Quickly locate vital news from Central and Eastern Europe, with Volodymyr Zelensky leading the way this week urging Western leaders to pressure Russia to make peace “by all means” necessary.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week suggested Western leaders put pressure on Russia to achieve peace “by any means” necessary.
Speaking in Spain, Zelensky said there will have to be “tangible coercion on Russia,” which seeks to “destroy Ukraine and move forward. “Zelensky has long said he will not negotiate directly with Russia until Moscow’s forces leave all of Ukraine’s territory. , adding Crimea.
His call, however, comes as Russia advances in Ukraine, while Kyiv suffers from a shortage of Western-supplied weapons.
Russia, President Zelensky said, dropping some 3,200 guided aerial bombs on Ukraine every month. “How do you fight this?” He asked reporters in Madrid, where he had met with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
The Ukrainian leader rejected the idea of inviting Russia to a peace summit scheduled for next month in Switzerland. The summit is expected to be attended by representatives from more than 90 countries.
The leaders of France and Germany said on Tuesday that Ukraine will be allowed to strike military facilities in Russia from where missiles are fired at Ukrainian territory, but not at other targets.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West the day before that NATO members in Europe were playing with fire by allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons to attack inside Russia, which he said could trigger a global conflict.
“We, Ukraine, don’t need an escalation, that hasn’t changed,” French President Emmanuel Macron said at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Meseberg, Germany.
“We believe that we deserve to allow them to neutralize the military sites from which missiles are fired, the military sites from which Ukraine is attacked, but we deserve not to allow them to attack other targets in Russia and civilian or military sites in Russia. “
Europe has only a fraction of the air defense functions needed for its eastern flank, according to NATO’s own internal calculations, which reveal the extent of the continent’s vulnerabilities.
Russia’s war on Ukraine has underscored the importance of air defense, as Kyiv pleads with the West to supply its cities, troops and power grid with more systems and rockets in the face of daily bombardment.
But according to sources familiar with the confidential defense plans drawn up last year, NATO states are capable of providing less than five percent of the air defense roles that are considered mandatory for their members in Central and Eastern Europe in the event of a large-scale attack, according to the report. The Financial Times reported this week.
A senior NATO diplomat told the Financial Times that missile and air attack protection capability is “a major component of the plan to protect Eastern Europe against invasion,” adding: “And at the moment we don’t have it. “
Georgia’s parliament voted Tuesday to overturn the president’s veto of the controversial “foreign influence” law, a move that is poised to derail the European aspirations of many Georgians for closer ties with Moscow. The controversial bill, which requires civil society organizations and media outlets that earn more than 20% of their income to register as “organizations serving the interests of a foreign power,” was approved by parliament earlier this month. President Salome Zourabichvili later vetoed the law, which she and other critics said was inspired by a 2012 Russian bill.
On Wednesday, Georgian NGOs vowed to defy the law. “By adopting this law, the government must subjugate the Georgian civilian sector,” some 200 NGOs said in a statement. “Russian law will not work in our country and will remain an empty piece of paper that no one will obey,” the text adds. Opposition parties and human rights teams fear that the ruling Georgian Dream party will use these measures to tighten controls on election observers and bloodhounds to ensure victory in parliamentary elections scheduled for October.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has been flown home from a hospital in the central city of Banska Bystrica, where he is recovering from an assassination attempt, the hospital said Friday. A gunman fired four bullets at Fico at close range as the prime minister greeted his supporters at a government assembly in the central Slovak city of Handlova on May 15. The attack left Fico, 59, in serious condition and required a five-hour operation and another two days later.
The EU and the United States have been “too lenient” with Serbia and deserve to set a deadline for it to adopt sanctions against Russia, Kosovo’s prime minister said this week. Kurti said Belgrade will have to side with the West that opposes Moscow. to give Kosovo assurances that we are determined to normalize relations. Brussels and Washington “will have to change their technique and give Serbia a timetable. “ “We want to impose sanctions on the Russian Federation and prevent it from appearing to sit on 3 or 4 stools,” Kurti told the Financial Times in an interview.
The Hungarian government has signed an agreement with Belarus to help build Hungary’s second nuclear plant, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said at a meeting in Minsk on Wednesday. The Hungarian PAK 2 reactor has been under construction through the Russian company Rosatom since 2014. The company is building two reactors with a capacity of 1. 2 GW each at PAKS 2 in central Hungary. ” The agreement signed here today on cooperation in the field of nuclear energy is of great importance, as it allows us to take advantage of the experience gained here through Belarus through the construction of reactors with similar technology,” Szijjártó said.
Belarusian airline Belavia has failed to convince the European Court to lift restrictions on the airline after the airline was accused of facilitating illegal immigration to the EU for political purposes. State-owned company Belavia was sanctioned because it feared supporting President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime’s 2021 efforts to undermine the EU, by transporting migrants from the Middle East to Minsk and facilitating illegal border crossings. Belavia claimed that it had not obtained any order from the Belarusian government ordering it to operate flights to facilitate illegal immigration to the EU.
Poland will have to pay 68 million euros in EU fines for proceeding to put the Turow coal mine into operation despite court rulings to the contrary, the EU’s lower court ruled on Wednesday. In 2021, the European Commission ordered Warsaw to close the controversial Turow coal mine – a coal mine in the border region between Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland, claiming that it endangered Czech groundwater levels. When the government failed to meet its obligations, the EU executive began imposing fines of €500,000 a day, deducting them from the EU budget earmarked for the country.
The board of directors of the company that owns Royal Mail in the UK has accepted a formal offer to buy the 500-year-old organisation. Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky has offered a £5 billion offer, adding debt, to the company, which employs more than 150,000 people. The businessman said he has the “utmost respect” for its history and tradition. The benefit includes commitments to retain name, brand, UK registration and UK tax residency, as well as pension benefits and protections.
Romanian firm FintechOS, an end-to-end money product monitoring platform, announced this week the successful finishing touch of a $60 million Series B investment circular led by Molten Ventures, Cipio Partners and BlackRock, along with existing investors EarlyBird VC, OTB. VC and Gapminder VC. La new investment circular comes as the Romanian company celebrates a 40% year-over-year expansion and a 170% increase in its operating margins. The company says it is on track to break even in 2024, underscoring its powerful business model.
Photo: Volodymyr Zelensky’s Facebook page.
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