German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday he would discuss the delivery of dual-use goods with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit, following a report that a Chinese factory was producing military drones for Russia.
The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia would respond to what it called a reckless decision by Joe Biden’s administration to allow Ukraine to fire US missiles deep into Russia, which it said would draw the US directly into the conflict.
Russia on Monday vetoed a United Nations Security Council draft resolution that called on Sudan’s warring parties to cease hostilities immediately and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Germany’s Scholz to address drones for Russia with China’s Xi
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday he would discuss the delivery of dual-use goods with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit, following a report that a Chinese factory was producing military drones for Russia.
Russia has established a weapons programme in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in its war against Ukraine, two sources from a European intelligence agency told Reuters in a report published in September.
The European Union has repeatedly urged all countries, including China, not to provide material or other support for Russia, which began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Earlier in the day, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Chinese drone aid “must and will have consequences”.
Scholz, asked if he agreed with his minister and would discuss the issue with Xi, said he had always warned against deliveries of lethal weapons to Russia and touched on the topic of dual-use goods in such talks.
“I have always addressed the issue of so-called dual-use goods, because there are different practices, but we must not be naive,” said Scholz. He added that he would also tell Xi it was unacceptable that North Korean soldiers were being deployed in the war against Ukraine, and that it was a “terrible change”.
Asked about the US decision to authorise long-range Ukrainian airstrikes on Russia, Scholz said Germany would not follow suit, or send Ukraine long-range Taurus cruise missiles.
The Taurus missiles could only be deployed if Germany shared responsibility for target control, he said, de facto making it a party to war. “That is something I cannot and do not want to do,” said Scholz.
“At the same time we have a clear idea that the powerful weapons we have supplied so far ... cannot be used to penetrate deep into the Russian hinterland,” he said, noting he had made an exemption for Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine since attacks on the city had come from just across the nearby Russian border.
Kremlin threatens to respond to ‘reckless’ US missile decision
The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia would respond to what it called a reckless decision by Joe Biden’s administration to allow Ukraine to fire US missiles deep into Russia, which it said would draw the US directly into the conflict.
Russia has been warning the West for months about how it would interpret such a decision, saying it would raise the risk of a confrontation with the US-led Nato alliance.
The New York Times and Reuters reported that Biden’s administration had made the decision on long-range strikes, though there was no official confirmation from Washington.
“This decision is reckless, dangerous, aimed at a qualitative change, a qualitative increase in the level of involvement of the United States in this conflict,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
He said President Vladimir Putin had made Russia’s position clear when speaking in St Petersburg in September.
Putin said on 12 September that Western approval for such a step would mean “the direct involvement of Nato countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine” because Nato military infrastructure and personnel would have to be involved in the targeting and firing of the missiles.
“It is obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps to continue adding fuel to the fire and continue to provoke tension around this conflict,” said Peskov.
Sources quoted by The New York Times and Reuters presented the US move as partly in response to the reported arrival of North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region to help repel a Ukrainian incursion.
One Russian official close to the Kremlin, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the US move, if confirmed, was an extremely provocative one for an outgoing administration but would not change the outcome of the war.
Ukraine controls about 650 sq km of territory in Kursk, while Russia, which is advancing faster than at any time since the start of the war, controls more than 110,500 sq km of Ukraine, according to open source maps.
“Biden’s administration is trying to escalate the situation to the maximum while they still have power and are still in office,” Russian legislator Maria Butina told Reuters.
“I have a great hope that [Donald] Trump will overcome this decision if this has been made because they are seriously risking the start of World War Three, which is not in anybody’s interest.”
Russian officials have repeatedly cautioned that the West is playing with fire by probing the limits of what a nuclear power might or might not tolerate.
Putin has changed Russia’s nuclear doctrine to say that any conventional attack on Russia aided by a nuclear power could be considered to be a joint attack on Russia.
In late October, Putin said his defence ministry was working on different ways to respond if the US and its Nato allies helped Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with long-range Western missiles.
Russia vetoes UN Security Council action on Sudan war
Russia on Monday vetoed a United Nations Security Council draft resolution that called on Sudan’s warring parties to cease hostilities immediately and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid.
All other countries of the 15-member council, including China, voted in favour of the measure drafted by Britain and Sierra Leone.
Russia was the sole member to vote against, in a move that British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said was “mean, nasty and cynical” and sent a message to the warring parties that they could act with impunity.
The army-aligned Sudanese foreign ministry supported the move.
“The government of Sudan commends the Russian position, which came as an expression of ... respect for the sovereignty of states and international law, and support for the independence and unity of Sudan and its national institutions,” it said in a statement.
War erupted in April 2023 from a power struggle between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule, and triggered the world’s largest displacement crisis.
The draft resolution called on the parties to the conflict to “immediately cease hostilities and engage, in good faith, in dialogue to agree steps to de-escalate the conflict with the aim of urgently agreeing a national ceasefire”.
It also called on them to engage in dialogue to agree to humanitarian pauses and arrangements, ensure the safe passage of civilians and the delivery of adequate humanitarian aid, among other measures.
Russia accused Britain of attempting to meddle in Sudanese affairs.
“We agree with all Security Council colleagues that the conflict in Sudan requires a swift resolution. It is also clear that the only way to achieve this is for the warring parties to agree to a ceasefire,” Deputy Russian UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told the meeting.
He accused backers of the draft resolution of “double standards” when they were giving carte blanche to Israel to continue violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza, and said Lammy’s criticism was an “excellent demonstration of British neocolonialism”.
Satellite photos show Russia plans to expand missile production
Satellite images show major expansions at five complexes where Russia has made solid-fuel missile engines, indicating the Kremlin plans to significantly boost missile production as it pursues its war in Ukraine, according to a European researcher.
Fabian Hinz, a Berlin-based researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a global security think tank, identified the complexes using Russian media reports and declassified Cold War-era CIA documents that listed facilities where the Soviet Union produced solid-fuel missile engines.
The sites are in the Altai Republic in Siberia, Rostov in southern Russia, outside Moscow and St Petersburg, and Perm, in western Russia.
Satellite photos taken by Maxar Technologies in July, September and October, reviewed by Reuters, show cleared vegetation and extensive new construction next to buildings that Hinz identified as solid-fuel research and production facilities at the five complexes. Following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putin has ordered increased funding to expand defence production.
“Satellite imagery suggests that solid-propellant rocket motor-production capacity appears to be one focus of this effort,” wrote Hinz in his report, which was published in Military Balance Plus, an IISS blog.
Moscow’s forces have fired more than 9,600 missiles since the beginning of the war, Ukraine’s top general said in August.
Expanding solid-fuel missile motor production could help the Kremlin to meet the demands of the war without having to count on outside suppliers like North Korea, whose missiles have frequently malfunctioned, according to Ukrainian officials.
Tear gas used on Ukraine battlefield, chemical weapons agency finds
The world’s chemical weapons watchdog on Monday said it had found traces of tear gas in samples taken last month on the frontline with Russia in Ukraine’s central-east Dnipropetrovsk region.
The use of riot control agents such as tear gas as a method of warfare is prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention, the non-proliferation treaty overseen by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Ukraine had requested the assistance of the agency, which deployed a team. The team was not mandated to assign blame, but Ukraine and the US have said Russia has illegally deployed tear gas to clear trenches.
Tear gas is not lethal, but causes temporary irritation to the eyes and respiratory system.
OPCW’s team reviewed digital files, received first-hand witness accounts, and tested three samples from a trench along the frontline with Russian troops, it said in an executive summary.
Analysis of samples conducted by two independent laboratories indicates that “both the grenade collected from the trench and the soil sample collected from the dark splatter next to it contained the riot control agent 2-chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile, known as CS”, it said.
The findings are expected to be discussed at a meeting of the OPCW’s 193 member states in The Hague next week.
Russian gas still reaching Austria despite OMV cut-off
Russian gas was still reaching Austria on Monday despite Gazprom cutting off flows to top Austrian importer OMV over the weekend due to a contractual dispute, data flows showed.
Gazprom on Saturday halted supplies to OMV after the Austrian company threatened to impound some of the Russian state firm’s gas as compensation for an arbitration it had won over a contractual dispute but overall daily supply to Europe via Ukraine remains at around the same volume as normal.
Before the Ukraine invasion, Russia was the main supplier of pipeline gas to the European Union, but its share of the market has significantly shrunk as the EU has sourced alternative supplies from Norway, the Middle East and the US.
The transit line through Ukraine is one of the two remaining routes for Russian pipeline gas to the EU and is expected to close at the end of the year as Kyiv has said it does not want to extend the transit contract with Gazprom.
Austria had been receiving 17 million cubic metres (mcm) per day before the cut-off, and those volumes are now finding new buyers in Europe. Russian gas is typically still cheaper than from other sources.
The so-called Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline takes gas from Russia through Ukraine to Slovakia where it can then go to Austria and the Czech Republic.
Flows from Slovakia to Austria were around 27 mcm per day before Gazprom supplies to OMV were stopped on Saturday and then fell by around 17% to around 22.6 mcm/day on Sunday, according to preliminary data from the Slovakian transmission system operator Eustream.
Requests for planned shipments were for 22.3 mcm for Monday from Slovakia into Austria, data from Eustream showed. Partial preliminary data showed around half of that amount had already gone through by the afternoon.
Requests for Tuesday indicated a 6% increase in flows from Slovakia into Austria from Monday.
Austria’s OMV had been receiving about 17 mcm/day from Gazprom before the cut-off, and those volumes are now finding new buyers or middlemen in Europe who stepped in to snap up unsold gas, companies and sources said, and data showed.
It was not clear who was buying the gas and possibly reselling the volumes previously delivered to OMV.
Gazprom on Saturday halted supplies to OMV after the Austrian company threatened to impound some of the Russian state firm’s gas as compensation for an arbitration it had won over a contractual dispute.
Russian gas is still being sold in significant volumes to Slovakia and Hungary, as well as to the Czech Republic which does not have a direct contract. Smaller volumes are going to Italy and Serbia.
Slovakia’s state-owned gas company SPP, which has a long-term contract with Gazprom for its Slovak consumers, declined to comment when asked if it was buying some of the volume that would usually go to OMV, for trading or other purposes.
Zelensky visits embattled frontline town
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he visited the “intense” eastern frontline town of Pokrovsk on Monday, where Russia has directed an unrelenting infantry assault for months to close in on the strategically placed road and rail hub.
The trip comes a day before Kyiv marks 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion at a critical moment after the US election win of Trump, who has promised to end the war without saying how, raised the prospect of future negotiations.
Zelensky handed out military awards as he met sergeants from several units battling to defend Pokrovsk, the site of a major coal mine, that Russian forces have been trying to capture, advancing within some 8km from the city’s outskirts.
“I know that only thanks to your strength the east has not been completely occupied by the Russian Federation,” said Zelensky in the video.
Russia occupies a fifth of Ukraine and has been advancing at its fastest rate since 2022 in recent months. The front near Pokrovsk and another near the city of Kurakhove have seen the most ferocious Russian offensives for months.
Pokrovsk lies at an intersection of roads and a railway, which makes it an important logistics point for the military and civilians. Its coal mine is the only one in Ukraine that produces coking coal vital for the national steel industry.
The military said its forces had repelled more than 30 Russian attacks near Pokrovsk in just the past day.
Zelensky’s office said he also visited other parts of the Donetsk region to check the progress with fortifications and discuss preparations for the looming winter with regional officials.
The bulk of critical infrastructure — for the supply of water, electricity and natural gas — has been ruined in the Donetsk region, as cities and towns have come under daily artillery fire, drone, missiles and guided bomb attacks.
Vadim Filashkin, the regional governor, said about 324,000 civilians remained in Kyiv-held parts of the region, down from about two million over the same territory before the invasion.
The Donetsk region, where Russian proxy forces launched an insurgency in 2014, is one of four Ukrainian provinces that Moscow claimed to have annexed in late 2022. Moscow says capturing the rest of the province is one of its principal war aims.
Crimea governor vows revenge for captain killed in Ukrainian hit
A Russian-installed governor in Crimea pledged revenge on Monday against the “terrorists” who killed a high-ranking captain in the Russian navy last week in a hit claimed by Ukrainian security services.
Valery Trankovsky, the chief of staff of the 41st brigade of Russia’s missile ships in the Black Sea, died in a car bombing on Wednesday in the port of Sevastopol at the age of 47.
A source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told Reuters last week that Kyiv saw Trankovsky as a “legitimate” target in line with the laws of war because of “war crimes” he committed, including ordering missile attacks that hit civilian targets in Ukraine.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, said those who ordered his death would pay a grave price.
“Non-humans, who dared to do this, await an obvious finale,” said Razvozhayev in a Telegram post. “Because all terrorists have the same fate.”
The city of Sevastopol is the traditional headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and it has been heavily targeted by Ukrainian strikes during the conflict. DM