Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has a GOOD Day…..
The Brits’s announcement of funding gives him a bridge financially until the US Congress finally ok’s more aid….
Ukraine has some issues with military signup’s….
More saber ratling by Dmitry Medvedev…..
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain visited Kyiv on Friday to announce that he would send more than $3 billion in military assistance to Ukraine in the next financial year, his country’s largest annual commitment since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
In addition to the new aid package, Mr. Sunak and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine signed a bilateral security agreement for the next 10 years. The pact offers reassurance amid concerns about a potential shortfall in Western support for Ukraine while badly needed military and financial aid packages remain blocked in the United States and the European Union because of political infighting….
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The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, on Friday signed a security accord between the two countries in Kyiv. Zelenskiy described it as an “unprecedented security agreement”. Local media cited him as saying the agreement would remain in effect until Ukraine joined Nato.
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Rishi Sunak said if the UK wavered in its support of Ukraine it would embolden Vladimir Putin and “his allies in North Korea, Iran and elsewhere”. Giving a press conference alongside Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv, the prime minister said “our opponents around the world believe that we have neither the patience nor the resources for long wars”.
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Zelenskiy said on Friday he was more positive now that Ukraine would secure financial aid from the United States than he was last month. “I am viewing this with more positivity than in December, I think we will [get it],” he told a press conference in Kyiv.
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A senior Ukrainian presidential aide said on Friday he was confident that an amended bill seeking to tighten Ukraine’s mobilisation laws would be passed in the coming days or weeks, despite hitting setbacks this week. Thousands of Ukrainians rushed to enlist immediately after Russiainvaded in February 2022, but nearly two years into the war, some men are trying to avoid the fight, Reuters reported.
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A Russian naval base in Abkhazia, a breakaway territory internationally recognised as part of Georgia, may become operational in 2024, the Russian state news agency RIA quoted Abkhazia’s security council as saying on Friday. Russian and Abkhazian authorities agreed in October that Russia could open a permanent naval base in the town of Ochamchire, Reuters reported.
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An Asiatic black bear, which was found in an abandoned zoo in eastern Ukraine five months after Russia’s invasion in 2022, arrived at his new permanent home in Scotland on Friday. Yampil, named after the village in the Donetsk region where he was found, was one of only a few out of 200 animals at the zoo to survive, Reuters reports.
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Poland has been cooperating with allies in a probe into the sabotage of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, the minister in charge of Polish intelligence services said, denying a newspaper report that it was hindering investigations. In an interview with Reuters, Tomasz Siemoniak said the country’s prosecutors have been supplying information to European investigators and could allocate more resources to the probe if requested.
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Russian ex-president Dmitry Medvedev said in a post on Telegram on Friday that deployment of any British military contingent in Ukrainewould be a declaration of war against Russia. Responding to British prime minister, Rishi Sunak’s, visit to Kyiv, Medvedev asked how the western public would react if Sunak’s delegation came under fire from cluster munitions, as he said had happened to the southern Russian city of Belgorod.
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Russian tourists reportedly going on a skiing trip to North Korea will be the first international travellers to visit the country since its borders closed in 2020 amid the global pandemic lockdown. The report, published on Wednesday by the Russian state-run Tass news agency, underscores deepening cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang….
The Hill does apiece about US surplus or retiring weapns and systems that COULD be packed up and sent to the Ukraine instead of the scrap yards…
As new jets take years to deliver, Ukraine has had to settle for retired European NATO nation F-16 AM/BM MLU jets, the first of which are expected to deliver in the coming weeks. These donations might address half of the need for replacement fighters, so Ukraine has sought alternatives.
Retired Swedish Gripens and Finnish F/A-18s were requested, but neither will be available this year. Conversely, mothballed U.S. Air Force F-15C/D and F-16C/D are available now, and more will become available with intended retirements.
Kyiv’s December “shopping list” that was leaked to the media included F-16C and F/A-18 fighters, and unexpectedly, C-17A airlifters. NATO could provide many of these systems through surplus U.S. Air Force jets that would perform better in many key roles than the requested types.
For one example, the F-15C/D Eagle slated for retirement is a superior substitute to both the F-16 and F/A-18 in the air defense role and is available in good numbers. The F-15’s biggest advantage is its size, conferring superior persistence in combat, as it carries a much larger load of fuel and missiles. Whether hunting Shaheds or cruise missiles, or patrolling the Black Sea, persistence is critical….
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More than 150 F-15C/D fighters are collecting dust in Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group storage, a third of which were put out to pasture over the last two years, with more planned for this year. Fifty F-15C/D are enough to equip a Ukrainian fighter wing, covering 20 percent of their fleet replacement needs. AMARG also hosts around 150 F-16C/D fighters, with more to arrive, that could be used to backfill Ukraine’s fleet.
Similarly, one alternative to the now obsolete C-17 is the most recently retired C-5A Galaxy airlifters stored in AMARG. Another is the KC-10 Extender dual role tanker-transports, retired in 2021. While the KC-10 is not a roll-on roll-off airlifter, typically 80 percent of airlifted materiel is palletized and thus compatible with a KC-10…..