Gerhard Schröder renounces supervisory board posts at Gazprom Oligarch assets worth 10 billion euros frozen in the EU The developments in the Ukraine war in the stern ticker.
Day 91 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine: With massive artillery and air strikes, Russian troops have driven out the Ukrainian defenders from several towns in the east of the country in the past few days, and the Ukrainian front is beginning to falter. For Moscow, the complete conquest of the Ukrainian administrative regions of Donetsk and Luhansk is an important war goal. In Luhansk, this goal has almost been achieved.
5.03 a.m .: US billionaire Soros warns of the end of “civilization” in the Ukraine war
US billionaire George Soros has warned of the end of “civilization” because of the Ukraine war. The Russian “invasion may have been the start of World War III, and our civilization may not survive it,” Soros said Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We must mobilize all our resources to bring the war to an early end.” “The best and maybe only way to preserve our civilization is to defeat Putin as soon as possible,” he said. He praised US and European support for Ukraine. At the same time he was harsh on Germany.
Europe’s dependence on Russian energy supplies is “largely due to the mercantilist policies of former Chancellor Angela Merkel,” he said. “I think Putin was very clever in blackmailing Europe by threatening to turn off the gas supply,” Soros added. He is the enemy of many populists in Eastern Europe, especially Hungary, Turkey and Russia. The billionaire is a Jew of Hungarian origin who, with his foundations, supports, among other things, movements that are directed against authoritarian governments.
5.25 a.m .: Ukraine reports rockets on Zaporizhia, concentration of troops in Donbass
According to the authorities, the city of Zaporizhia in eastern Ukraine was hit by several rockets early on Wednesday morning. “Today, May 25, at 05:13, Russian forces fired four ballistic missiles at Zaporizhia,” the oblast administration announced on its Telegram channel. One of the missiles was intercepted by air defenses. The rescue workers are on site to get an idea of the situation, the damage and possible victims of the attack.
Meanwhile, the military experts at the US war research institute Institute for the Study of War (ISW) report in their latest analysis of Ukraine that the Russian military is concentrating forces from different directions in the heavily contested Luhansk region. The reserves needed for an offensive would be withdrawn from the areas around Kharkiv, Izyum, Donetsk and Zaporizhia. In the last week, the Russian troops in the Luhansk region managed to gain more territory than in the whole of May, the analysts said.
4.45 a.m .: Oligarch assets worth 10 billion euros frozen in the EU
In the course of the Ukraine war, Russian oligarchs lost access to luxury yachts, real estate and other assets worth almost 10 billion euros. According to information from the German Press Agency, this is based on figures from the EU Commission. On April 8, the value was still 6.7 billion euros. The EU Commission wants to present a legislative proposal this Wednesday that should make it possible to confiscate frozen Russian money. This money could then be used to rebuild Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, the EU has put a number of Russian oligarchs on the sanctions list because they are accused of supporting the war. A good month later, the first balance was drawn: the EU states had frozen assets of 29.5 billion euros by then – 6.7 billion euros came from the assets of oligarchs. Added to this were the frozen assets of the Russian central bank.
1.04 a.m .: Ukrainian interior minister assumes 20,000 suspected war crimes
In the three months of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, around 20,000 suspected war crimes have been reported, according to Kiev sources. Police investigators alone registered 13,500 such acts, Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyj said on Ukrainian television on Tuesday. “We work with foreign prosecutors, joint investigative teams and experts, but most of the work is done by Ukrainian law enforcement officials.” Their evidence will later be sent to international bodies to bring suspected Russian war criminals to justice, the minister said. In a first trial, the Ukrainian judiciary sentenced a young Russian soldier to life imprisonment as a war criminal.
12:24 a.m .: Gerhard Schröder is giving up his position on the board of directors at Gazprom
Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) has given up a position on the supervisory board of the Russian energy company Gazprom. Schröder announced on Tuesday on the online platform LinkedIn that he had “abandoned the nomination for Gazprom’s supervisory board a long time ago”. He added: “I have also communicated this to the company.” As a result of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the ex-chancellor had come under massive pressure because of his activities for Russian energy companies. Schröder had long been nominated for a post on Gazprom’s supervisory board, which he was originally scheduled to take up in June. Gazprom confirmed Schröder’s nomination on Tuesday, causing a stir.
