WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday and announced a new round of military aid for Kyiv, the White House said.
The call between the two leaders came ahead of Ukraine’s independence day, and on the same day that Washington announced sweeping sanctions against hundreds of individuals and companies tied to Russia’s invasion of the country.
“I am proud we will announce a new package of military aid for Ukraine today,” Biden said in a statement, without specifying the dollar value of the assistance.
“The package includes air defense missiles to protect Ukraine’s critical infrastructure; counter-drone equipment and anti-armor missiles to defend against Russia’s evolving tactics on the battlefield; and ammunition for frontline soldiers and the mobile rocket systems that protect them,” he said.
“Russia will not prevail in this conflict. The independent people of Ukraine will prevail — and the United States, our allies, and our partners, will continue to stand with them every step of the way,” Biden added.
The US has been a key military backer of Ukraine, committing more than $55 billion in weapons, ammunition and other security aid since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The latest aid announcement comes as Ukrainian troops press an attack into Russia’s western Kursk region — an offensive that is the most serious attack by a foreign army on Russian territory since World War II.
Earlier on Friday, the US Treasury, State and Commerce departments announced new sanctions that build on a raft of existing measures enacted against Russia over the invasion.
The sanctions target nearly 400 individuals and entities both inside and outside of Russia “whose products and services enable Russia to sustain its war effort and evade sanctions,” the US Treasury Department announced in a statement.
Among those sanctioned were 60 Russia-based defense and technology firms “critical for the sustainment and development of Russia’s defense industry,” it added.
The State Department said in a separate statement that it was responsible for 190 of the sanctions, and that Treasury was responsible for close to 200 others.
It added that its designations “aim to disrupt sanctions evasion and target entities in multiple third countries,” including China, along with businesses supporting the development of Russian energy projects.
Alongside the sanctions unveiled Friday, the Commerce Department announced it was taking “aggressive action” to further restrict the supply of items made in the United States, or labeled as such, to both Russia and Belarus, due to “the Kremlin’s illegal war on Ukraine.”
“Today’s actions will further constrain Russia’s ability to arm its military by targeting illicit procurement networks designed to circumvent global export controls,” the department said in a statement.
Biden talks with Zelensky, announces new military aid for Kyiv
https://arab.news/92mtf
Biden talks with Zelensky, announces new military aid for Kyiv
- US has been a key military backer of Ukraine, committing more than $55 billion in weapons, ammunition and other security aid
Power outages hit Ukraine and Moldova as Kyiv struggles against the winter cold
- Outages had been caused by a technical malfunction affecting power lines linking Ukraine and Moldova
- Blackouts were reported in Kyiv, as well as Zhytomyr and Kharkiv regions
KYIV: Emergency power cuts swept across several Ukrainian cities as well as neighboring Moldova on Saturday, officials said, amid a commitment from the Kremlin to US President Donald Trump to pause strikes on Kyiv as Ukraine battles one of its bleakest winters in years.
Ukraine’s Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the outages had been caused by a technical malfunction affecting power lines linking Ukraine and Moldova.
The failure “caused a cascading outage in Ukraine’s power grid,” triggering automatic protection systems, he said.
Blackouts were reported in Kyiv, as well as Zhytomyr and Kharkiv regions, in the center and northeast of the country respectively. The outage cut water supplies to the Ukrainian capital, officials said, while the city’s subway system was temporarily suspended because of low voltage on the network.
Moldova also experienced major power outages, including in the capital Chisinau, officials said.
“Due to the loss of power lines on the territory of Ukraine, the automatic protection system was triggered, which disconnected the electricity supply,” Moldova’s Energy Minister Dorin Junghietu said in a post on Facebook. “I encourage the population to stay calm until electricity is restored.”
Weaponizing winter
The large-scale outage followed weeks of Russian strikes against Ukraine’s already struggling energy grid, which have triggered long stretches of severe power shortages.
Moscow has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians heat, light and running water over the course of the war, in a strategy that Ukrainian officials describe as “weaponizing winter.”
While Russia has used similar tactics throughout the course of its almost four-year invasion of Ukraine, temperatures throughout this winter have fallen further than usual, bringing widespread hardship to civilians.
Forecasters say Ukraine will experience a brutally cold period stretching into next week. Temperatures in some areas will drop to minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit), Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.
Trump said late Thursday that President Vladimir Putin had agreed to a temporary pause in targeting Kyiv and other Ukrainian towns amid the extreme weather.
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this ... extraordinary cold,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. Putin has “agreed to that,” he said, without elaborating on when the request to the Russian leader was made.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a query seeking clarity about the scope and timing of any limited pause.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed Friday that Trump “made a personal request” to Putin to stop targeting Kyiv until Sunday “in order to create favorable conditions for negotiations.”
Talks are expected to take place between US, Russian and Ukrainian officials on Feb. 1 in Abu Dhabi. The teams previously met in late January in the first known time that officials from the Trump administration simultaneously met with negotiators from both Ukraine and Russia. However, it’s unclear many obstacles to peace remain. Disagreement over what happens to occupied Ukrainian territory, and Moscow’s demand for possession of territory it hasn’t captured, are a key issue holding up a peace deal, Zelensky said Thursday.
Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev said on social media Saturday that he was in Miami, where talks between Russian and US negotiators have previously taken place.
Russia struck Ukrainian energy assets in several regions on Thursday but there were no strikes on those facilities overnight, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday.
In a post on social media, Zelensky also noted that Russia has turned its attention to targeting Ukrainian logistics networks, and that Russian drones and missiles hit residential areas of Ukraine overnight, as they have most nights during the war.
Trump has framed Putin’s acceptance of the pause in strikes as a concession. But Zelensky was skeptical as Russia’s invasion approaches its fourth anniversary on Feb. 24 with no sign that Moscow is willing to reach a peace settlement despite a US-led push to end the fighting.
“I do not believe that Russia wants to end the war. There is a great deal of evidence to the contrary,” Zelensky said Thursday.
