Enlarge image
Ukrainian tank in the Donetsk region (in August)
Photo: David Goldman/AP
What has happened in the past few hours
At the end of his
surprise visit to Kiev,
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke
positively about the Ukrainian
counter-offensive
.
"It's very early days, but we're seeing clear and real progress on the ground, especially in the Kherson area, but also some interesting developments in Donbass to the east," Blinken told reporters.
That says Kyiv
Previously, Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
had reported the recapture of more than a
thousand square kilometers of territory
since September 1st.
Selenskyj named this number in his evening video address on Thursday.
"Our heroes have already liberated dozens of settlements as part of ongoing defensive operations," he said - without giving any further details.
Earlier in the evening, the president confirmed the capture of the
district town of Balakliya
in the Kharkiv region.
He met his military leadership on Thursday in Kyiv for the second time since the beginning of September.
“Everything is as it should be.
The Ukrainian flag flies over a liberated Ukrainian city under the Ukrainian sky! « Zelenskyy wrote in online networks about a video that is supposed to show Ukrainian soldiers in Balakliya.
Russia had taken the city, which has an estimated population of 27,000, in early March.
In their counter-offensives after half a year of war, the Ukrainians are advancing in the Kharkiv region in the east and in the Cherson region in the south.
In early June, Zelenskyi said Russia occupied around 125,000 square kilometers of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula.
That is about a fifth of the Ukrainian territory.
According to its justice minister
, Denys Maliuska
,
Ukraine
wants to enforce
war reparations
from
Russia
of at least
300 billion US dollars
(about 300 billion euros).
At the UN General Assembly, Kyiv wants to achieve a resolution as the cornerstone for an international reparation mechanism, Maliuska told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
"We want compensation for all the damage that Russia caused in Ukraine through its war of aggression."
The damage Ukraine suffered from the Russian invasion is now estimated to be much higher.
But the sum of 300 billion US dollars mentioned corresponds to the balances of the Russian National Bank in the G7 countries, which were frozen as part of the sanctions.
Maliuska demanded access to it and to the foreign assets of Russian state-owned companies and confiscated the property of Russian oligarchs.
Germany should provide information on how much Russian wealth is parked here, the minister said.
At the same time, Germany should support the Ukrainian project in the UN General Assembly in New York.
Maliuska spoke to Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) in Berlin on Thursday.
International Reactions
The
US
has
imposed sanctions
on an
Iranian supplier
of
combat drones
to
Russia
.
The Treasury Department announced in Washington on Thursday that the Tehran-based company Safiran Airport Services has been placed on a US sanctions list.
Washington previously reported, citing intelligence information, that Russia was looking to buy unmanned drones from Iran for its war in Ukraine.
According to the US Treasury Department, the Safiran company coordinated Russian military flights between Iran and Russia, including those to the drones.
In late August, a US Department of Defense official said Russia had received the first of what it believed to be “hundreds” of drones;
that many of them are flawed.
The US Treasury Department has now also
imposed sanctions
on
three Iranian companies
that are said to be involved in the
development
and manufacture of drones.
They are also said to have ties to the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
In addition to freezing assets, the sanctions also stipulate that no more business may be done with the companies concerned.
Washington also warned companies from other countries against supporting Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine.
To further strengthen its army, Poland
plans
to procure a larger number of
US-made military helicopters .
Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak announced on Thursday that Warsaw has submitted a request to the US to purchase 96 Apache attack helicopters.
In addition to the helicopters, Poland will also receive a technology transfer, he wrote on Twitter.
He does not provide any further details.
According to a report by the Polish agency PAP, the first helicopters are to go to an army unit equipped with Abrams main battle tanks from the USA.
Together, the two weapon systems formed an "unstoppable force," said Blaszczak on the sidelines of a meeting of the so-called Ukraine contact group at the US military base in Ramstein, Rhineland-Palatinate.
The
US
has shown itself
open
to a
reshuffle
of the
UN Security Council
.
The background is a long-term partial blockade of the most powerful body of the United Nations - especially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"We should reach a consensus on sensible and credible proposals to expand membership of the Security Council," said US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Thursday in a keynote speech on the future of the United Nations in San Francisco.
The US wanted to "advance efforts to reform the UN Security Council."
What is happening today
The
finance ministers
of the
European Union
will discuss further
support
for
Ukraine
in Prague (from 8.30 a.m.).
The two-day informal meeting is about a new aid tranche of five billion euros.
EU Commission President
Ursula von der Leyen
promised the government in Kiev the loans on Wednesday.
On the fringes of the meeting of finance ministers, there should also be a so-called
excess
profit tax for
energy
companies, which benefit in particular from the massive rise in prices in the Ukraine war.
The traffic light coalition had agreed at the weekend to finance relief for consumers by skimming off such "chance profits".
At the same time as the finance ministers, the EU energy ministers are meeting in Brussels.
jok/Reuters/dpa