Scholz: “At best, it’s the start of a process that could lead to direct talks between Ukraine and Russia. In Switzerland, it will be about the safety of nuclear power plants, grain exports, the issue of prisoner exchanges and the necessary taboo on the use of nuclear weapons. Once again, this is all still in its infancy.”
Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski described the delivery of U.S. ATACMS missiles to Ukraine as a “reaction to the Russian escalation” in Ukraine, to which Germany must also respond.
The €100 billion ($107 billion) special fund created to update
Germany’s military after Russia invaded its neighbour in 2022 will be used up in a few years, Lindner said.
The armed forces will then have to be upgraded from regular funds. But this won’t be possible with a limited budget and
ever-growing debt, the finance minister went on.
Germany stopped selling weapons to Saudi Arabia over the war on Yemen’s Houthi militia. It has now started selling weapons to Saudi Arabia again, to intercept missile attacks from the same Houthis aimed at Israel.
The US is worried by the lack of transparency about China’s first aircraft carrier, which made its maiden voyage Wednesday, the US State Department has stated.
China’s first aircraft carrier Wednesday set sail for its first sea trial from a shipyard in northeast China’s Liaoning province.
