The G7, one of the world’s leading democratic powers, agreed on Friday to set up a “coordination mechanism” to help Ukraine repair and defend the electricity and water infrastructure that Russia has hit in recent weeks.
Faced with the intensification of Russian attacks on civilian equipment with the approach of winter, this mechanism should allow countries to coordinate concrete assistance for the repair of installations and deliver “water pumps, heating equipment, accommodation and sanitary equipment, beds, blankets”. “Tents,” said Annalena Baerbock, the head of German diplomacy, who held the G7 presidency the day before.
“We reiterate our unwavering determination to continue to provide the financial, humanitarian, political, technical and defense support Ukraine needs to alleviate the suffering of its people and to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders,” the ministers said. said. The Group’s Foreign Affairs are meeting in Münster, West Germany.
In their latest statements, they also condemned Russia’s “unacceptable nuclear rhetoric”.
“Any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by Russia will have serious consequences,” they warned.
The IAEA denies that Ukraine has developed a “dirty bomb”. The industrialized countries (USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, UK and Japan) also denied Moscow’s “false” accusations that Ukraine was preparing a “dirty bomb”.
They stressed that the investigation by the UN agency IAEA “confirmed that these allegations are unfounded”.
The group’s ministers said that the G7 “will continue to impose economic costs on Russia and other countries, individuals or institutions (…) who provide military support to the Moscow war”.
In this context, they reiterated their call to the Belarusian authorities, assuring that they do not want to be directly involved in the war, to “stop allowing Russia a war of aggression” by authorizing Russian troops to deploy on territory used by Russia. As a back base for the invasion of Ukraine in late February.
Russian narrative. In Moscow, Putin spearheaded patriotic celebrations of Unity Day, a holiday he started in 2005 to commemorate the defense against the invasion of Poland in 1612.
Speaking to a group of patriotic volunteers in Red Square, Putin said that since he announced a military call in September, 318,000 recruits have signed up and that has been completed.
That exceeded its 300,000 goal because “volunteers keep coming,” he said. Of this number, 49,000 were participating in active warfare.
Putin’s project caused thousands of people to flee the country. Former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev described them as “cowardly traitors and greedy fugitives”.
The Kremlin chief said he wants to restore historical monuments in the occupied territories so that “those who have lived for 30 years under crazy and stupid propaganda” will know “where their ancestors came from”.
He chose the port city of Mariupol, on the coast of the Sea of Azov, which was devastated by weeks of fighting at the steel mill and fell to the Russians in May.
“Mariupol is a very famous Russian city – you can say old -” Putin said. He said Russian officials had “a lot to work on” in their plans to rebuild the city.
Putin’s offensive in Ukraine is now in its ninth month, forcing millions of people to flee the country and killing thousands of soldiers on both sides.
Russia recently hit Ukraine’s power grids, and President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attacks left 4.5 million people without electricity.
(With information from AFP
source: Noticias
