Contents tagged with Germany

  • Russia to impose restrictions against YouTube after it shut down German-language Russia Today channel

    The Russian authorities are preparing tough measures against YouTube, the newspaper Kommersant reports, citing a high-ranking source in the Russian government.

    The penalties, according to Kommersant's source, are intended as a response to “the obstruction of work of the state television channel Russia Today in Germany”.

    In addition to YouTube, the Russian authorities plan to revoke the broadcasting license of the German news agency Deutsche Welle, as well as limit advertising of German …

  • Germany blocks ex-diplomat from becoming top manager at Nord Stream 2

    The process of "schröderization" of European officials, who find a comfortable management positions in the leadership of Russian state corporations, has been met with resistance from the German authorities.

    The German Foreign Ministry blocked the former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Dieter Walter Haller, from joining the Gas for Europe, the German legal entity established by Gazprom's 100 percent Swiss subsidiary Nord Stream 2 AG.

    Haller received an offer to head the supervisory board of the …

  • Germany expels Russian diplomat suspected of espionage

    An employee of the Russian consulate in Munich was declared persona non grata after he was accused of espionage, reports Deutsche Welle.

    According to Deutsche Welle, the diplomat was an officer of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service and acted as a liaison agent with a Russian academician, whose arrest on charges of espionage was announced the day before.

    Deutsche Welle reports that the expulsion occurred shortly after the detention in the summer of 2021 of Ilnur N., a researcher from the …

  • Kyiv: Ukrainians will remember for decades to come Germany's refusal to supply weapons

    Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is disappointed by Germany's refusal to grant permission for the supply of defensive weapons.

    "Germany's refusal on this issue also disappoints the Ukrainian public. Unfortunately, Ukrainians will remember this for decades to come, and this is very sad for me as minister of foreign affairs," Kuleba said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag.

    He added that he respects Germany's explanation about its history with regards to the policy on arms exports but …

  • Head of German Navy: Putin deserves our respect

    Ukraine will not be able to take the annexed Crimea back, and Russian President Vladimir Putin "may deserve respect," said the Chief of German Navy, Vice Admiral, Kay-Achim Schönbach, during a discussion at the Indian Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

    "The Crimean Peninsula is lost. It cannot be returned. That's a fact. And we need to understand that political issues are matters of facts and emotions," Schönbach said.

    He believes that Russia does not really want to …

  • Estonia asks Berlin for permission to send German made howitzers to Ukraine

    Estonia has asked Germany to approve the transfer to Ukraine of 122-mm howitzers produced in the German Democratic Republic, reports Deutsche Welle, citing the press secretary of the German Defense Ministry.

    According to her, the request is being studied and is "under departmental review". The process must be coordinated with Finland, because it was to this country that howitzers were initially sold in the 1990s.

    In 2021, Estonian Ministry of Defense decided to provide weapons and ammunition …

  • Green party representative to head Nord Stream 2 certification in Germany

    The German Federal Network Agency, which is responsible for certification of Nord Stream 2 pipeline, will be undergoing a leadership change. On March 1, 2022, a former Greens politician Klaus Müller will take over the Federal Network Agency in Bonn (Bundesnetzagentur, BNetzA), reported the German newspaper Handelsblatt .

    The current head of the agency, Jochen Hohmann, after ten years in this position, was not eligible for a new term and is retiring at the age of 68.

    At the same time, one of …

  • Latvia intends to supply weapons to Ukraine

    Amid growing threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Latvia will provide Kyiv with military equipment. Riga is ready to "supply lethal and non-lethal products" to Kyiv, said Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks at a press conference in the Latvian capital on Wednesday, January 19. What kind of weapons Ukraine will receive will be made public only after their delivery. At the same time, Latvia is not considering the possibility of sending its servicemen to Ukraine, Pabriks said.

    Pabriks …

  • U.S. and Europe abandon the idea of disconnecting Russia from SWIFT

    The United States and the European Union abandoned the idea of disconnecting Russia from the SWIFT interbank payment system as part of a package of sanctions for aggression against Ukraine, Handelsblatt reports, citing sources in the German government.

    The initiative, which was first launched back in 2014 after Russia's annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, is again considered too risky. This step could destabilize the global financial system and provoke the development of an alternative …

  • Germany: disconnecting Russia from SWIFT will have a nuclear bomb effect on world markets

    The future chairman of the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Friedrich Merz, said he believes that restricting Russia's access to the international interbank SWIFT system will have a "nuclear bomb" effect on the world markets.

    "Loss of confidence in the SWIFT system could be like an atomic bomb for the capital markets, as well as goods and services markets," the DPA news agency quoted Merz as saying. "I foresee a massive economic downturn in our economies if something like this happens. …