Germany

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany/KYIV, April 26 (Reuters) - The United States and its allies pledged new packages of ever heavier weapons for Ukraine during a meeting on Tuesday at a German air base, brushing off a threat from Moscow that their support for Kyiv could lead to nuclear war.

U.S. officials have switched emphasis this week from speaking mainly about helping Ukraine defend itself to bolder talk of a Ukrainian victory that would weaken Russia's ability to threaten its neighbours.

BERLIN (AP) — The co-leader of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party said Monday that former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose ties to the Russian energy industry have left him increasingly isolated at home, should leave the party.

Saskia Esken, one of two co-leaders of Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats, said in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio that “Gerhard Schroeder has been acting for many years now only as a businessman, and we should stop seeing him as an elder statesman, as a former chancellor. He earns his money with work for Russian state companies.”

BERLIN (AP) — Twitter says it will no longer allow advertisers on its site who deny the scientific consensus on climate change, echoing a policy already in place at Google.

“Ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis,” the company said in a statement outlining its new policy Friday.

There was no indication that the change would affect what users post on the social media site, which along with Facebook has been targeted by groups seeking to promote misleading claims about climate change.

BERLIN, April 22. /TASS/: An abrupt gas embargo would not bring quick peace to Ukraine and it is important for Germany to avoid a serious economic crisis, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in an interview published in Spiegel magazine.

BERLIN, April 22 (Reuters) - A Somali man went on trial on Friday over the killing of three people and injuring of several others in a stabbing attack in southern Germany last June in proceedings to determine whether he should be held in a closed psychiatric facility.

Investigators believe the man was mentally ill at the time of the attack in the city of Wuerzburg, and so the trial will therefore establish whether he can be held criminally culpable.

He has been charged with murder, attempted murder and serious assault.

BERLIN (AP) — The United Nations’ human rights office on Friday pointed to what it said is growing evidence of war crimes since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, declaring that humanitarian law appears to have been “tossed aside.”

Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said that “our work to date has detailed a horror story of violations perpetrated against civilians.”

BERLIN, April 21. /TASS/: Germany cannot send heavy weapons to Ukraine from the Bundeswehr’s own supplies, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Thursday during a live broadcast by RTL and n-tv channels.

BERLIN, April 20. /TASS/: Germany currently does not have any armaments that it can supply to Ukraine on a short notice, German Minister for Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock said at a joint press conference with her Latvian counterpart Edgars Rinkevics in Riga on Wednesday.

BERLIN, April 19 (Reuters) - Germany will continue to support Ukraine militarily and financially although it has practically maxed-out the weapons it can deliver from its own stocks and is instead working with the armaments industry, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday.

Among the weapons that military equipment makers said they could deliver quickly and that Ukraine needed were anti-tank and air defence weapons, Scholz told a news conference after participating in a call with Western allies.

April 14 (Reuters) - Frustration is growing among German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's junior coalition partners over what they say are shortcomings in his leadership on Ukraine, an internal rift that risks undermining Western unity against Russia.

After a dramatic policy pivot at the start of the crisis, when Scholz halted the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project with Russia days before its invasion of Ukraine, and then vowed a big jump in defence spending, his partners accuse him of dithering.