KYIV: The Biden administration is determined in its final months to help ensure that Ukraine can keep fighting off Russia’s full-scale invasion next year, sending it as much aid as possible so that it might hold Russian forces at bay and possess a strong hand in any potential peace negotiations, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.
“President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and Jan. 20,” when president-elect Donald Trump is due to be sworn in, Blinken said.
NATO countries must focus their efforts on “ensuring that Ukraine has the money, munitions and mobilized forces to fight effectively in 2025, or to be able to negotiate a peace from a position of strength,” Blinken said during a visit to Brussels.
The US will “adapt and adjust” with the latest equipment it is sending, Blinken said, without providing details.
The almost three-year war has shown no signs of winding down.
Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv with a sophisticated combination of missiles and drones for the first time in 73 days on Wednesday. That came a day after the Pentagon said most of the North Korean troops sent to help Moscow’s war effort are fighting to drive Ukraine’s army off Russian soil in the Kursk border region.
Ukraine is also straining to hold back a monthslong Russian onslaught in the eastern Donetsk region.
Political uncertainty over how a US administration under Trump will change Washington’s policy on the war is a key new factor in the conflict. US military aid is vital for Ukraine, but Trump has signaled that he doesn’t want to keep giving tens of billions of dollars to Kyiv.
Air raid warnings blared for hours as Russia targeted eight regions of Ukraine on Wednesday, firing six ballistic and cruise missiles and 90 drones, the Ukrainian air force said.
Air defenses downed four missiles and 37 drones, and another 47 drones were stopped by electronic jamming, the statement said. The damage was being assessed.
The air assault came as most of the more than 10,000 North Korean troops sent by Pyongyang to help Moscow in the war are engaged in combat in Russia’s Kursk border region, according to the Pentagon. A Ukrainian army incursion into Kursk three months ago has succeeded in holding a broad area of land and has embarrassed the Kremlin.
Russia’s military has trained the North Korean soldiers in artillery, drone skills and basic infantry operations, including trench clearing, Pentagon deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told a briefing Tuesday. The cooperation faces challenges, according to the Pentagon, including how to achieve military interoperability and overcoming the language barrier.
Kyiv officials say that Russia has deployed around 50,000 troops to Kursk in a bid to dislodge the Ukrainians.
Russia has in recent months been assembling forces for a counteroffensive in Kursk, according to the Institute for the Study of War think tank, though the timescale of the operation isn’t known.
Biden is sending aid to help Ukraine keep fighting next year, Blinken says
https://arab.news/m8mbj
Biden is sending aid to help Ukraine keep fighting next year, Blinken says
- “President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and Jan. 20,” Blinken said
- The US will “adapt and adjust” with the latest equipment it is sending, Blinken said, without providing details
Ukraine marks four years since Russian invasion
- Tuesday’s anniversary is expected to see the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, in Kyiv to mark the occasion
KYIV, Ukraine: Ukraine was on Tuesday marking the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, with a show of solidarity from its staunchest allies and no immediate end in sight to Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.
Tens of thousands of lives have been lost since the Kremlin ordered troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, confident of a quick victory but not expecting the fierce resistance that followed.
The worldwide fallout of the war has been immense, with many European countries increasing their own defense spending in anticipation of a possible confrontation of their own with Russia.
But diplomatic talks between the two sides, relaunched last year by the United States, have so far failed to halt the fighting, which has devastated Ukraine and left it facing the mammoth task — and bill — of reconstruction.
Tuesday’s anniversary is expected to see the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, in Kyiv to mark the occasion.
Both said they would take part in a “commemoration ceremony” and visit the site of a Ukrainian energy facility damaged by Russian strikes before attending a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
They are also due to take part in a videoconference meeting with Kyiv’s allies — the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” which includes Britain, France and Germany.
- Impasse -
Russia, which currently occupies nearly 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, bombs civilian areas and infrastructure on a daily basis.
The Russian bombardment has sparked the worst energy crisis since the start of the invasion, during a bitter winter.
Kyiv’s Western allies have slapped heavy sanctions on Moscow, forcing it to redirect its key oil exports toward new markets, particularly in Asia.
Despite heavy losses, Russian troops have in recent months advanced slowly on the frontline, particularly in the eastern Donbas region, which has been the epicenter of the bloody fighting and which Moscow wants to annex.
US-brokered talks are ongoing, with Zelensky unwavering in his demands for security guarantees from Washington before any talk of “compromise,” including on territory, with Russia.
Russia, though, has rejected Ukrainian proposals for the deployment of European troops in Ukraine after any ceasefire deal.
President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned that he will pursue his objectives by force if diplomacy fails.
- Reconstruction -
The grinding four-year war has devastated Ukraine, which even before the fighting was one of the poorest countries in Europe.
According to a joint World Bank, European Union and United Nations report with Kyiv, published on Monday, the cost of post-war reconstruction is estimated at around $558 billion over the next decade.
Russia justified sending troops into Ukraine to prevent Ukraine’s ambition to join NATO, arguing that Kyiv’s membership of the transatlantic alliance would threaten its own security.
On Monday, during a medal ceremony to mark “Defenders of the Fatherland Day,” Putin insisted that his soldiers were defending Russia’s “borders” in Ukraine, to ensure “strategic parity” between powers and fight for the country’s “future.”
Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, for its part considers the war to be a resurgence of Russian imperialism aimed at subjugating the Ukrainian people.
In an interview with the BBC broadcast on Sunday, Zelensky said he believed Putin had “already started” World War III.
“Russia wants to impose on the world a different way of life and change the lives people have chosen for themselves,” he told the British public broadcaster.
