The decision is made: Germany will not send combat planes to Ukraine. In an interview published Sunday, January 29 by the newspaper Tagesspiegel, the German Chancellor again warns against the “risk of escalation” with Moscow. “There is no war between NATO and Russia. We will not allow such an escalation”, assures Olaf Scholz. If as soon as a decision (on the tanks) is taken, a new debate starts in Germany” on something else, “that is not serious and undermines the confidence of the citizens in the decisions of the government”, he added.
If the Chancellor declared himself opposed to the delivery of combat aircraft to Ukraine – “the question does not even arise, I can only advise against entering into a constant bidding war when it comes of weapons systems – several American and European officials have said in recent days that the question “is no longer a taboo”. After several weeks of hesitation, Berlin decided on Wednesday to send 14 German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and to allow other European countries to supply similar armor to kyiv.
China calls on US to stop arms shipments to kyiv
At a conference on Monday, January 30, China rejected Beijing’s accusations of collusion with Russia, issued a few days earlier by White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre. When responding to a question about Chinese companies suspected of sending non-lethal aid to Russia on January 24, she said that “the United States will continue to communicate to China the implications of material support to Russia”. To which the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Affairs replied on Monday that “China will never add fuel to the fire, let alone exploit the crisis”.
Chinese diplomacy in turn pointed the finger at the role of the United States in the conflict and called on the country to stop arms deliveries, saying that “the United States is at the origin of the Ukrainian crisis and is the main factor that feeds it”. “They continued to send heavy and assault weapons to Ukraine, which only prolonged and escalated the conflict,” the ministry said in a video post on Twitter. “If the United States wants the crisis to end soon […]they should stop sending weapons,” the Chinese diplomacy added.
A Franco-Australian agreement for the delivery of shells
France and Australia have signed an agreement to supply 155 mm shells to Ukraine, French army ministers Sébastien Lecornu and Australian Richard Marles announced on Monday. “Several thousand 155 mm shells will be produced jointly,” declared the French minister. Richard Marles spoke of a “multi-million Australian dollar project”, a “new cooperation between the Australian and French defense industries”.
Ukraine bans top officials from traveling
The Ukrainian government has banned its senior officials and all elected officials from going on vacation abroad during the time of the Russian invasion, amid recent scandals involving important leaders. Adopted on Friday, a government resolution to this effect “has already entered into force”, the spokesman for the Ukrainian border guards told AFP on Monday, explaining that “they can now only leave within the framework of a assignment”. Deputy Iryna Gerashchenko denounced on Facebook a “populist decision” having according to her “signs of discrimination against the thousands of Ukrainian women and their children”, while the country has 15,000 local elected women.
The resolution follows revelations that an assistant attorney general had recently gone on holiday to Marbella, a popular Spanish resort. A member of the presidential party, Mykola Tychchenko, was expelled on January 26 from the parliamentary group of the presidential party after a trip to Thailand. Finally, an influential media on Friday accused former Prime Minister Loulia Tymoshenko of spending a vacation in a luxury villa in the United Arab Emirates.
Ukraine denies Russian advances in the East
Ukraine denied on Monday that Russian troops were advancing, as Moscow claims, near the town of Vougledar, a new hot spot on the front in eastern Ukraine where fighting has intensified lately. The head of the Russian occupation of the Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, told Russian press agencies on Monday January 30 that “units have established themselves in the east of Vougledar and work is continuing in the surrounding area”. A spokesman for the Ukrainian army in this area told AFP that “the enemy did not register success and retreated” following the counter-offensives of Ukrainian artillery.
“A missile would take a minute”: when Johnson recounts Putin’s threats
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson recounts in a BBC documentary that Russian President Vladimir Putin “sort of threatened” him before the invasion of Ukraine, saying: “A missile would take one minute”. In this three-part documentary, the first episode of which airs on Monday evening on BBC Two, the former head of the British government recounts his “very long” and “extraordinary” call with the Russian president after his visit to kyiv in early February 2022 .
At that time, Vladimir Putin continued to maintain that he had no intention of invading his Ukrainian neighbor, despite the massive influx of Russian soldiers into the border regions. Boris Johnson, he says that he had warned the Russian president of the harsh sanctions that Westerners would take if he embarked on this path. “He said, ‘Boris, you’re saying Ukraine isn’t going to join NATO anytime soon. […] What do you mean by ‘not any time soon’?'”, says Boris Johnson. “Well she is not going to join NATO in the near future, you know that perfectly well”, continues the ex-leader British, early support from the Ukrainians.
NATO chief asks Seoul to ‘step up’ aid to Ukraine
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday (January 30th) asked South Korea to “intensify” its military aid to Ukraine, suggesting that it revise its policy of not supplying arms to countries. in war. “If we believe in freedom, in democracy, if we don’t want autocracies and totalitarianism to prevail, then they need weapons,” Jens Stoltenberg told the Chey Institute in Seoul.
He had met senior South Korean government officials the day before, including Foreign Minister Park Jin, as part of a tour to strengthen ties between NATO and its allies in Asia. South Korea is an increasingly important arms exporter worldwide and it recently signed contracts to sell several hundred tanks to European countries including Poland, a member of the Atlanticist organization.
The war in Ukraine will not turn into a conflict between Russia and NATO, says Scholz
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reaffirmed on Sunday that his country will not allow the war in Ukraine to turn into a conflict between Russia and NATO, after meeting with the Chilean president as part of his tour of Latin America. “We have contributed to ensuring that there is no escalation of the conflict, as this would have serious consequences for the whole world.
This would lead, for example, to a war between Russia and the NATO countries, this will not happen, we will prevent it with all our efforts, we have succeeded so far and we will continue to do so”, said the head of the German government “It’s about supporting Ukraine, it’s about having a serious debate to make the decisions that need to be made and it should not be a competition (to know) that sends the most weapons”, he argued. Olaf Scholz explained, in Santiago de Chile, that he and his American counterpart Joe Biden “(refuse) to send troops to Ukraine” in order to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
Russian shelling in Kherson and Kharkiv kills 4
Russian bombardments on Kherson, in southern Ukraine, killed at least three people on Sunday and injured six, denounced President Volodymyr Zelensky, while a Russian strike the same day in Kharkiv (east) killed one person , according to the governor of the region. “The Russian army brutally shelled Kherson all day… A hospital, a post office, a bus station were damaged. Two nurses were injured in the hospital. In total, six injured and three dead are reported,” said the Ukrainian president in his daily video message, broadcast in the evening.
The regional administration had reported earlier three dead and six injured. In Kharkiv, in the east of the country, the governor of the military administration of the region reported that a Russian strike hit Sunday “a four-storey residential building”.
Czech president-elect talks to Zelensky
Petr Pavel, who won the presidential election in the Czech Republic on Saturday, spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday and is planning an interview with the President of Taiwan on Monday, according to his team, thus distinguishing himself from the outgoing president. Petr Pavel, a former general and former head of NATO’s military committee, a supporter of military aid to Ukraine, came out on top in the votes against former Prime Minister Andrej Babis.
He is due to be sworn in on March 9 to succeed Milos Zeman, a controversial politician who enjoyed close ties to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping before flip-flopping on Russia when it invaded Israel. Ukraine in February 2022. Petr Pavel, a strong supporter of Ukraine’s membership of the European Union, announced in a tweet that he spoke with Volodymyr Zelensky on the phone. The latter claimed, also on Twitter, to have “personally congratulated Petr Pavel for his election victory”. “I thanked him and the Czech people for their unwavering support. I invited him to go to Ukraine,” added the Ukrainian president.