Ukraine president urges Joe Biden and Xi Jinping to ‘show your leadership’ and send message to Moscow.
The Ukraine president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has released a desperate video plea calling on world leaders to attend a “peace summit” next month in Switzerland, after a deadly Russian attack on a DIY hypermarket in Kharkiv on Saturday killed 12 people and injured dozens more.
Zelenskiy appealed in particular to the US president, Joe Biden, and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, to attend the summit, which is due to start on 15 June. “Please, show your leadership in advancing the peace – the real peace and not just a pause between the strikes,” said Zelenskiy in English.
Biden has not yet confirmed his attendance and it is not known whether China will attend – “negotiations are ongoing” over Beijing’s participation, said Zelenskiy’s aide Mykhailo Podolyak in an interview last week.
Saturday’s strike came at the end of a week in which daily Russian missile and air strikes terrorised Ukraine’s second city, with hits on a printing house, numerous residential areas and a central park, among other targets. In most cases, there were no obvious military targets nearby.
The mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, said about 120 people had been in the hardware store on Saturday afternoon. “The attack targeted the shopping centre, where there were many people – this is clearly terrorism,” he said.
Prosecutors said 12 people had died, of whom 10 had not yet been identified, and 43 injured. A further 16 people are missing after the strike. A separate, early evening missile strike hit a residential building in the centre of the city, injuring 18 people, according to the regional governor.
In recent weeks, Russia has been working to make life misery for Kharkiv, a city 20 miles from the borderwith Ukraine, and which had a pre-war population of over a million. Although life in the city goes on, deadly strikes have become a daily feature of life.
Because of the proximity of the city to the border, Russian fighter jets can launch glide bombs into the city centre from inside Russia. Ukrainian officials say improved air defence systems and F16 fighter jets are vital components of defending the city. The Kharkiv region has also been the focus of a new Russian offensive over the last two weeks, centred on the town of Vovchansk, which has led to thousands of residents fleeing their homes.
Russia has claimed its attacks on Kharkiv region are aimed at creating a “buffer zone” to prevent Ukrainian forces from launching strike against Russian border regions.
The strike on Saturday targeted a popular suburban shopping complex. Andriy Kudinov, its director, told local media the store had been packed with shoppers buying items for their summer cottages.
Witnesses described a panicked scene at the supermarket. “I was at my workplace. I heard the first hit and … with my colleague, we fell to the ground. There was the second hit and we were covered with debris. Then we started to crawl to the higher ground,” Dmytro Syrotenko, 26, told Reuters, speaking with a large cut on his face.
The strike sparked a fire that sent large clouds of dark smoke billowing above the shopping centre, with firefighters brought in to fight the blaze. Rescue work is dangerous in these conditions, with repeat strikes targeting first responders a common feature of recent Russian attacks.
Zelenskiy on Sunday said it was further proof that Russia is not interested in peace. “We all know who are we dealing with. Russia is run by men who want to make it a norm – burning lives, destroying cities and villages, dividing people and erasing national borders through war. There is no nation that can stop such war alone,” he said.
Zelenskiy said more than 80 countries had already confirmed their attendance at the Swiss summit. Russia is not invited, and has rubbished the event as pointless. The aim appears not to devise a workable peace formula, but to put together a large coalition of countries to call on Moscow to end the war, particularly targeting many global south countries who have remained neutral up to this point.
Podolyak, a key Zelenskiy aide, said the Ukrainian president had been spending time making calls to numerous leaders of global south countries in an effort to persuade them to attend the summit, with particular focus on Africa, Latin America and the Pacific region.
“Russians are trying everything to discredit the idea and to offer incentives for not attending,” said Podolyak, hinting at the diplomatic battle over the summit.
China, which has tacitly backed Russia in the conflict, is thought unlikely to attend, though Ukrainian diplomats are trying hard to persuade Beijing to take part in some form. China has outlined its own peace plan, which Ukrainian officials say is unworkable.
“The Chinese formula is to either force the capitulation of Ukraine, or to freeze the conflict on Russia’s terms,” said Podolyak. “China is the key country [for us], because as soon as you change its position from neutral and disinterested to neutral but fair, then pressure on Russia will start to rise,” he added.
In a report published on Friday, Reuters cited unidentified sources in Moscow claiming that President Vladimir Putin is looking for a ceasefire deal. “Putin can fight for as long as it takes, but Putin is also ready for a ceasefire – to freeze the war,” said one of the sources.
Ukrainian and many western officials have reacted sceptically to such claims, noting that without real security guarantees for Ukraine, any attempt to freeze the conflict would be meaningless.
Prices of Ukrainian industrial producers increased by 3.3% in April 2024, compared to a 9.1% drop in March, the State Statistics Service (Ukrstat) reported on Friday.
The State Statistics Service specifies that between April and March 2024, prices of industrial producers within Ukraine increased by 3.6%, and by 0.9% for supplies outside the country.
According to its data, in annual terms (compared to the same month last year), industrial prices rose by 4.9% in April 2024, and by only 0.2% in March.
In the first four months of this year, the growth in industrial prices amounted to 5.7% compared to the same period in 2023.
According to the statistics agency, in the mining and quarrying industry, products fell by 0.3% in April compared to the previous month of 2024. Prices in hard coal mining decreased by 1.9%, crude oil and natural gas production by 0.4%, while prices in metal ore mining increased by 2%.
Prices increased in the supply of electricity and gas by 6.8%, in energy production by 5.4%, in the manufacture of computers, electronic and optical products by 1.5%, in chemical products by 1.1%, in metallurgy by 1%, in the manufacture of rubber and plastic products by 0.9%, in electrical equipment by 0.8%, in pharmaceutical products by 0.7%, in the food industry by 0.4%, in machine building by 0.3%, and in textile production by 0.2%.
At the same time, prices declined in the production of coke and refined products by 5.1%.
G7 finance ministers discusssed options for using interest from frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine. Kyiv has stepped up its appeals for more international financial aid to fight off Moscow’s invasion.
Finance ministers from the G7 group of wealthy democracies on Saturday cited “progress” but no breakthrough in talks on how to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine as it continues to battle invading Russian forces.
The meeting of the G7 ministers in the northern Italian city of Stresa focused mainly on the question of how to find more funds for Ukraine as Russia presses on with a new offensive in the Kharkiv region in the third year of its unprovoked invasion.
The G7 and its allies froze some $300 billion (€276 billion) of Russian assets shortly after Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.
The meeting comes after the EU this week formally approved a plan to use interest from the Russian assets it has frozen, estimating that this could produce up to €3 billion annually for Ukraine.
What did ministers say about the talks?
The G7 finance ministers did not report any final agreement on using Russian assets on Saturday.
“We are making progress in our discussions on potential avenues to bring forward the extraordinary profits stemming from immobilized Russian sovereign assets to the benefit of Ukraine, consistent with international law and our respective legal systems,” the ministers said in a final statement.
The ministers reiterated that Russian assets will remain frozen “until Russia pays for the damage it has caused to Ukraine.” They also raise the possibility of imposing further sanctions on Moscow.
Italian Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said that the ministers had faced technical and legal issues, but were hoping to present a proposal before a G7 leaders’ summit next month in Puglia, Italy.
“We do not deny the difficulties but there is a firm determination to arrive at a solution,” he said.
What kinds of plans were discussed?
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said ministers aimed to “reach a political agreement in principle” and not a ready-made solution.
A draft statement from the meeting seen by the Reuters news agency said: “We are making progress in our discussions on potential avenues to bring forward the extraordinary profits stemming from immobilized Russian sovereign assets to the benefit of Ukraine.”
The statement contained no figures or details, reflecting the fact that several legal and technical issues need to be resolved before such loans could be made.
Any detailed agreement would require the approval of G7 leaders, who meet next month in Puglia, Italy.
The United States, for its part, has been urging its G7 partners — Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada — to create a loan facility for Ukraine backed by future interest generated by the frozen Russian assets.
That proposal, which could raise $50 billion in the short term for Kyiv, raises several questions, including who would issue the debt and the apportioning of risk between the G7 partners.
At the end of the meeting, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that a loan for Ukraine backed by the income from frozen Russian sovereign assets is the “main option” for G7 leaders to consider in June but added that she doesn’t want to “take anything off the table as a future possibility.”
The ministers will be joined on Saturday by Ukraine’s finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/g7-makes-progress-but-no-deal-on-russian-assets-for-kyiv/a-69181131
Dynamics of import of goods in Jan-Feb 2024 by the most important items in relation to the same period of 2023, %
Source: Open4Business.com.ua and experts.news
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced the transfer of another Iris-T air defense system to Ukraine, the German defense ministry’s social network X reported on Friday.
“We have once again delivered to Ukraine a combined fire unit consisting of the IRIS T SLM and IRIS T SLS, a modern and well-proven medium and short-range air defense system, directly from the German industry,” Pistorius said.
He noted that the new air defense system will strengthen Ukraine’s air defense along with the recently delivered Patriot system.
In 2023, the countries of the European Union imported 163.7 thousand tons of honey for a total of EUR359.3 million, according to the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat).
Exports of honey from the EU countries amounted to only 24.9 thousand tons worth EUR146 million.
Over 10 years, since 2013, imports have increased by 20%, exports – by 14%.
Last year, the main suppliers of honey to the EU were China (60.2 thousand tons, or 37% of all foreign supplies), Ukraine (45.8 thousand tons, 28%), Argentina (20.4 thousand tons, 12%), Mexico (10.7 thousand tons, 7%) and Cuba (4.7 thousand tons, 3%).
The UK became the main importer of honey from the European Union – 4.3 thousand tons. Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and the United States imported more than 3 thousand tons.
The largest buyer of foreign honey among the EU countries was Germany, which imported 41 thousand tons in 2023. Belgium took the second place (31.4 thousand tons), and Poland was the third (23.3 thousand tons). Spain was the leading exporter (7.1 thou tons).
