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EU approves $960 million in German aid for Infineon chips plant

BRUSSELS — The European Commission said Thursday it had approved 920 million-euro of German state aid, or $960 million, to Infineon Technologies for the construction of a new semiconductor manufacturing plant in Dresden.

The measure will allow Infineon to complete the MEGAFAB-DD project, which will be able to produce a wide range of different types of computer chips, the Commission said.

Chipmakers across the globe are pouring billions of dollars into new plants, as they take advantage of generous subsidies from the United States and the EU to keep the West ahead of China in developing cutting-edge semiconductor technology.

The European Commission has earmarked 15 billion euros for public and private semiconductor projects by 2030.

“This new manufacturing plant will bring flexible production capacity to the EU and thereby strengthen Europe’s security of supply, resilience and technological autonomy in semiconductor technologies, in line with the objectives set out in the European Chips Act,” the Commission said in a statement.

The Commission said the plant — which is slated to reach full capacity in 2031 — will be a front-end facility, covering wafer processing, testing and separation, adding that its chips will be used in industrial, automotive and consumer applications.

The aid will take the form of a direct grant of up to 920 million euros to Infineon to support its overall investment, amounting to 3.5 billion euros. Infineon, Germany’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, which was spun off from Siemens 25 years ago, has said the plant will be the largest single investment in its history.

Infineon has agreed with the EU to ensure the project will bring wider positive effects to the EU semiconductor value chain and invest in the research and development of the next generation of chips in Europe, the Commission said.

It will also contribute to crisis preparedness by committing to implement priority-rated orders in the case of a supply shortage, in line with the European Chips Act. 
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Thousands without power, heat in Odesa 

Thousands of residents in Ukraine’s city of Odesa were without electricity or heating after Russia launched a massive drone attack for the second night in a row. 

In his address to the nation on Wednesday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said repair work was underway after 80,000 people lost power and the same number lost heating.  

Governor Oleh Kiper, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said drone strikes damaged an administration building and triggered a fire at a restaurant and a storage facility. One person was injured. 

During the Tuesday attack, four people were injured, including a child. Officials said 500 apartment buildings, 13 schools, a kindergarten, and several hospitals lost heating. 

In Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kupiansk, one person was killed Wednesday by a Russian guided bomb, Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said. Two others were injured in an attack on a village south of the city. 

Guided bombs also hit an apartment building in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, the head of the city’s military administration posted on Telegram. Three people, including 13-year-old twins, were injured. 

One man was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s border region of Belgorod, the regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Wednesday.   

Some information for this story was provided by Reuters 
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US figures do not support Trump claims on Ukraine spending

President Donald Trump on Wednesday repeated a claim that the United States has spent $350 billion on Ukraine’s war — a figure that far eclipses the amount recorded by the Department of Defense and the interagency oversight group that tracks U.S. appropriations to Ukraine.

Since Russia’s illegal invasion in February 2022, the U.S. Congress has appropriated about $183 billion for Ukraine, according to the interagency oversight group that is charged with presenting reports to Congress.

Of that, the Pentagon confirmed to VOA that the U.S. has sent $65.9 billion in military aid to Ukraine, and an additional $3.9 billion that Congress has authorized in military aid to Kyiv remains unspent.

About $58 billion of the $183 billion in total aid for Ukraine was spent in the U.S., going directly toward boosting the U.S. defense industry, either by replacing old U.S. weapons given to Kyiv with new American-made weapons, by procuring new U.S.-made weapons for Kyiv or by making direct industrial investments.

VOA asked the White House to clarify Trump’s comments, specifically seeking any documentation for the mathematical discrepancy. The White House replied by referring VOA back to the president’s comments.

In a post Wednesday on his social media site Truth Social, Trump said, “Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle.”

Zelenskyy on Wednesday told Ukrainian reporters the total cost of the war since February 2022 was about $320 billion.

“One hundred and twenty billion of that comes from us, the people of Ukraine, the taxpayers, and $200 billion from the United States and the European Union,” Zelensky said. “This is the cost of weapons. This is the weapons package — $320 billion.”

Trump, who has mentioned the $350 billion figure several times, also said in his Wednesday social media post: “The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back.”

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a Germany-based nonprofit that tracks military, financial and humanitarian support to Ukraine, says European nations —specifically the EU, United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland — have allocated about $140 billion in total in aid for Ukraine, while the United States has allocated about $120 billion in total aid. Total aid includes military, humanitarian and financial aid to Ukraine.

The U.S. has provided about $2 billion more than Europe in military aid for Ukraine, but “European donors have been the main source of [total] aid to Ukraine since 2022, especially when it comes to financial and humanitarian aid,” the institute said in its latest report last week.

The aid to Ukraine constitutes a very small amount of GDP for several nations. For example, the U.S., Germany and the U.K. have mobilized less than 0.2% of their GDP per year to support Kyiv, while contributions from France, Italy and Spain to Ukraine have amounted to about 0.1% of their annual GDP. 

U.S. government math is complex, and spending is massive in scale. A live tracker of U.S. government spending says that the U.S. government has spent about $2.4 trillion in the early part of the 2025 fiscal year. The previous year’s spending was $6.75 trillion. 

Still, scholars were quick to dismiss the accuracy of Trump’s numbers.

“This figure is not true,” said Liana Fix, fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s possible to track how much the United States has spent for Ukraine.” 
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Europe frozen out of peace talks as Russia’s war on Ukraine enters fourth year

LONDON — Russia’s tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border three years ago this month, triggering the worst conflict on European soil since World War II. Ukraine has resisted the full-scale invasion largely thanks to the support of the United States and Europe. 

But on the frozen front lines, the war grinds on — and Russia’s forces are slowly edging forward.  

“Every day, it pushes back the Ukrainian front line somewhere by a kilometer or so. My judgment is that it could continue to do that over the rest of this year,” said Ben Barry, senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. 

“We must remember this is a terrible war. My judgment is that over a million people have been killed or seriously wounded. Now the balance of casualties is probably in Ukraine’s favor. A figure of 700,000 or 800,000 Russian casualties seems credible to me. President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy says Ukraine has only suffered 48,000 killed. That seems implausibly low to me,” Barry told Agence France-Presse. 

Europe excluded 

As the war enters its fourth year, Europe and Ukraine fear they are being excluded from deciding their own fate. Behind the scenes, the geopolitical forces that are shaping the conflict appear to be changing fast.  

Russia and the United States began peace talks this week in Saudi Arabia. Ukraine and Europe were not invited.  

“There will be some very significant alarm in European capitals about what might be discussed with regards to the security of their continent, their whole region,” said David Blagden, associate professor of international security at the University of Exeter. 

“One sort of potentially really bad outcome for European capitals is to discover that the Americans have basically put them on the hook for attempting to do some sort of peacekeeping mission in Ukraine or whatever without their say-so,” he told Reuters.  

Peacekeepers 

Britain and France have already said they may be willing to contribute to a peacekeeping force in Ukraine, a requirement of an estimated 100,000 troops.  

There are deep concerns over the potential risks of sending peacekeeping troops, according to Armida van Rij, head of the Europe program at London’s Chatham House. 

“The U.S. seemed to have taken away NATO’s Article 5 protection [on collective self-defense] for any troops that would be put in Ukraine. That means that they would not be protected, so that deterrent effect is gone. We know that Russia tends to break agreements. It has a long history of doing that under [President Vladimir] Putin and previous presidents. So, it is quite likely that Russia may well break the terms of any ceasefire or peace agreement that may come …  and then the question is, ‘OK, so what do the Europeans then do in response?’ That might put them in direct confrontation with Russia, which is a terrifying thought,” van Rij told VOA. 

Defense spending 

The European Union says it has provided around $145 billion in military, financial, humanitarian and refugee aid to Ukraine over the past three years, more than half the total global assistance for Kyiv. 

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this month that European security will no longer be a priority, and Washington is demanding NATO allies increase their defense spending. 

“Where that money’s going to come from is a key question,” said van Rij. “The European Commission seems open to allowing some flexibility to their fiscal rules, which will make it a little bit easier for countries to spend on defense. But all of that still takes time, so it’s still going to be really difficult.” 

Hard decisions will have profound implications for Europe, according to British Defense Secretary John Healey.  

“The decisions that we make right now over the coming weeks will not only define the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine, but the security of our world for a generation to come,” Healey said in a speech Tuesday in London. 
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US envoy in Ukraine for talks following US-Russia meeting

U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine and Russia said Wednesday the United States understands the needs for security guarantees for Ukraine, as he visited the country for talks with Ukrainian officials.

Gen. Keith Kellogg told reporters in Kyiv that he was in Ukraine “to listen,” hear the concerns of Ukrainian leaders and return to the United States to consult President Trump.

Kellogg said the United States wants the war in Ukraine to end, saying that would be good for the region and the world.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters ahead of an expected meeting with Kellogg that while U.S. officials have said there will be no U.S. troops deployed as part of any potential post-war peacekeeping mission, there are still other ways it can help, such as providing air defense systems.

“You don’t want boots on the ground, you don’t want NATO,” Zelenskyy said. “Okay, can we have Patriots? Enough Patriots?”

The discussions in Kyiv come amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine, including French President Emmanuel Macron hosting European leaders Wednesday for a second round of talks about the conflict and European support for Ukraine.

Kellogg also met earlier this week with European leaders, and on Tuesday U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Saudi Arabia.

Rubio said both Ukraine and Russia would have to make concessions to achieve peace.

“The goal is to bring an end to this conflict in a way that’s fair, enduring, sustainable and acceptable to all parties involved,” Rubio told reporters. No Ukrainian or European officials were at the table for the talks.

Zelenskyy objected to being excluded from the meeting, a position that drew criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Today I heard, ‘Well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump said of Ukraine’s leaders. “You should have never started it.”

Russia began the war with its February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Zelenskyy added Wednesday that while he has “great respect” for Trump, the American leader is living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.”

Zelenskyy postponed a trip to Saudi Arabia that had been scheduled for this week, suggesting that he wanted to avoid his visit being linked to the U.S.-Russia negotiations.

The United States and Russia agreed to “appoint respective high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a statement. Bruce characterized the meeting as “an important step forward” toward peace.

Rubio said Ukraine and European nations would have to be involved in talks on ending the war. He said that if the war is halted, the United States would have “extraordinary opportunities … to partner” with Russia on trade and other global issues.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she and other European foreign ministers spoke to Rubio after the U.S.-Russia meeting, and she expressed support for a Ukraine-led resolution.

“Russia will try to divide us. Let’s not walk into their traps,” Kallas said on X. “By working together with the US, we can achieve a just and lasting peace — on Ukraine’s terms.”

Russia now controls about one-fifth of Ukraine’s internationally recognized 2014 territory, including the Crimean Peninsula that it unilaterally annexed in 2014, a large portion of eastern Ukraine that pro-Russian separatists captured in subsequent fighting, and land Russia has taken over since the 2022 invasion.

As the invasion started, Moscow hoped for a quick takeover of all of Ukraine. But with stiff Ukrainian resistance, the war instead evolved into a grinding ground conflict and daily aerial bombardments by each side.

Zelenskyy has long demanded that his country’s 2014 boundaries be restored, but U.S. officials have said that is unrealistic, as is Kyiv’s long-sought goal of joining NATO.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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VOA Russian: US diplomacy uses different channels for Russia, Ukraine

As President Donald Trump’s administration launched intense diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, VOA Russian looks at how Washington uses different channels and different modes in building relationships with various partners, alternating messages they were delivering during the Munich Security Conference depending on who was the messenger and who was in the audience. 

Click here for the full story in Russian. 
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Ukrainian drone hits oil pumping station

Russia shot down 21 Ukrainian drones late Tuesday, but a drone attack on an oil pumping station in southern Russia reduced oil supplies for Kazakhstan and the global market, Russian officials said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces said one of their drones struck and knocked out a North Korean self-propelled howitzer on the eastern front.

“In Luhansk region, fighters of the 412th separate regiment of Nemesis drones struck a very rare M-1978 North Korean self-propelled artillery vehicle with a gun caliber of 170 mm,” the Ukrainian military posted on the Telegram messaging app.

The Russian defense ministry said 20 drones in the Bryansk region on the Ukrainian border and another in Crimea were shot down within an hour late Tuesday.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said the drone attack on the pumping station reduced oil flows through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium by 30%-40% on Tuesday.

“As a result of the attack, energy equipment, a gas turbine unit, and a substation were damaged,” he said on Russian television. CPC pumps crude from companies that include Chevron and Exxon Mobil, Reuters reported.

Novak said repairs might take several months.

Earlier Tuesday, a Russian drone hit an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Dolynska, officials said Tuesday, injuring at least three people.

Andriy Raikovych, governor of the Kirovohrad region where the attack took place, said on Telegram that authorities evacuated dozens of people from the building and that those injured included a mother and two children.

The attack was part of a widespread Russian aerial assault overnight, which the Ukrainian military said included 176 drones.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down 103 of the drones, with intercepts taking place over the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions, the military said Tuesday.

Cherkasy Governor Ihor Taburets said on Telegram that debris from a destroyed drone damaged four houses in his region.

Some information for this story was provided by Reuters.
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VOA Russian: Navalny supporters want Russian political prisoners released as part of deal with US

U.S.-based supporters of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny marked one year since his sudden and unexplained death in an arctic prison with vigils and protests in many U.S. cities, including Washington, New York and Los Angeles. VOA Russian correspondents spoke to Navalny supporters who urged the U.S. authorities to demand a release of Russian political prisoners as part of a U.S.-Russia deal on the war in Ukraine. 

Click here for the full story in Russian. 
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Iran charges British couple with spying 

A British couple detained in Iran last month has been charged with spying, Iran’s state media reported Tuesday.  

Britain’s Foreign Office has identified the couple as Craig and Lindsay Foreman. 

“The detained individuals entered the country as tourists and collected information in several provinces of the country,” reported Iran’s judiciary-affiliated Mizan news agency. Iran has accused the couple of having connections with “hostile countries.”   

“We are deeply concerned by reports that two British nationals have been charged with espionage in Iran,” a British Foreign Office spokesman said Tuesday. “We continue to raise this case directly with the Iranian authorities.” 

The Associated Press reported that Hugo Shorter, Britain’s ambassador to Iran, has met with the couple in the southern city of Kerman, where they are jailed, with Iranian government officials in attendance.   

The Foreign Office said it is providing the couple with consular assistance and is in close contact with their family. 

The couple’s family said in a statement on Saturday, after the couple’s arrest, “This unexpected turn of events has caused significant concern for our entire family, and we are deeply focused on ensuring their safety and well-being during this trying time.” The family said it is “united on our determination to secure their safe return.”  

The two were traveling around the world on motorbikes, according to an AP report, which said that they crossed Armenia’s border into Iran on December 30.   

Iran has long used Western detainees to gain concessions in negotiations with Western countries, a move Tehran denies.  

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France Presse.  
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Vatican cancels pope’s weekend engagements as he battles ‘complex’ infection 

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis, who began his fifth day in hospital on Tuesday for what doctors have described as a “complex” respiratory infection, will not take part in this weekend’s Holy Year events, the Vatican said on Tuesday. 

The 88-year-old pontiff has been suffering from a respiratory infection for more than a week and was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Friday. 

A planned public papal audience set for Saturday had been canceled “due to the health condition of the Holy Father,” the Vatican said in a brief statement.  

A papal mass scheduled for Sunday will still take place, but will be led instead by a senior Vatican official, it added. 

The Vatican said on Monday that doctors had changed the pope’s drug therapy for the second time during his hospital stay to tackle a “complex clinical situation.” They described it as a “polymicrobial infection of the respiratory tract.” 

Doctors say polymicrobial diseases can be caused by a mix of viruses, bacteria and fungi. 

Francis, who has been pontiff since 2013, has had influenza and other health problems several times over the past two years. As a young adult he developed pleurisy and had part of one lung removed, and in recent times has been prone to lung infections. 
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