Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
- Britain promised a financial package that would unlock $3 billion worth of World Bank loans to help boost Ukraine’s economic stability and would support public services, including the cost of running schools and hospitals. “We’ll stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said at the start of the Ukraine Recovery Conference on Wednesday — the second such event during the conflict, which Britain and Ukraine are co-hosting.
- The European Union plans to provide $54.5 billion in aid for 2024 through 2027, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. While the new pledges add to the unprecedented Western backing for Kyiv, Ukraine is estimated to need $411 billion to rebuild, according to the World Bank. In a video feed, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke at the event and thanked his country’s allies for the support.
- A significant accounting error led the Pentagon to overvalue the amount of military equipment sent to Ukraine during the war — by $6.2 billion. A Pentagon spokesman described this as “valuation errors,” and it will allow for sending more weapons to Ukraine now before requesting more money from Congress, The Post reports. The error, which was first reported last month at a lower amount, about $3 billion, occurred because Pentagon officials erroneously calculated the totals using replacement values for the weapons, rather than their current values, said spokeswoman Sabrina Singh. The Biden administration has sent more than $40 billion in security assistance to Ukraine during the conflict.
- The Russian Defense Ministry said three drones targeting facilities near Moscow were intercepted and crashed on Wednesday without causing damage or casualties. Moscow regional governor Andrey Vorobyov said two aerial vehicles had been approaching military depots when they fell. “Debris was found, there was no damage or casualties,” he saidon Telegram. The Washington Post could not immediately verify the claim.
- Zelensky said progress in Ukraine’s counteroffensive has been “slower than desired,” in a BBC interviewpublished Wednesday. But he added that “some people believe this is a Hollywood movie and expect results now. It’s not.”
- The death of a senior Russian military commander in Ukraine was confirmed by a Russian news outlet that posted a photo of his grave in St. Petersburg. Maj. Gen. Sergei Goryachev, chief of staff of the 35th Combined Arms Army, was killed on the front line, and his death, confirmed by St Petersburg news outlet Fontanka, was initially reported by a Russian military blogger, who later deleted the post. The date appearing on the tombstone was June 12. A pro-Russian official in Ukraine, Vladimir Rogov, also reported the death, describing him as one of the army’s “brightest and most effective military commanders.”
- Ukrainian troops are waging attacks on Russian forces with the goal of reaching Melitopol and Berdyansk in the southeast, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said Wednesday. Ukrainian forces had “partial success” in those operations, according to a spokesman for the military’s general staff. Maliar said Russian fire was focused on front lines in the east, including near the battered city of Bakhmut.
- Residents of Ukraine’s capital are trying to adjust to daily air raid warnings under the threat of strikes, The Post reports. Some rush to subway stations or shelters, but many count on the city’s air defense system to shoot down Russian missiles or drones, or wait for a government app to tell them when the danger has passed. On Tuesday, Ukrainian forces said they shot down at least 30 drones in the latest round of attacks. “These are hundreds of saved lives, saved infrastructure,” Zelensky said in his nightly address.
As Modi visits White House, India’s reliance on Russian arms constrains him: Russian equipment makes up about 85 percent of the Indian arsenal, according to one estimate. Military trade between the two countries, which goes back to the 1960s, is constraining Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi from aligning his country more closely to the West’s policies on Ukraine, Karishma Mehrotra reports…
The Pentagon said Tuesday that it overestimated the value of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the past two years — about double early estimates — resulting in a surplus that will be used for future security packages.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said a detailed review of the accounting error found that the military services used replacement costs rather than the book value of equipment that was pulled from Pentagon stocks and sent to Ukraine. She said final calculations show there was an error of $3.6 billion in the current fiscal year and $2.6 billion in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended last Sept. 30.
As a result, the department now has additional money in its coffers to use to support Ukraine as it pursues its counteroffensive against Russia. And it come as the fiscal year is wrapping up and congressional funding was beginning to dwindle….