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Ukrainian units in the east of the country (on November 29)
Photo: Anatolii Stepanov / AFP
That says Kyiv
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomes the recognition of the deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainians 90 years ago as genocide.
“This is a decision for justice, for truth.
And it is a very important signal to many other countries in the world that Russian revanchism will not succeed in rewriting history," Zelenskyy said in his evening video message about the Bundestag's decision.
In November 1932, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin confiscated all grain and livestock from Ukrainian farms, including seeds.
Millions starved to death in the months that followed.
Ukraine on Saturday accused the Kremlin of relaunching Stalin's "genocidal" tactics.
Moscow denies that the so-called Holodomor was caused by deliberate genocide - Russians and other ethnic groups also suffered from the famine.
With a large majority, the deputies in Berlin had approved a joint motion by the traffic light coalition and the Union faction, which spoke of an "inhuman crime".
Moscow says so
Russia has launched a military satellite.
The satellite at the top of a Soyuz rocket took off from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the far north of Russia on Thursday night (local time), as reported by the Tass state agency.
"Cosmic devices" are on board in the interests of the Russian Ministry of Defense, it said.
Plesetsk is almost 800 kilometers north of Moscow.
International Reactions
The US government hopes Congress will soon approve billions more to help Ukraine.
National Security Council communications director John Kirby said the government is detailing to members of Congress what the money will be used for.
"What the final number will be depends on the members of Congress," he stressed.
However, the US government is firmly convinced that the requested sum is appropriate for the task.
The US administration has asked Congress for an additional $37.7 billion (€36.5 billion) in funding to help Ukraine fight aggressor Russia.
Kirby said more than half of the sum, about $21 billion, is earmarked for security, such as arms deliveries or stockpiling for the US military.
Large amounts are also earmarked for economic assistance to Ukraine and humanitarian aid.
The Vatican website was paralyzed by a suspected cyber attack on Wednesday.
"Technical investigations are underway into unusual attempts to access the website," Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.
The Ukrainian ambassador to the Vatican blamed Russia for the alleged attack.
Several Vatican websites were offline for several hours on Wednesday afternoon.
The official website vatican.va was still not available in the evening.
Ukrainian Vatican ambassador Andriy Yurasch attributed the incident to "Russian terrorists" after Pope Francis had previously criticized Russian ethnic minorities in the Ukraine war.
In an interview published on Monday, the pontiff said the "cruelest" in Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine may be those who "do not belong to the Russian tradition, like the Chechens, the Buryats and so on."
Russia was outraged by the Pope's statements.
"Russian hackers are once again showing the true face of Russian politics," Jurasch said on Twitter.
The alleged cyber attack was probably a "reaction to the last important statements" by the Pope.
economic consequences
The US defense company Raytheon Technologies has received a $1.2 billion contract from the US Department of Defense to build surface-to-air missile systems for Ukraine.
Corresponding information from an insider was confirmed by a document that the Reuters news agency was able to see.
There are therefore six Nasams weapon systems.
The US has authorized the deployment of a total of eight systems.
jok/dpa/Reuters
