia holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council this month, in the midst of a military offensive in Ukraine for which it has been banned from world nations.
“A country that calls itself the smartest, the strongest, the freest, the fairest has chickened out and even done something stupid,” Sergei Lavrov lamented, ironically that the United States, by refusing to give visas to Russian journalists, had shown, according to him, “what (their) statements on freedom of expression are worth”.
Asked by AFP, the US State Department said it routinely issues visas to Russian delegates for UN events but pointed to restrictions on US embassy staff in Moscow, reduced to a trickle since the start of the military offensive in Ukraine.
Medvedev threatens G7 to end grain deal
Former Russian President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday threatened to end the deal on grain exports from Black Sea ports if the G7 decided to drastically restrict its exports to Russia. Japan’s Kyodo news agency, citing Japanese government sources, reported this week that G7 countries are considering a near-total ban on exports to Russia.
Moscow has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the grain agreement concluded under the aegis of the United Nations and Turkey in July 2022, five months after the start of the war in Ukraine, and which is due to expire on May 18. The Russian government is calling on Westerners to lift their restrictions on fertilizer sales.
