Thursday's top story: Black-red leaders take a different tone on Russia
Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) wants to further expand military aid to Ukraine.
On arrival for talks with the government in Kyiv, Pistorius condemned the increased Russian air strikes on the country, which were "extraordinarily violent and threatening with the large number of cruise missiles and drone attacks".
"This sends a clear signal from Moscow: There is no interest in a peaceful solution at the moment..." Pistorius said at the train station in Kyiv.
But the Defence Minister's view sounds disparate to others in his party. Other Social Democrats have recently encouraged a détente in relations with Russia, and in their party manifesto they called Germany's new armament push "irrational".
The stark contrast in tone between Chancellor Merz and some of his SPD colleagues seems to call Germany's military ambitions into question. As an author at Spiegel asks, "How seriously can Russia take this federal government?"
READ ALSO: Germany's Merz condemns Russian 'terror against civilians' in Ukraine
Germany and Denmark vow tough common approach to immigration
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Wednesday they agreed on the need to urgently curb immigration and strengthen EU rules on asylum to maintain social cohesion.
Denmark has long had tough immigration policies, with Frederiksen pursuing a "zero refugee" policy since coming to power in 2019 and granting relatively few asylum requests.
Speaking alongside Frederiksen at a press conference in Berlin, the German chancellor said: "Denmark has long been a role model for us in migration policy."
"What Denmark has achieved in recent years is truly exemplary, and we have often sought information from members of the Danish cabinet and from you personally about how you have proceeded," he said.
While acknowledging that Germany had long been a "country of immigration", Merz emphasised that "we must not overburden our society's willingness to accept and integrate newcomers.
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Frederiksen pledged to work with Merz to find "new solutions that lower the influx to Europe" and lead to the return of "those that do not have the right to stay in our countries".
Poland to introduce border controls with Germany, says Prime Minister
Poland may introduce checks on its border with Germany in coming weeks to clamp down on its neighbour pushing back undocumented migrants, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday.
Tusk said it was "very probable that from this summer we will introduce such partial controls on the frontier with Germany".
The prime minister, whose government won a parliamentary confidence vote on Wednesday, added that he had warned Germany that his government would intensely monitor "any attempt to send any migrant to Poland".
Disputes between Poland and Germany have arisen over border check points, with Polish officials accusing German authorities of unlawfully sending asylum-seekers into the country.
Poland has accused Belarus and its Russian ally of organising migrant crossings into Poland in a bid to destabilise the EU.
Defective signal box disrupts morning train traffic in Berlin
A defective signal box at the Friedrichstraße station is causing chaos in Berlin's morning S-Bahn traffic.
The S3, S5, S7, S75 and S9 lines are affected, according to Deutsche Bahn.
DB added that it's currently unforeseeable how long disruptions will persist.
On the S3 line, trains are still running between Erkner and Warschauer Straße, S-Bahn announced.
Line S5 only runs between Strausberg Nord/Hoppegarten and Ostbahnhof. The S75 line will also run to a limited extent between the Wartenberg and Lichtenberg stops.
The trains of the S3 lines between Friedrichshagen and Ostbahnhof and the S5 between Mahlsdorf and Warschauer Straße or Ostbahn will not run.
Germany charges seven far-left militants over attacks on neo-Nazis
German prosecutors on Wednesday charged seven people over a series of "left-wing extremist attacks" targeting far-right activists at home and abroad.
All but one of them were accused of belonging to an organisation led by Lina E., who was jailed in 2023 for attacks on neo-Nazis and has become a cause celebre for Germany's far-left.
The group shared a "militant left-wing extremist ideology", federal prosecutors said in a statement.
Its members rejected "the existing democratic constitutional state, the fundamental right to freedom of expression, and the state's monopoly on the use of force".
The group were accused of carrying out attacks between 2018 and 2023, in Germany and, on one occasion, at a far-right rally in Hungary.
In Germany, the list of allegations included an October 2019 attack at a restaurant in the eastern city of Eisenach, which was said to be a meeting place for far-right activists.
With reporting by AFP and DPA.
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