Live: EU grapples with how to support industries as energy prices soar

Issued on: 15/12/2022 – 07:43

6:00am: EU leaders head for tussle over rescue plans for industries

European Union leaders will tussle on Thursday over how to prop up their countries’ industries, which have been hit by soaring energy prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and now face the threat of subsidy-fuelled US competition.

Poorer EU countries want a coordinated response to the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – $430 billion worth of tax breaks for green energy – because they lack the deep pockets of richer member states like Germany to underpin their industries.

The tug-of-war among 27 leaders in Brussels will be inconclusive, diplomats said.

12:27am: Russians mistreated Kherson youngsters in ‘children’s cell’, says Ukraine official

Ukrainian investigators in an area recaptured from Russian troops have uncovered a cell where children were detained and mistreated, a senior Ukrainian human rights advocate said on Wednesday.

Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights, said the cell was in one of four torture centres operated by Russian troops in Kherson – a city in southern Ukraine abandoned by pro-Moscow forces last month.

Russia denies targeting civilians in the war and rejects allegations it has mistreated civilians.

12:16am: US planning to send smart-bomb kits to Ukraine, says Washington Post

The United States is planning to send electronic equipment that converts unguided aerial munitions into smart bombs, allowing a high degree of accurate targeting, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing US officials familiar with the matter.

7:12pm, December 14: Ukraine finds ‘propaganda’ at Russia-linked Orthodox sites

Ukraine’s SBU security service on Wednesday found “propaganda literature” in counter-intelligence searches in churches and monasteries across the country, in its most recent descent on religious sites of the Russia-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“The Security Service of Ukraine found Russian passports, propaganda literature and laissez-passer” issued by Russian occupation authorities during searches on Wednesday, the agency said in a statement. 

The SBU earlier announced “counter-intelligence measures” in more than a dozen religious sites in several Ukrainian regions, including the western Lviv region, Kherson region in the south and Zhytomyr region in the northwest.

“In the publications, representatives of the Russian Federation deny the existence of the Ukrainian people, their language and culture, and question Ukrainian statehood,” the SBU said.

6:23pm, December 14: Ukraine to increase bonuses for staff at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant who remain loyal 

Ukrainian atomic energy agency Energoatom said on Wednesday it would offer higher bonuses to staff at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station who remain loyal to Kyiv. The plant in southern Ukraine, Europe’s largest, has been occupied since shortly after Russia’s February 24 invasion but is still operated by its Ukrainian staff.

Energoatom said Russian forces were telling Ukrainian workers at the plant that they would not be paid after January 1 if they did not sign contracts with Russia’s nuclear energy company, Rosatom.

“Energoatom continues to guarantee the payment of wages and all compensations provided for in the collective agreement to ZNPP (Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant) employees. In addition, from January 1, Energoatom is also increasing from 20% to 50% the bonus for ZNPP personnel who stay loyal to Ukraine.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree in October transferring the Zaporizhzhia plant from Energoatom to subsidiary of Rosatom in what Kyiv said amounted to theft.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)