German Chancellor Olaf Scholz criticized Ukraine’s refusal to receive German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier for a visit, calling it “somewhat confusing,” reports Der Tagesspiegel.
“The federal president would like to visit Ukraine. Therefore, it would be good to receive him,” Scholz said on Wednesday on rbb24 radio.
At the same time, Scholz did not answer the question whether he would accept the existing invitation to Kyiv.
Later, the chancellor also urged not to underestimate the fact that Germany supplies anti-aircraft missiles and many other military goods to Ukraine.
“Taking responsibility means: Germany is supplying Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles and many other military goods. Important and not to be underestimated: we are closely coordinating this with all our allies. We are not doing this alone,” Scholz wrote on Twitter on Wednesday .
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GERMAN CHANCELLOR, GERMAN PRESIDENT, STEINMEIER, TAGESSPIEGEL
Business is restoring work in Kyiv, more than 1,000 grocery stores, 35 markets, 450 cafes are already operating, said the mayor of the capital, Vitaliy Klitschko.
“Businesses, shops, markets operate in Kyiv. Today, there are almost 1,000 grocery stores in the city, more than 160 Kievkhleb points of sale, 35 markets, about 450 cafes. Beauty salons, service stations, clothing stores are resuming work. We are also holding ten mini-fairs to ensure access to food,” he said on the Rada TV channel on Wednesday.
The mayor recalled that the fee under contracts with restaurant sites and mobile trade was reduced to UAH 1, and share participation – by 50%.
South Korea plans to provide Ukraine with an additional 2 billion won ($1.6 million) in non-lethal aid this month, Yonhap News has reported, citing an informed source.
According to the source, Seoul is preparing to start sending items such as bulletproof vests, helmets, medical supplies and ready-to-eat food to Ukraine as early as next week.
South Korea plans to phase out new aid on civilian flights to Europe until the end of April.
Seoul already sent 1 billion won in aid last month.
Nova Poshta joined the UN World Food Programme (WFP), as part of cooperation, the company receives food from European countries, forms food packages from them and delivers them to settlements according to the UN vision, primarily to Ukraine’s hot spots.
As the Nova Poshta press service reported on Wednesday, the company provided its production facilities in western Ukraine for the needs of the UNHCR and the UN Refugee Agency.
It is noted that the UN is compiling a list of priority cities and towns, focusing on the places of hostilities and regions that are threatened with a humanitarian catastrophe.
As of the beginning of April (in one week of cooperation), Nova Poshta prepared and delivered about 25,000 food packages to Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions.
In addition, the company transported more than 420 tonnes of household goods from the UNHCR to the IDPs.
Until the end of this month, Nova Poshta plans to deliver about 300,000 more sets to Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
“According to statistics, more than 10 million of our citizens have already been forced to leave their homes, hundreds of thousands still remain in dangerous cities and in conditions close to a humanitarian catastrophe, and we cannot stand aside. Even at the beginning of the war, we began transporting humanitarian aid across country and from abroad. We are now joining the UN programme. We are doing everything possible to make life at least a little easier for the Ukrainians most affected by the war,” Oleksandr Bulba, CEO of Nova Poshta, is quoted as saying.
In the nearest plans of the company – to start cooperation with other international organizations to provide Ukrainians with universal assistance.
Data from all of the capital’s air quality monitoring points have been included in the “Kyiv Digital” application, said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
“I will note that Kyiv continues to strengthen control over the state of atmospheric air. After all, military actions and shelling caused fires in the suburbs, from which the air condition on some days was unsatisfactory,” Klitschko stressed.
According to him, five stationary complexes of European standard are already working in the capital, carefully examining the quality of the air on about 10 indicators. It is also planned to add to them the measurement of the radiation background.
Kyiv plans to install three more stationary points of observation in Desniansky, Holosiyivsky and Sviatoshynsky districts in 2022.
There are also more than 40 indicative air monitoring stations in the capital, supplementing the data from the main stations.
PJSC ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih (Dnipropetrovsk region) has resumed production and begins shipping to foreign consumers thanks to cooperation with Ukrzaliznytsia and attention to the enterprise from the government of the country.
According to head of JSC Ukrzaliznytsia Oleksandr Kamyshin, the railway continues to work according to the schedule, and now ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih is joining the work on schedule, which resumes work and launches the first furnace.
“Together with the railway team today at the plant we are meeting the first tonne of commercial pig iron. Let me remind you that three weeks ago, together with Minister of Infrastructure (Oleksandr) Kubrakov and First Deputy Prime Minister (Yulia) Svyrydenko, we were already in Kryvy Rih and we discussed with the management of the steel plant how the railway can help launch the plant. I am glad to be with the team of the steel plant at such a historic moment today. Let me remind you that the last time the Kryvy Rih iron and steel works was launched immediately after the Second World War,” the head of Ukrzaliznytsia wrote.
At the same time, he noted that the workers of the metallurgical plant receive work, “and, therefore, wages, the economy – taxes, and the railway – the same tonne of cargo that we have always fought for.”
In turn, General Director of ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih Mauro Longobardo, in an interview with the Kryvy Rih television company, noted that after the suspension of the enterprise’s activities due to hostilities, work in the mining sector continued at 30% of normal capacity. At the same time, work was suspended in the underground mine of the plant due to fear of a sudden power outage.
