Enlarge image
Ukrainian units in the Donetsk region (on September 7)
Photo:
AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS
What has happened in the past few hours
The power went out
in large parts of
eastern Ukraine
on Sunday evening
.
Kyiv blamed Russian attacks on infrastructure for the blackouts.
Ukraine had previously reported the recapture of other Russian-occupied areas in the east of the country.
According to the operating company, the last reactor in the occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant was disconnected from the power grid.
(Read more about the blackouts in Ukraine here.)
That says Kyiv
Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
thanked
his compatriots for defending their homeland
in view of the war that has now been going on for
200 days
.
“We have achieved a lot in these 200 days, but the most important and therefore the most difficult thing is still ahead of us,” said Zelenskyj in his video speech on Monday night.
Among other things, he thanked the Ukrainian ground forces, the air force, the naval forces - and everyone who was writing "the history of independence, the history of victory, the history of Ukraine" these days.
According to him, Ukrainian forces have recaptured the strategically important city of Izyum in the east of the country.
The army "liberated hundreds of our towns and villages," most recently the cities of Izyum, Balakliya, and Kupyansk, Zelensky said.
The
Russian army
surprisingly
announced on Saturday
the
withdrawal
of its
troops
from areas in eastern Ukraine, including the areas around Balakliya and Izyum.
According to the Russian account, the troops will be moved further south to reinforce Russian forces in the Donetsk region.
Military experts see a recapture of Izyum by Ukraine as a
serious setback
for the Russian army in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine had reported the recapture of at least 30 towns in the eastern Kharkiv region in the past few days.
According to this, the Ukrainian armed forces succeeded, among other things, in recapturing the eastern Ukrainian city of Kupjansk, which is important for the supply of Russian troops and was already occupied at the beginning of the Russian war of aggression.
Images released by the Ukrainian military showed boxes of ammunition abandoned by Russian troops and abandoned military vehicles.
Selenskyj himself describes the
counter-offensive
in the Kharkiv area as a
possible breakthrough
in the months-long war with Russia.
In the winter, the Ukrainian armed forces could gain further ground if Kyiv receives more powerful weapons, Zelenskyj says.
The Ukrainian army will continue to make progress.
"We will not stand still," he said in an interview with CNN, recorded on Friday.
economic consequences
According to a survey,
the
willingness
in
Germany to
refrain from
sanctions against Russia is still high.
53 percent of Germans state that they want to do without in order to bear the sanctions against Russia.
This is the result of a representative survey by the opinion research institute Civey on behalf of the newspaper "Augsburger Allgemeine".
On the other hand, 42 percent of those surveyed reject a fundamental waiver.
The rest are undecided.
Despite the uncertainties, according to the survey,
voters from the Greens
and
SPD in particular are willing to make sacrifices
.
In the Green camp, it is more than nine out of ten respondents.
The supporters of the Union are rather divided on this question.
Among sympathizers of the FDP, Linke and AfD, a majority speaks out against renunciation.
The
German industry association BDI
has called on the
federal government
not to tinker with the effects of the
energy crisis
, but to concentrate on its
cause
: the high gas and electricity prices.
“We can't manage to
offset this
avalanche of costs with all the taxpayers' money once the costs have already been incurred.
We must do everything to ensure that energy becomes cheaper again," said BDI President Siegfried Russwurm on Sunday in the ZDF "heute journal".
Energy prices are still subject to too many taxes and duties.
"Taking network costs away from energy prices - that also helps companies," he explained.
In addition, the supply of electricity must be increased.
To do this, all available electricity production sites would have to be used, he said, without however directly demanding more use of nuclear power.
"It is the greatest need in the German economy." It hits large companies as well as small, energy-intensive as well as less energy-intensive.
The companies have reserves.
But even companies with low energy consumption in a volume of, for example, two percent of their costs could not absorb an eightfold or ninefold increase.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
warns Americans about
rising gasoline prices this
winter.
This could happen if the European Union massively reduced its purchases of Russian oil, Yellen told CNN on Sunday.
There is a risk that prices will rise.
However, the West is working on a price cap for oil to solve the problem.
The seven leading industrial nations want a
price cap for Russian oil
introduce.
Russia is currently making high profits from the export of commodities such as oil.
The West wants to counteract this.
The group of western democracies - consisting of Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain, the USA, Canada and Japan - only want to allow services and financing related to Russian oil deliveries if a certain price level for the oil is not exceeded.
According to a newspaper report, Indonesia's President
Joko Widodo is considering
buying Russian oil
in view of rising energy costs.
“We're reviewing all options.
If there is a country that offers a better price, then of course it is,” Widodo told the Financial Times when asked whether Indonesia would get oil from Russia.
The
US
ambassador
to
Germany
,
Amy Gutmann
,
has called on the federal government to provide even
more support for
Ukraine's defense against Russia .
She very much welcomes and admires what the Germans are doing for Ukraine, Gutmann said on Sunday evening on the ZDF program "Berlin direkt".
"Nevertheless: My expectations of Germany are even higher." (You can find out more about this here.)
What is happening today
Russian citizens
no longer
benefit
from easier
visa issuance for trips to Germany
and other countries in the Schengen area.
The agreement concluded between the EU and Russia to facilitate the issuing of visas has now been completely suspended for Russian citizens following a decision by the EU states last week.
jok/Reuters/dpa