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European Union leaders will meet on Monday to declare continued support for Ukraine to help it fend off Russia’s assault, but the talks will be overshadowed by their failure to agree on a new sanctions package against Moscow. Follow FRANCE 24’s liveblog for all the latest developments. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
4:00am: Germany agrees $107 bn fund to modernise military in face of Russia threat
Germany’s government and conservative opposition have agreed a deal that will release 100 billion euros ($107 billion) to modernise the army in the face of the Russian threat.
An agreement was reached late Sunday to create a special fund for military procurement that will also allow Berlin to achieve NATO’s target of spending two percent of GDP on defence.
The deal, which involves amending budgetary rules in the national constitution, was struck after weeks of difficult negotiations between the parties in the governing coalition and the conservatives of former chancellor Angela Merkel, representatives of these groups told AFP.
Three days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged a special budget of 100 billion euros to rearm the German military and modernise its outdated equipment over the next few years.
But critics have since accused Scholz of timidity in his support for Kyiv and failing to take enough concrete action in terms of arms deliveries.
10:56pm: ‘Very bad’ situation in Donbas
“It’s very important for the head of state, which is commending the armies, to be present in Kharkiv,” said General Dominique Trinquand, a former head of the French military mission to the United Nations. “The situation is very bad [in the] Donbas, where the Russian forces are advancing and the Ukrainian forces are in difficulty.”
9:22pm: Donbas ‘unconditional priority’ for Russia, Lavrov says
The “liberation” of Ukraine’s Donbas is an “unconditional priority” for Moscow, while other Ukrainian territories should decide their future on their own, RIA news agency cited Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Sunday.
“The liberation of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, recognised by the Russian Federation as independent states, is an unconditional priority,” Lavrov said in an interview with French TV channel TF1, according to RIA.
For the rest of the territories in Ukraine, “the people should decide their future in these areas,” he said.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)
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