Italian officials said that on Tuesday, G7 foreign ministers will meet with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha to discuss ways to continue supporting Kyiv, prospects for peace, and initiatives for reconstruction.
Sybiha is scheduled to participate in a special session of the G7 ministerial meeting on Ukraine, as well as several bilateral talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry announced in a release.
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“The key topic of the talks will be strengthening support for Ukraine against the background of recent aggressive steps by the Russian Federation, including the involvement of North Korean troops in aggression, the shelling of Ukraine with an intermediate-range ballistic missile, aerial terror against civilians, critical infrastructure and the energy system,” the statement read.
The group will meet about 55 miles (90 km) east of Rome in Fiuggi, a historic retreat known for its “healing” thermal waters. The host of the talks, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who could not be counted among Western Europe’s top opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin and who has pushed to keep Ukraine from using Italian-gifted weapons inside Russia, said on Monday that “Unity is our strength at the moment, I’m referring above all to relations with the Russian Federation.”
US Ramps Up Weapons Aid to Ukraine Following Moscow’s Christmas Strike
The same day, Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced his country’s “biggest sanctions package” against Russia’s “shadow fleet,” used to circumvent export and oil embargoes to fund its war against Ukraine.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is in his interest - and his interest alone.
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) September 25, 2024
To expand his mafia state into a mafia empire.
This government will call out Putin’s imperialism for what it is. pic.twitter.com/P2EJLXxdJm
Meanwhile, in Brussels, ambassadors from NATO countries and Ukraine will hold talks on Tuesday over Russia’s firing of an experimental hypersonic intermediate-range missile, the Oreshnik (“hazel tree”).
On Friday, NATO’s chief Mark Rutte met with US President-elect Donald Trump in Florida to discuss several global security issues facing the Alliance. Rutte and his team also met with Congressman Mike Waltz and the President-elect’s national security team members.
Berlin promises two more IRIS-T missile batteries before Christmas, offers “efficiency” training for brigade and battalion headquarters
In a Monday meeting with journalists in Kyiv, German Maj. Gen. Christian Freuding announced that Ukraine would receive two more IRIS-T air defense systems from Berlin before Christmas.
“The next IRIS-T SLM (medium-range) and SLS (short-range) systems should arrive in Ukraine in the coming days and weeks, before Christmas,” Freuding said. “But our support will continue after Christmas, and after January first, and after 21 Jan. [the new Trump administration’s first full day], and after 23 Feb., the date of the federal elections proposed in Germany.”
Freuding, head of the Planning Staff and the Special Task Force for Ukraine at Germany’s Defense Ministry, noted that Germany also had supplied Ukraine recently with howitzers, tanks, and Marder infantry fighting vehicles.
The 17 IRIS-T air-defense systems that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had promised in September (eight SLM and nine SLS systems) are arriving piecemeal. By early October, Ukraine had received four of the medium-range missile systems and three SLS systems.
For more than a year, President Volodymyr Zelensky has been asking the West for more of their modern advanced air-defense system as Russia continues to shell civilian targets. He has been requesting seven US-made Patriot batteries to shield Ukraine’s major cities, but so far has received only two. The systems, produced by Massachusetts-based Raytheon, cost the Pentagon about $1 billion each. By contrast, the IRIS-T short-range batteries, produced by a collaboration of defense manufacturers in Germany, Italy, Greece, Sweden, Norway, and Canada, cost about €180 million ($189 million) each.
The IRIS-T SLM system is designed to intercept drones, helicopters, airplanes, and cruise missiles at medium and short ranges, making it an efficient choice for most of the air assaults coming from neighboring Russia. The Patriot is crafted for more advanced threats, holding a long-range, high-altitude air-defense mechanism that can intercept tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and latest-generation aircraft.
Freuding went on to offer German training to certain levels of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in his briefing with reporters.
“Training is a matter of consideration with our Ukrainian friends and partners. I sat together with [Ukrainian Defense Minister] Rustem Umerov yesterday on how we can improve our training effort. There are certain ideas on training especially your battalion headquarters, brigade headquarters, to make them more efficient and combat effective," Freuding said.
Pope commemorates a peace resolution in his native Argentina by blasting Russia and Israel for their “arrogance”
Pope Francis on Monday told diplomats at the Vatican that the dialogue for peace talks in Ukraine and in Gaza “must be the soul of the international community.”
The 87-year-old Pontiff made his Spanish-language speech on a day marking the 40-year anniversary of the resolution of a conflict between Chile and his native Argentina. The Beagle Conflict, as it was known, lasted some 80 years as the countries disputed the control of islands off the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego. But it never reached the level of a full-blown war, with peace negotiations succeeding in 1984.
In his remarks, the Pope recalled ongoing conflicts and criticized the arms trade, AFP reported from the Holy See, highlighting “the hypocrisy of speaking about peace and playing at war.”
“This hypocrisy always leads us to failure,” he said, adding that “dialogue must be the soul of the international community.”
“I simply mention two failures of humanity today: Ukraine and Palestine, where there is suffering, where the arrogance of the invader prevails over dialogue,” he added in an unscripted moment.
While the leader of the Catholic Church rarely takes sides between two belligerents, his comments quite clearly laid blame for faltering peace talks in the two wars on those conducting regular air strikes on civilians.
Last week, Pope Francis expressed his solidarity with the “martyrs” in Ukraine.
In a message to Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, the apostolic nuncio in Ukraine, and published by the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, he commemorated the 1,000-day mark of what he called Russia’s “large-scale military aggression,” writing:
“Through this letter, which I address to you as my representative in the beloved and martyred Ukraine, I wish to embrace all its citizens, wherever they may be.”
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