Zelenskyy secures non-military support package from Austria

Euronews

12 hours ago

In his first visit to Austria since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy secured a pledge of non-military support from the traditionally neutral country.
During his meetings with Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen and Chancellor Christian Stocker, Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine and Austria had signed agreements on critical areas such as de-mining, energy, cybersecurity and reconstruction.
At a joint press conference, Van der Bellen reaffirmed Austria's neutral stance on military matters but emphasised that Austria is "by no means politically neutral," voicing support for Ukraine's defence against Russia.
Austria has also backed EU sanctions on Moscow and pledged to assist Ukraine's reconstruction once the war ends.
Zelenskyy thanked Austria for its "continuous support of Ukraine's just position in its fight for independence."
He also condemned Russia's behaviour during talks over potential prisoner exchanges, revealing that Russian negotiators had once suggested swapping Ukrainian children for Russian soldiers, calling it "madness."
He added, "This is beyond comprehension, beyond international law, and, frankly, in line with (Russia's) usual behaviour."
Austria, known for its neutrality since 1955, has faced criticism for its ties to Moscow despite condemning Russia's invasion.
While Vienna has provided humanitarian aid to Ukraine, it has refrained from sending weapons.
Former Chancellor Karl Nehammer was the first EU leader to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin after the war began, though his efforts to persuade Putin to end the invasion were unsuccessful.
Zelenskyy's visit to Austria comes ahead of his trip to the G7 Summit in Canada, where he is expected to call for more sanctions on Russia and discuss a potential US military aid package with President Donald Trump.
"We will discuss it with him," he said. "I am sure we will have such opportunity, at least I count on it."
Meanwhile, Russia launched 138 drones overnight, targeting Ukraine's Donetsk region. Despite Ukraine intercepting or jamming most of them, 10 drones hit their targets, and falling debris caused additional damage.
A drone strike also hit the city of Sumy on Sunday night and Ukrainian power engineers have come under fire in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
A pair of European satellites have created the first artificial solar eclipse by flying in precise formation, providing hours of on-demand totality for scientists.
The European Space Agency released the eclipse pictures at the Paris Air Show on Monday.
Launched late last year, the orbiting duo have churned out simulated solar eclipses since March while zooming tens of thousands of kilometres above Earth.
Flying 150 metres apart, one satellite blocks the sun like the moon does during a natural total solar eclipse as the other aims its telescope at the corona, the sun's outer atmosphere that forms a crown or halo of light.
It's an intricate, prolonged dance requiring extreme precision by the cube-shaped spacecraft, less than 1.5 metres in size.
Their flying accuracy needs to be within a mere millimetre, the thickness of a fingernail. This meticulous positioning is achieved autonomously through GPS navigation, star trackers, lasers and radio links.
Dubbed Proba-3, the $210 million (€181 million) mission has generated 10 successful solar eclipses so far during the ongoing checkout phase.
The longest eclipse lasted five hours, said the Royal Observatory of Belgium's Andrei Zhukov, the lead scientist for the orbiting corona-observing telescope. He and his team are aiming for a six-hour totality per eclipse once scientific observations begin in July.
Scientists are already thrilled by the preliminary results that show the corona without the need for any special image processing, said Zhukov.
"We almost couldn't believe our eyes," Zhukov said in an email. "This was the first try, and it worked. It was so incredible."
Zhukov anticipates an average of two solar eclipses per week being produced for a total of nearly 200 during the two-year mission, yielding more than 1,000 hours of totality.
That will be a scientific bonanza since full solar eclipses produce just a few minutes of totality when the moon lines up perfectly between Earth and the sun, on average just once every 18 months.
The sun continues to mystify scientists, especially its corona, which is hotter than the solar surface.
Coronal mass ejections result in billions of tons of plasma and magnetic fields being hurled out into space. Geomagnetic storms can result, disrupting power and communication while lighting up the night sky with auroras in unexpected locales.
While previous satellites have generated imitation solar eclipses, including the European Space Agency and NASA's Solar Orbiter and Soho observatory, the sun-blocking disk was always on the same spacecraft as the corona-observing telescope.
What makes this mission unique, Zhukov said, is that the sun-shrouding disk and telescope are on two different satellites and therefore far apart.
The distance between these two satellites will give scientists a better look at the part of the corona closest to the limb of the sun.
"We are extremely satisfied by the quality of these images, and again this is really thanks to formation flying" with unprecedented accuracy, ESA's mission manager Damien Galano said from the Paris Air Show.