Nearly all European Union countries are being targeted by pro-Russian online propaganda ahead of the bloc’s parliamentary elections in early June, France’s EU affairs minister said.

The United Arab Emirates and Ukraine concluded an economic agreement aimed at increasing their bilateral trade, which has fallen sharply from its pre-war level.  

Ukraine can still prevail in war with Russia, says Nato chief

Ukraine still has a chance to prevail on the battlefield after Moscow took advantage of delays in Western military and financial aid, said North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

“Ukraine has been outgunned for months,” the Nato chief said at a joint press conference in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday. “But it’s not too late for Ukraine to prevail.”

Fighting has become more heated along the frontline in eastern Ukraine, with Russia exploiting its advantage over Kyiv’s forces along several axes, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s army commander-in-chief, said on Sunday. Six months of waiting as US Republicans held up a $61-billion aid package had allowed Russia’s military to “seize the initiative”, Zelensky told Western allies during a meeting of the so-called Ramstein group on Friday.

“For months, the US was unable to agree a package, and European allies have been unable to deliver ammunition at the scale we promised,” Stoltenberg said. “This means that few Russian missiles and drones have been shot down and Russia has been able to push forward along the frontline.”

Zelensky thanked Ukraine’s partners for new aid packages and reiterated that stabilisation on the frontline and further Ukrainian counteroffensive actions were dependent on timely weapons supplies and financial aid. Some weapons “have started to arrive,” he said. “But we have to speed up the process.”

The allies have heard the president’s appeal and have agreed to step up support, Stoltenberg told reporters.

Among recent announcements on aid to Ukraine:

• US President Joe Biden last week signed a $61-billion package including critical air defence and artillery ammunition.
• The UK last week announced £500-million of new spending — including more Storm Shadow long-range missiles — taking total UK military aid to Ukraine this financial year to £3-billion.
• The Netherlands will release an extra €1-billion in military aid as well as €400-million to bolster the Ukrainian economy and fund critical energy infrastructure repairs, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a post on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, on 12 April.

“Other allies are looking into what more they can do, and I expect new announcements soon,” Stoltenberg said in Kyiv.

Almost all EU states are targets of Russian propaganda, says France

Nearly all European Union countries were being targeted by pro-Russian online propaganda ahead of the bloc’s parliamentary elections in early June, France’s EU affairs minister said.

French government efforts to tackle foreign interference and disinformation had uncovered 31 new websites that were spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda across Europe, Jean-Noel Barrot told a news conference. This adds to 193 domains already identified.

Twenty-five of the EU’s 27 member states have been targeted in recent months, France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs revealed on Monday. Barrot said these web-based operations were aimed at destabilising public opinion ahead of the vote.

Speaking to reporters alongside his German and Polish counterparts near Paris, he urged social platforms to block websites “participating in a foreign interference operation”.

“2024 is a year of major elections, in Europe and beyond,” the three ministers said in a joint statement. “We will not tolerate any attempts to interfere in our democratic processes.”

Read more on Russian interference:

• Russia poised for political meddling in the West, Moldova warns
• Finland sees ‘elevated’ risk of Russian spying
• Russian hackers tried duping German politicians before elections

UAE, Ukraine finalise pact aimed at boosting bilateral trade

The United Arab Emirates and Ukraine concluded an economic agreement aimed at increasing their bilateral trade, which has fallen sharply from its pre-war level.

Non-oil trade between the two countries reached $386-million last year, down from more than $800-million before the Kremlin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Thani Al-Zeyoudi, the UAE’s minister of state for foreign trade, said in an interview. The fall in trade was not specific to the Gulf nation, and similar trends with Ukraine since the start of the war could be seen across the globe, he said.

The agreement finalises a trade pact that was announced two years ago and is part of the UAE’s goal of growing its non-oil foreign trade with multiple nations. The deal aims to alleviate or remove tariffs on some products and strengthen supply chains to the wider region for major exports such as grains, machinery and metals, according to a statement on the agreement released on Monday.

Kyiv estimates the accord may boost Ukraine’s gross domestic product by 0.1% in the medium- to long-term, the Economy Ministry said in a statement on its website.

“Ukraine is a bridge for our exports to Europe, and an important source for our imports related to food security,” Al-Zeyoudi said in the statement. The agreement “will provide Ukrainian companies and entrepreneurs with a new platform that allows them to expand towards growth markets in Asia and Africa through the UAE”.

Al-Zeyoudi said the pact would “play an active role in revitalising the Ukrainian economy and would provide new opportunities for the business communities of the two friendly countries”.

Joint investment between the two countries reached $360-million in 2022 across several sectors including logistics and infrastructure, travel and tourism, and technology, according to the statement.

Two Ukraine servicemen stabbed to death in Germany, Russian held

Ukraine’s government said two servicemen on leave in Germany were fatally stabbed and a Russian suspect was arrested on murder charges.

Police in Bavaria, where the men were attacked on Saturday, said they arrested a 57-year-old Russian citizen and were investigating the incident’s “background and motive”.  The Ukrainians were in Germany for rehabilitation, according to the Foreign Ministry in Kyiv.

The victims, ages 36 and 23, were found wounded on the grounds of a shopping mall in Murnau, a town south of Munich in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, state police said. One died on the scene and the other at a hospital.

Germany has been a key partner in Ukraine’s fight against the invasion by Russia, providing billions of euros in military aid to Kyiv since 2022 and training more than 10,000 servicemen. More than 1,000 wounded Ukrainians have been treated in Germany, including almost 700 soldiers, according to the Health Ministry in Berlin. DM