WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Saturday blamed congressional inaction for Russia’s capture of the eastern Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka, as partisan wrangling holds up $60 billion in badly needed military aid.
With Ukrainian forces running low on supplies, Biden called President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday “to underscore the United States’ commitment to continue supporting Ukraine,” according to a White House statement summarizing the call.
It said the Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka came “after Ukrainian soldiers had to ration ammunition due to dwindling supplies as a result of congressional inaction, resulting in Russia’s first notable gains in months.”
Biden “reaffirmed the strong bipartisan support in the US government and among the American people for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” and he called on Congress to urgently pass a spending bill including aid for Ukraine.
“The Ukrainians continue to fight bravely, but they are running low on supplies,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said earlier, adding that Ukraine needed artillery ammunition and other critical equipment.
In a post on Telegram following the phone call, Zelensky said: “I am glad that I can count on the full support of the American president. We also believe in the wise decision of the US Congress.”
The fall of Avdiivka, an industrial city in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, was a major symbolic victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Avdiivka, though mostly destroyed by now, had been a symbol of Ukraine’s determined resistance to Russian aggression since 2014.
The statements of US support came as Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were scrambling to reassure Western allies at the Munich Security Conference that Washington’s support of Kyiv’s war effort against the Russian invasion would continue.
With existing US funding having already dried up, Donald Trump’s allies in the House of Representatives have been stalling crucial Ukraine aid.
Trump, the likely Republican nominee in the November presidential race, opposes helping Kyiv and recently used his sway to kill a US border reform bill that would have also authorized additional aid to Ukraine.
Speaking in Munich earlier Saturday alongside Zelensky, Harris said: “As it relates to our support for Ukraine, we must be unwavering and we cannot play political games.”
Biden blames lawmakers’ ‘inaction’ for fall of Ukrainian city
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Biden blames lawmakers’ ‘inaction’ for fall of Ukrainian city
- Avdiivka, though mostly destroyed by now, had been a symbol of Ukraine’s determined resistance to Russian aggression since 2014
Afghanistan says it thwarted Pakistani airstrike on Bagram Air Base as fighting enters fourth day
- The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years
- Pakistan accuses Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it
KABUL: Afghanistan thwarted attempted airstrikes on Bagram Air Base, the former US military base north of Kabul, authorities said Sunday, while cross-border fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan stretched into a fourth day.
The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years, with Pakistan declaring that it’s in “open war” with Afghanistan.
The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organizations, including Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival India.
Border clashes in October killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants until a Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting. But several rounds of peace talks in Turkiye in November failed to produce a lasting agreement, and the two sides have occasionally traded fire since then.
On Sunday, the police headquarters of Parwan province, where Bagram is located, said in a statement that several Pakistani military jets had entered Afghan airspace “and attempted to bomb Bagram Air Base” at around 5 a.m.
The statement said Afghan forces responded with “anti-aircraft and missile defense systems” and had managed to thwart the attack.
There was no immediate response from Pakistan’s military or government regarding Kabul’s claim of attempted airstrikes on Bagram or the ongoing fighting.
Bagram was the United States’ largest military base in Afghanistan. It was taken over by the Taliban as they swept across the country and took control in the wake of the chaotic US withdrawal from the country in 2021. Last year, US President Donald Trump suggested he wanted to reestablish a US presence at the base.
The current fighting began when Afghanistan launched a broad cross-border attack on Thursday night, saying it was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes the previous Sunday.
Pakistan had said its airstrike had targeted the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Afghanistan had said only civilians were killed.
The TTP militant group, which is separate but closely allied with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, operates inside Pakistan, where it has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in bombings and other attacks over the years.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing a safe haven within Afghanistan for the TTP, an accusation that Afghanistan denies.
After Thursday’s Afghan attack, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif declared that “our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”
In the ongoing fighting, each side claims to have killed hundreds of the other side’s forces — and both governments put their own casualties at drastically lower numbers.
Two Pakistani security officials said that Pakistani ground forces were still in control on Sunday of a key Afghan post and a 32-square-kilometer area in the southern Zhob sector near Kandahar province, after having seized it during fighting Friday. The captured post and surrounding area remain under Pakistani control, they added. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
In Kabul, the Afghan government rejected Pakistan’s claims. Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat called the reports “baseless.”
Afghan officials said that fighting had continued overnight and into Sunday in the border areas.
The police command spokesman for Nangarhar province, Said Tayyeb Hammad, said that anti-aircraft missiles were used from the provincial capital, Jalalabad, and surrounding areas on Pakistani fighter jets flying overhead Sunday morning.
Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatulah Khowarazmi said that Afghan forces had launched counterattacks with snipers across the border from Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar provinces overnight. He said that two Pakistani drones had been shot down and dozens of Pakistani soldiers had been killed.
Fitrat said that Pakistani drone attacks hit civilian homes in Nangarhar province late Saturday, killing a woman and a child, while mortar fire killed another civilian when it hit a home in Paktia province.
There was no immediate response to the claims from Pakistani officials.
