Putin beordrar styrkor att gå in i Ukraina - INVASION NU (2022-02-24)

1) Does Germany halve its military aid to Ukraine in 2025?

The simple answer to that is no, but I need to give a lot more context, as it's also not directly a lie.

The Federal Cabinet (consisting of 16 ministers and the Chancellor) agreed on a draft budget for 2025 a few days ago.

In this draft, the German government has earmarked a total of €4 billion to support Ukraine, a large part of which is to be used for the military assistance.

In the current year, the German government has earmarked around €7 billion for military assistance to Ukraine.

To summarise, this is a draft budget that contains around €3 billion less in funding than this year. This means that the government is planning to reduce its military assistance massively, but it might not be the final budget, and they might even expect it to get modified anyway (explanation follows below).

2) What is the reason the German government is planning with significantly less funding for 2025?

Both the German Minister of Defence, Boris Pistorius, and the German Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner, have justified the reduction in funding in the coming year with the recently approved G7/EU aid.

Russian and North Korean prosecutors sign deal on law enforcement cooperation

[...]

Igor Kranov and Kim Chol Won signed several agreements and reached a deal on a cooperation program between their respective offices for 2024-2026 during a meeting in Pyongyang, according to the Russian prosecution.

The agreements tackle “issues of mutual interest” such as “legal assistance” and “cooperation of law enforcement in criminal cases,” as well as crimes in the IT sphere and environment, the office stated. It previously said the two dignitaries were set to renew a cooperation agreement signed in 2010.

In Russia, there are reports of a drone attack on a ferry in the port of Krasnodar Krai, causing the vessel to catch fire. The regional governor, Veniamin Kondratyev, stated that the attack occurred at the port of Kavkaz and resulted in casualties among the crew and port staff. Locals reported that ambulances and firefighters were dispatched to the port.

Russian Telegram channels report a drone attack on the port of Kavkaz, Krasnodar region of Russia. A ferry ship was damaged.

A dialogue from a local Telegram channel:
"Our air defense is just great!"
"Yeaaah, great, minus a railroad ferry, it seems, the hit was significant."