Germany’s foreign minister Angelina bear book has backed calls to investigate potential human rights violations committed by Russia in Ukraine she was speaking via video link to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva we urgently need a commission of inquiry on Ukraine to investigate all violations of human rights that have been committed by Russia since its military aggression we must stand strong on accountability meanwhile Germany has announced that it’s sending more weapons to Ukraine a government Source says Berlin has agreed to provide 2700 anti-aircraft missiles the weapons are Soviet designs trailer missiles from the stocks of the former East German Armed Forces Germany had already committed to delivering a thousand anti-tank weapons and 500 surface-to-air missiles Berlin recently reversed a long-standing policy of not exporting weapons to conflict zones let’s get some background on this from our chief political editor uh these weapons are said to be of Soviet production from the former East German uh Army uh that’s an irony of History isn’t it I think we’re in the process of actually writing a new chapter in history um these are Soviet made yes they were delivered to the former East Germany these are weapons that were also used in Russia’s conflict with Afghanistan back then in the days so they’re very old but they are functioning hardware and that is scarce currently in the German Army and after initially um we heard the defense minister Lamprey saying look we have to look what we even have what we can give out well this now is part of a continuing list because we do expect there to be more that can be given to Ukraine always stressing that there’s no direct Handover Germany is not delivering these weapons physically does that make a difference for Russia how is Russia viewing this it’s NATO weapons being used against them I’m sure they’re going to have something to say about it well these are specifically not weapons that are earmarked within NATO contingencies and this actually is a key point we had the Deputy foreign minister of Russia yesterday stressing that there’s an increasing likelihood of misunderstandings of a direct contact between NATO and Russia which fits into a Russian Narrative of actually NATO being an active threat towards Russia which NATO denies it’s it’s a defense mechanism and clearly all NATO countries that are sending weapons are at pains to stress and to ensure that there is no direct contact because that’s what everybody wants to avoid and that there would be a direct confrontation with Russia which could and you know I’m surprised I’m even saying this but it that is World War III scenario if that was to happen so these are the stakes that are on the table at the moment terrible Stakes um the German government recently uh set up a special budget of 100 I think 100 billion uh Euros to ramp up defense to modernize the German Army the bundes there and the the fierce debate has now flared up in German politics about that um can you bring us up to speed it’s an internal debate I mean what we saw happening over the weekend is the chancellor pretty much acting alone uh turning around German defense and foreign policy of the past decades and now effectively troubling the German defense budget overnight which is quite something I was with him as he traveled to Israel yesterday there that was received positively Israel has now offered a new strategic dialogue it so far only has with Britain and the us and it shows that there’s a new understanding of what strategic role Germany will have also in the future and that it has to be able to defend itself because it’s simply not able to do that and this also fits in with the signals we’re getting from the French President Emmanuel Macau who’s now stressing self-sufficiency is something that’s needed in the future and an own strategic Outlook these are words we’ve heard before but they’re now being backed up by money and it looks like infrastructure and Hardware in the very near future as well I think the money is the important sign it always shows when people are serious DW’s Chief political editor Michael there for us thank you and here are some more headlines related to this war Russia’s foreign minister Sergey lavrov says his country will push on with its mission to quote demilitarize Ukraine and stop it joining NATO speaking on Russian television on Thursday lavrov accused Western countries of preparing for a war against Russia and raising the prospect of nuclear weapons please in Moscow have apparently detained a group of children for laying flowers at the Ukraine Embassy that’s according to a social media user some were as young as seven people were also arrested in Saint Petersburg a monitoring group says more than 8 000 anti-war protesters have now been detained in the past week in Russia the international paralympic committee has banned Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing at the Paralympics that reverses a previous decision just the day before the games begin in Beijing on Tuesday the IPC had said athletes from the two countries could take part as neutrals German karmaker Volkswagen says it will stop exports to Russia and hold producing Vehicles there it joins several other car companies now boycotting Russia over Ukraine some of the world’s biggest technology companies clothing brands and Industrial Giants have now cut all ties with Russia while various shipping companies have stopped deliveries Video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg3pCFXV0FE
