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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BEIJING — China has been “doing its best” to push for negotiations with the European Union over its tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, a commerce ministry spokesperson said on Thursday, almost four months after the punitive import curbs took effect.

The bloc voted to increase the tariffs to as much as 45.3% in October after the European Commission — which oversees EU trade policy — launched an anti-subsidy probe into whether Chinese firms benefited from preferential grants and financing as well as land, batteries and raw materials at below market prices.

“China has been doing its best to push for negotiations with the EU,” He Yadong said. “It is hoped that the EU will take notice of the call from industry and promote bilateral investment cooperation through dialogue and consultation.”

China launched its own probes last year into imports of EU brandy, dairy and pork products.

He told reporters China’s anti-dumping probe into Europe’s pork products and anti-subsidy investigation into the 27-strong bloc’s dairy trade were still ongoing, when asked how the cases were progressing.

“We will conduct the investigation in an open and transparent manner in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations and World Trade Organization rules,” he added. China’s commerce ministry in December decided to extend its anti-dumping investigation into EU brandy imports by three months to April 5.
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Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has praised the recent U.S.-Russia talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.

“This is a good initiative; it is also beneficial for Kazakhstan,” he said. “We will try to support it as much as possible.”

Tokayev’s comments are the first official response from Central Asia to the talks, which sparked serious international debate. Central Asia has been officially neutral in the Ukrainian war and has been largely silent on the three-year-old conflict. 

Click here for the full story in the Uzbek. 
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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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VOA Russian talked to experts after the U.S.-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia on how to end the Ukraine war. They warned that this is only the beginning of negotiations that may last for some time and take several turns. 

Exiled independent Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin compared the first meeting to “not even a warm-up of two boxers, but just a weigh-in ahead of the future bout.” 

Ukrainian expert Volodymyr Fesenko noted that it should come as no surprise that Washington deems negotiations with Moscow more important at this stage than negotiations with Kyiv, as Russia is a nuclear power and will need to be persuaded to consider any compromises. 

Click here for the full story in Russian. 
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Many Ukrainians are dealing with the reality of starting over after losing their homes in the war with Russia. One project helps them find new homes and jobs while assisting in the development of small villages. Lesia Bakalets reports from the Kyiv region. Camera: Vladyslav Smilianets.
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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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As Russia’s war on Ukraine enters its fourth year, European leaders warn that the outcome of ongoing peace talks between Moscow and Washington will have profound implications for all of Europe. But as Henry Ridgwell reports, leaders of the continent’s nations — including Ukraine — fear they are being excluded from deciding their own fate.
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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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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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