#War #Ukraine #Developments
Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:
– EU members vote to reduce gas consumption –
EU members, except Hungary, agree on a plan to cut gas consumption by 15 percent and reduce their reliance on Russian supplies, a day after Russian energy giant Gazprom announced plans to further limit flows to Europe.
Gazprom says it will reduce daily gas supplies through the Nord Stream pipeline to 33 million cubic meters per day, about 20 percent of its capacity, continuing the progressive restriction on supplies that began after the West imposed sanctions over Russia’s invasion imposed on Ukraine.
The move, for which Gazprom has cited technical problems, has been criticized by the EU and Ukraine as Moscow’s attempt to blackmail Europe.
To show solidarity with Germany, the gas’s main beneficiary, EU members voted to voluntarily reduce their gas consumption by 15 percent starting next month, with some exceptions for islands and countries with limited access to shared supplies.
– New attacks on southern Ukraine –
Russian forces are launching fresh missile attacks on targets near Odessa, days after an attack on the strategic port city that jeopardized a hard-won deal to unblock Ukraine’s grain shipments.
Ukraine’s Southern Military Command said Russian forces launched a “massive” attack from the Black Sea that hit residential buildings near Odessa.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy released a video showing serious damage to a popular holiday village. A local official said one person was injured.
Officials at the port of Mykolayiv, another grain export hub, also report attacks on the city’s infrastructure.
The strikes come as Ukraine steps up preparations to resume global grain shipments under a United Nations-Turkey-brokered deal with Russia that has blocked Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
– Russia will leave the ISS “after 2024” –
Russia has decided to leave the International Space Station “after 2024,” the newly appointed head of Moscow’s space agency told President Vladimir Putin.
“Of course we will fulfill all our commitments to our partners, but the decision to leave this station after 2024 has been made,” Roskosmos chief Yuri Borisov told Putin in a comment released by the Kremlin.
“I think that at that point we will start building a Russian orbital station,” Borisov adds, calling it the top “priority” of the space program.
Russia and the United States have worked side by side on the ISS, which has been in orbit since 1998.
– Kremlin defends closure of Jewish agency –
The Kremlin is trying to limit the diplomatic fallout of its decision to shut down the Russian branch of the agency that regulates Jewish immigration to Israel.
A Moscow court said last week the Justice Ministry had requested the dissolution of the Jewish Agency over unspecified rights violations.
The move will not prevent Russian Jews from immigrating to Israel, but will make it more difficult.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says the decision, which analysts see as a warning to Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who is more critical of Russia than his predecessor, “should not be politicized or projected onto the broader Russian-Israeli relationship.”
“There are problems in terms of complying with Russian laws,” he says.
Lapid has described Russia’s decision as a “serious event”.
More than a million of Israel’s 9.4 million residents have roots in the former Soviet Union.
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