President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that the world must always support proactive measures to prevent violence.
He said this on Saturday at the 19th Asia Shangri-La Dialogue Security Summit, answering a question about what can be done to counter China’s campaign of economic and military coercion against Taiwan.
“I think that today’s example of Ukraine is an example for the whole world. The world must always support any action related to pre-emptive measures so that there is no war,” he said.
According to Zelensky, “there is no positive from the war in the world. No one gets a positive, except for some political leaders who daily increase their ambitions because of their political appetite.”
“The world should decide everything diplomatically. Support states that need it. Do not leave this or that state alone with another state, which may be stronger financially, territorially, in terms of weapons. If problems can be solved by diplomacy, they must be solved,” he said.
“But do not turn on after the war starts, when there are tens and hundreds of thousands of victims. The war does not benefit anyone except the ambitions of some people,” Zelensky stressed.
According to Olivia Enos, senior political analyst at the Center for Asian Studies, the Chinese delegation left the hall during Zelensky’s speech.
Dynamics of balance of payments of Ukraine (USD mln)
NBU
Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe on Friday at a meeting with Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin said that Beijing is ready for military action if anyone makes an attempt to separate Taiwan from China, reports the Chinese edition of Global Times, citing a representative of the defense departments of the People’s Republic of China Wu Qian.
“According to Wu Qian’s statement, Wei Fenghe said that if anyone dares to separate Taiwan from China, the Chinese military will not hesitate to fight and resolutely suppress any attempt at ‘Taiwan independence’ at any cost, and will firmly defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” , – writes the edition.
According to him, the Chinese defense minister also condemned the recent US decision to send arms to Taiwan again. He stated that this “caused serious damage to China-US relations, as well as peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin held a bilateral meeting on Friday in Singapore, where a security forum is being held. According to Chinese media company Caixin, Wei Fenghe noted that the meeting lasted about an hour and was “honest and successful.” The Pentagon said that the parties discussed issues of global and regional security, the topics of the DPRK, Russia and Ukraine, as well as Taiwan.
“The minister stressed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, rejection of a unilateral change in the status quo, and urged China to refrain from destabilizing actions against Taiwan,” the ministry said in a statement.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said he was not ready to “ask” Moscow for peace.
“I am not ready to ask for the independence of our state. It already belongs to us, ”he said on Friday, speaking via video link to students and teachers of British universities.
Asked about possible peace talks, Zelensky said that “I understood all the years of my presidency that any war must end with a negotiating table.” “I understand that diplomacy can save people. I understand this, but, unfortunately, the President of the Russian Federation does not understand this,” he said.
Zelensky believes that “if Ukraine were in NATO, there would still be a battle for independence, but it would be different.” “There would not have been so many losses, there could have been a small military conflict or provocations, but we would have saved a large number of people,” he said.
During the three months of the war, the construction industry of Ukraine has decreased by more than 70%, despite the point resumption of work at construction sites in Ukraine, while the cost of construction has increased by 20%, said Sergey Pilipenko, general director of the Kovalska group.
“I can state that, despite the statements of individual developers about the resumption of work, including Kovalska, the market has declined by more than 70%. This is if we consider the volume of construction work, the consumption of building materials,” Pilipenko said during online conference “Marshall Plan” and urban prospects of Ukrainian cities after the war: economic and urban strategies” on Thursday.
According to him, the cost of construction of facilities has increased by more than 20%, including due to a significant increase in the cost of building materials, logistics, inflation and the growth of the exchange rate.
The expert pointed out that the primary real estate market has actually stopped. “So far there are no signals for a quick exit from this state,” he said.
Pilipenko believes that the increase in the discount rate to 25% actually made it impossible to finance the business, so investment in new projects is in question. In addition, there are still no mechanisms for financing restoration projects by foreign states and investors.
In his opinion, in the near future the main construction activity will be projects of emergency repairs, dismantling, erection of temporary structures.
“Really assessing the situation, the state, in the context of ongoing hostilities, cannot fully and large-scale finance any restoration projects. It does not have the funds for this, and now the priorities are different. Therefore, from the point of view of construction activity, maximum developers can count on emergency repairs, dismantling or construction of temporary engineering structures, bridges,” he said.
PSG “Kovalska” has been operating in the construction market of Ukraine since 1956. It unites more than 20 enterprises in the field of extraction of raw materials, production and construction. The products are represented by the brands “Beton ot Kovalskaya”, “Avenue”, Siltek and others.
Enterprises of “Kovalska” work in Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Lvov, Kherson and Chernihiv regions. The total number of employees is 5 thousand people.
In addition, the group includes Kovalska Real Estate, which is engaged in the construction of residential facilities in Kyiv. Her portfolio includes 20 completed residential projects.
The governmental emergency response team of Ukraine CERT-UA, operating under the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection, warns of a mass mailing of dangerous emails with the subject line “LIST of links to interactive maps.”
“Mailing lists are carried out, in particular, among Ukrainian media organizations (radio stations, newspapers, news agencies, etc.). More than 500 recipient addresses have been identified. Emails contain an attachment in the form of a LIST of links to interactive maps.docx document, the opening of which may result in the download of the CrescentImp malware,” the message posted on the CERT-UA website on Friday evening reads.
Experts warn that attackers are increasingly resorting to sending emails to compromised government email addresses.
Said hacking activity is tracked by UAC-0113 (medium confidence associated with the Sandworm group).
This group was involved in organizing a large-scale hacker attack on the energy sector of Ukraine in April of this year.
