Euro drops below 99 cents as Russia cuts main gas supply line to Europe
On Friday, Russian energy supplier Gazprom said it would not resume its supply of natural gas to Germany through the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline, blaming a malfunctioning turbine.
Hannibal Hanschke | Reuters
The euro has fallen below 99 cents for the first time in 20 years after Russia said it would shut off its main gas supply pipeline to Europe indefinitely.
The euro was hovering just below the 0.99 level as European markets opened Monday, trading at 0.9893 versus the dollar shortly after 8:00 a.m. London time (3:00 a.m. ET). Earlier in the morning, it hit lows of around $0.9881.
On Friday, Russian energy supplier Gazprom said it would not resume its supply of natural gas to Germany through the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline, blaming a malfunctioning turbine.
The announcement was made hours after the Group of Seven economic powers agreed on a plan to implement a price cap on Russian oil.
— Jenni Reid
Russian forces likely missed several deadlines to capture all of Donbas, UK says
Russian forces likely missed several deadlines to capture more of Ukraine’s Donbas, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in its latest intelligence update posted to Twitter.
Taking this full eastern region is the Kremlin’s primary goal, and it’s the area where its forces have seen the most success, though they’ve been making gains slowly, the ministry wrote.
The Russian military’s “principal axes of advance in the Donbas remain at Avdiivka near Donetsk City and, 60km to the north, around Bakhmut,” the tweet said. “Although Russia has had the most success in this sector, its forces have still only been advancing around 1km per week towards Bakhmut.”
“The political goal of the Donbas operation almost certainly remains to secure the whole of Donetsk Oblast, which would enable the Kremlin to announce the ‘liberation’ of the Donbas. Russian forces have highly likely repeatedly missed deadlines to achieve this aim,” it added.
Ukrainian officials say that Russian troops now have a deadline of Sept. 15 to achieve this, according to the ministry, which sees it as “highly unlikely.”
That will “further complicate Russia’s plans to run referendums on the occupied areas joining the Russian Federation,” the ministry said.
— Natasha Turak
Zelenskyy says counteroffensive is making progress
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Independence Square on Aug. 24, 2022, the country’s Independence Day. “I believe that the Ukrainian flag and free life will return to Crimea again. We will liberate all our land, all our people,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Sunday.
Ukrainian Presidential Press Service | Reuters
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the country’s push to liberate Russian-occupied territories in the south of the country is making progress, a week after it began.
“I believe that the Ukrainian flag and free life will return to Crimea again. We will liberate all our land, all our people,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Sunday.
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine, our intelligence, and special forces are taking the necessary steps for this. You can hear these steps. And everyone can see: the occupiers have already begun to flee from Crimea,” he added.
Zelenskyy’s comments came almost a week after Kyiv launched a counteroffensive to reclaim Kherson, one of the first cities to fall to Russian forces at the start of the invasion, and its surrounding settlements, in addition to carrying out a spate of attacks in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia back in 2014.
He praised several Ukrainian forces for liberating a town in the region of Donetsk in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine and said two settlements in the south of the country were also liberated.
— Holly Ellyatt