Ukraine updates: Majority of Germans again peacekeeping drive

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv was working to establish ties with the new government in Syria.

“We are preparing to resume diplomatic relations with Syria and cooperation in international organizations,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine cut ties with Damascus in June 2022 after regime of Bashar Assad recognized the independence of two self-declared breakaway republics in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Assad’s regime was overthrown on December 8, after which the former Syrian leader fled to allied Russia.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Vitaliy Koval said that Ukraine had already sent a shipment of food aid to the eastern Mediterranean country and vowed that Kyiv would provide “long-lasting” support.

Koval said that the wheat delivery would feed around 167,000 people for a month.

“Today, at the level of government dialogue, we clearly understand that support should be sustainable and not a one-off, but rather long-lasting and predictable,” Koval said in a televised interview, adding that Syria was also interested in receiving sugar, meat and vegetable oil from Ukraine.

Ukraine is a major exporter of wheat and sunflower oil.

At least one person was killed in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, local authorities said, following a Russian bomb attack on the village of Stepnohirsk.

The village lies just a few kilometers from the front line and comes amid an escalation of aerial attacks that claimed two lives in Kyiv on New Year’s Day.

“A five-story building was destroyed. A man was killed. Rescuers removed his body from under the rubble,” Zaporizhzhia’s Ukrainian governor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram.

Zaporizhzhia, home to one of Ukraine’s key nuclear power plants, has been the scene of fierce fighting for years. The regional capital, Zaporizhzhia city, is still under Ukrainian control. However, authorities fear that Russia is planning a fresh offensive to take the city.

A YouGov survey carried out on behalf of German news agency dpa found that 56% of participants supported the creation of an international peacekeeping force in Ukraine if a ceasefire is achieved in the conflict. 

However, respondents were less keen on direct German involvement in the war, with only 23% in favor of German soldiers being part of such a peacekeeping force.

About 33% fully opposed German participation, and 19% were completely against the creation of any kind of peacekeeping force.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and there are no signs that a sustainable ceasefire between the two countries will be enacted anytime soon. US President-elect Donald Trump, who will take office on January 20, has vowed to end the conflict during his term, but has not outlined concrete steps on how this would be achieved.  

es/wd (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)