A visit by US Sec of State Blinken….
Sec of Defense annouces even MORE arms for the Ukraine…..
The US pledges billions more money assistance to NATO also….
(When this is over…The Ukraine is gonna have a LOT of advanced Western weapons…They can’t be using ALL of the stuff sent to them now and in the future pipeline pledges…U can bet NATO and the US military people are also taking notes on the Russian military abilities and weaknesses)
More reports of Russia stealing Ukraine children and adults for deportation…
Ukraine military reports retaking hundreds of miles of their territory from Russian hands…
CIA Director calls the Russian Ukraine effort a failure...
As Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a surprise visit to Kyiv on Thursday, the United States announced a total of $2.6 billion in additional security aid for Ukraine and its neighbors. Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Key developments
- Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced $675 million in new weapons transfers to Kyiv at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, during a trip for the latest meeting of allied defense ministers supporting Ukraine. The package includes more rounds for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, a U.S. official told The Washington Post earlier, speaking on the condition of anonymity. NATO’s message is that “we need to step up & sustain support for as long as it takes,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted after the meeting.
- In the Ukrainian capital, Blinken pledged U.S. support for Ukraine, as the Biden administration seeks to help Ukrainian troops recapture territory from Russian forces. On his second trip to Kyiv during the war, Blinken visited a children’s hospital and met with senior Ukrainian officials in central Kyiv after an overnight train trip from Poland.
- Blinken will announce $2 billion more in “security assistance” to bolster Ukraine and 18 of its neighbors, including NATO allies and regional partners “who are most potentially at risk for future Russian aggression,” the State Department said. Details of that funding were not immediately available.
- Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Ukrainians have struck over 400 Russian targets with HIMARS rocket systems. In a brief battlefield update in Ramstein on Thursday, he said Russia’s “operational aims, in addition to their strategic aims, have been defeated by a very successful defense conducted by Ukraine.” The Ukrainian-launched offensive is “ongoing” and in its “early stages,” Milley said, adding that Ukraine is “effectively using their fires to shape the ground maneuver.”
- Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians including children have been interrogated, detained or forcibly deported to Russia, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the Security Council on Wednesday. She cited witness testimony and reporting from groups including Human Rights Watch. The State Department described the “so-called filtration operations” as a Kremlin campaign to forcibly deport, disappear and imprison Ukrainians who it “decides could be a potential threat” to its control. Moscow dismissed the allegations as “fantasy.”
Battlefield updates
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his troops reclaimed territory in Kharkiv, cheering “good news” from the northeastern region, which is home to the country’s second-largest city. In his nightly address, he did not elaborate on the advances.
- Ukrainian Brigadier General Oleksiy Gromov said Ukraine’s forces have retaken over 270 square miles of territory in the south and east, Reuters reported. Speaking at a news briefing on Thursday, Gromov added that Ukraine’s forces pushed up to 30 miles behind enemy lines — claims that could not be independently verified.
- Fighting ramped up along the front line in Kharkiv around the town of Balakliia, according to Ukrainian and Russian media reports. The Russian news agency TASS reported Ukrainian shelling on territory under Russian control in the Kupyansk.
- Ukraine’s top military chief warned that a “limited” nuclear war between Russia and Western nations cannot be discounted. In a wide-ranging article, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny also acknowledged for the first time that Kyiv was behind August strikesagainst Russian targets in the Crimean Peninsula….
Russia-Ukraine War
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The U.S. will send an additional $675 million in military supplies to Ukraine, Austin says.
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With the latest aid, total U.S. assistance to Ukraine would reach $13.5 billion.
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The body of a British aid worker captured by Russian proxies showed signs of torture, a Ukrainian official says.
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The U.S. accuses Moscow of forcibly deporting up to 1.6 million Ukrainians.
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The U.S. announces sanctions on Iranian companies involved in Russia drone sales.
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A top military official acknowledges that Ukraine was behind an attack on a Russian air base in Crimea….
In some corners, even as Europe’s leaders scramble to blunt the blow from lower gas supplies and higher prices, there is a growing sense that perhaps Russia’s weaponizing of gas exports is a strategy of diminishing returns — and that Mr. Putin may have overplayed his hand.
“It would have been surprising the other way around,” Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, said this week of Russia’s announcement that Nord Stream 1 would remain shut. “The only thing from Russia that is reliable is the lies.”
Even the markets seemed to take the latest disruption in stride. After rising 5 percent on the heels of Gazprom’s announcement, prices are now lower than they were at the start of last week….
More.…Credit…Pool photo by Genya Savilov