News blog about the Russian war of aggression
Corruption uncovered in Ukrainian grenade purchase
From dpa, afp, Reuters, csi, mam, cc, sic, ts, te, das, lim, cck, bm
Updated on January 28th, 2024 – 4:31 a.m. Reading time: 65 min.
Target hit: first flames came out of the tank, then the explosion followed. (Source: t-online)
100,000 grenades are said to have been embezzled in Ukraine. The head of the Russian parliament warns of a world war. All information in the news blog.
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Corruption uncovered in Ukrainian arms shipments
4.10 a.m.: The Ukrainian security service SBU has uncovered a corruption scheme in the purchase of weapons by the Ukrainian military worth about $40 million. “According to the investigation, former and current high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Defense and heads of subsidiaries are involved in the embezzlement,” the SBU said on Saturday (local time). An investigation “exposed Defense Ministry officials and managers of arms supplier Lviv Arsenal.” The embezzlement involved the purchase of 100,000 mortar shells for the military, the statement said.
According to the SBU, a contract with Lviv Arsenal to purchase the grenades was concluded in August 2022, six months after the start of the war. Payment was made in advance, with some funds being transferred abroad. However, according to the statement, weapons were never delivered. “Suspicion notices” – the first stage of a Ukrainian court case – were issued against five people in both the ministry and the arms supplier. A suspect was arrested while trying to cross the Ukrainian border.
Rocket attack on Ukrainian industrial site
11.30 p.m.: Russian missiles have hit an industrial site in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, sparking a fire, according to the governor of the Poltava region. Two Russian ballistic missiles hit the target in the city, writes Filip Pronin on the messaging app Telegram. There were no injuries in the incident. Further southeast in the Zaporizhia region, local governor Yuri Malashko said an infrastructure facility had been hit by a drone attack. Rescue workers are on site. Malashko does not provide any information about damage or casualties.
Ukraine: Russian soldiers cross border and kill civilians
6:01 p.m.: According to Ukrainian authorities, Russian soldiers entered a Ukrainian border village from Russia and shot two residents. The administration of Ukraine’s Sumy region said the soldiers “brutally shot” a man and a woman in the village of Andriyivka on Saturday morning during a “sabotage and reconnaissance mission.” Governor Volodymyr Artyukh again called on all residents of the border area to leave their villages.
Anriivka is located about four kilometers from the border with Russia’s Kursk region. It is located within a five-kilometer-wide border zone, whose residents have been urged by the Ukrainian authorities in the past to seek safety from Russian attacks.
According to authorities, three civilians were killed in further Russian attacks in the east and south of Ukraine on Saturday. A resident of the village of Beryslav in the southern Kherson region was killed by an attack drone, the other two were victims of an artillery attack in the Donetsk region.
Russia’s parliamentary leader warns of “new world war”
11:31 a.m.: Russian parliamentary leader Vyacheslav Volodin has raised the danger of a third world war on the 80th anniversary of the end of the siege of Leningrad. “Fascist ideology has become the norm for the leadership of NATO countries,” writes Volodin on his Telegram channel. He accuses Western governments, including explicitly the federal government under Olaf Scholz, of supporting a policy of genocide in Ukraine. “This is a dangerous path that could lead to a new world war.”
Russia justifies its almost two-year war of aggression against Ukraine by claiming, among other things, that it has to “denazify” the neighboring country. Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly uses historical comparisons with the Second World War to justify his attack on the neighboring country. He equates the invasion of Ukraine he ordered with the defense of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany’s criminal war of aggression. Especially on anniversaries, Moscow uses the argument of “defending the memory of the war dead” for its war propaganda.
