Scholz is left out in the rain by Brazil’s Lula

Brazil will not provide ammunition to Ukraine. The situation at the front is still tough, but Kyiv is confident. The news at a glance.

At the last stop of his three-day trip to Latin America, Chancellor Olaf Scholz was also unable to persuade Brazil to give Ukraine more support. Brazil will not provide ammunition for the Gepard anti-aircraft tanks or Leopard tanks that Germany supplied to Ukraine. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva clearly rejected such requests on Monday. “Brazil has no interest in transferring the ammunition to be used in the Ukraine-Russia war,” he said in a joint press conference. “Brazil is a country of peace. And that’s why Brazil doesn’t want any involvement in this war, not even indirectly.”

Germany has delivered 30 Gepard anti-aircraft tanks to Ukraine and has pledged 7 more. However, ammunition is scarce. A new factory of the armaments company Rheinmetall for the production of this ammunition is currently being built in Unterlüß near Celle in Lower Saxony. However, production is not scheduled to begin until June. The first batch is scheduled for delivery in July.

As early as April last year – shortly after the start of the war – Germany had tried to get cheetah ammunition in Brazil and hoped for up to 300,000 rounds. It is now clear that nothing will come of it.

His country will work with other countries to achieve peace in Ukraine since Brazil has not taken sides, Lula said.

The left-wing politician brought himself into play as a mediator to talk to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin – as well as China. “Our Chinese friends play a very important role in this,” he said. “It’s time for China to get involved.”

Barely a year after the start of the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated the need for his country’s complete victory. “Russian terror must lose everywhere and in every respect: both on the battlefield and insofar as not a single ruin remains in our country,” said Zelenskyy in his evening video address on Monday. “So that we can rebuild everything and prove that freedom is stronger.”

In addition to security initiatives, humanitarian aid is also essential, he stressed. In the southern city of Mykolaiv, for example, restoring the water supply destroyed by Russian troops was particularly important, said the Ukrainian head of state a few hours earlier, with a view to a visit there with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.

Frederiksen and Selenskyj had visited a hospital and the seaport in Mykolaiv, which had around 470,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.

France and Australia want to jointly supply Ukraine with artillery ammunition to ward off the Russian war of aggression. The French Foreign Ministry said the 155mm ammunition was urgently needed by Ukraine. The ammunition intended for artillery pieces can be used, among other things, to shell tanks. It is about several thousand projectiles that the defense industries of both countries jointly manufactured.

The Ukrainian ambassador in Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, meanwhile insisted on the delivery of combat aircraft to his country after the commitment to battle tanks. “We have not yet asked Germany about fighter jets,” Makeiev told DW. But they are important because they are needed to shoot down Russian missiles. “Russia fires many rockets at Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.” The fighter jets are part of Ukraine’s efforts to defend its airspace.

The United States will not deliver F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, according to President Joe Biden. When asked by a reporter, “Will the US provide F-16s to Ukraine?” Biden said “no” in Washington Monday. So far, it has been said that the US government has not ruled out any particular weapon system and is aligning support with what Ukraine needs. It will be “discussed very carefully,” it said last Friday.