In the conflict surrounding US basketball player Brittney Griner, who is currently in Russian captivity, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that he would like to telephone Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.
The United States says it has made an offer to Russia to secure the release of Griner and US citizen Paul Whelan.
“In the coming days, I expect to speak to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov for the first time since the war began,” Blinken said at a press conference in Washington on Wednesday. “The Americans Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner must be released and allowed to come home. We put a substantive proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate release,” said Blinken. He gave no details of the offer. (dpa)
According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Moscow, the Russian economy (GDP) shrank by four percent in the second quarter compared to the same period last year. In the first quarter, it had grown by 3.5 percent. In June, the decline accelerated to minus 4.9 percent compared to the previous year after minus 4.3 percent in May. (Reuters)
Orthodox Moscow Patriarch Cyril I has been banned from entering Lithuania for five years because of his support for Russia’s war against Ukraine. On the initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vilnius, the Lithuanian Ministry of the Interior put the Russian church leader on the list of people who are undesirable in the country until June 23, 2027, the EU state media reported on Wednesday. Cyril I denied the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine and supported Russia’s illegal aggression against the neighboring country, the Interior Ministry justified its decision.
The Russian Orthodox Church sharply criticized the entry ban. The Lithuanian government is disregarding the rights of its own Christian Orthodox citizens, a spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate said, according to the Interfax news agency. He spoke of a “abandonment of the ideas of religious freedom and the European legal tradition”. (KNA)
The head of the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region has called on Russia to seize most of Ukraine. “Today is the time to liberate Russian cities founded by Russians: Kyiv, Chernihiv, Poltava, Odessa, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Lutsk,” wrote separatist leader Denis Puschilin on Wednesday in the online service Telegram on the anniversary of the liberation of the Belarusian ones City of Brest by the Nazis.
The cities identified by Pushilin as “Russian” cover almost the entire territory of Ukraine. Russia has captured much of southern and eastern Ukraine since late February, but failed in its attack on the capital, Kyiv. (AFP)
A shortage of seafarers could jeopardize the resumption of grain exports from Ukraine. It may be difficult to find enough crew for ships tied up in Ukrainian ports, says the managing director of Danica, a company specializing in providing ship crews. “The main concern at the moment is the safety of the teams.” About 80 ships with 450 sailors are currently stuck in Ukraine. At the beginning of the war at the end of February, around 2,000 seamen were initially stranded. (Reuters)
Russia is one of the last colonial powers.
The federal government has apparently approved the sale of 100 modern self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine. This is reported by the “Spiegel”. As early as July 13, the responsible Federal Ministry of Economics is said to have granted the German armaments manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) a manufacturing license for the “Panzerhaubitze2000” type systems
As early as April, Ukraine is said to have asked the armaments manufacturer whether the howitzers could be purchased directly from the manufacturer. As a result, KMW submitted a corresponding offer on April 11 and received approval for it two days later.
The budget for the 100 self-propelled howitzers is estimated at 1.7 billion euros. This volume would exceed the previous arms deliveries worth around 600 million euros many times over.
At KMW, production of the weapon systems is to begin immediately. It is still unclear when the first howitzers will go to Ukraine. The production of all howitzers is likely to last for several years.
