Putin warns nations against intervening in Ukraine
MOSCOW: Russia stepped up its assaults on eastern and southern Ukraine, Kyiv said on Thursday, and President Vladimir Putin threatened “lightning-fast” retaliation against any Western countries that intervene on Ukraine’s behalf.
Western countries have ramped up weapons deliveries to Ukraine in recent days as the fighting in the east has intensified. More than 40 countries met this week at a US air base in Germany and pledged to send heavy arms such as artillery for what is expected to be a vast batle of opposing armies along a heavily fortified front line.
Washington now says it hopes Ukrainian forces can not only repel Russia’s assault on the east, but weaken its military so that it can no longer threaten neighbours. Russia says that amounts to NATO waging “proxy war” against it.
“If someone intends to intervene in the ongoing events from the outside, and create strategic threats for Russia that are unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast,” Putin told lawmakers in St Petersburg.
“We have all the tools for this, things no one else can boast of having now. And we will not boast, we will use them if necessary. And I want everyone to know that.”
The United Arab Emirates on Thursday sent an aircrat loaded with 30 tonnes of food supplies to Moldova to support Ukrainian refugees as part of its ongoing relief air bridge established in March to meet the humanitarian needs of Ukrainian internally displaced persons (IDPS) and refugees, especially women and children.
President Joe Biden asked Congress for $33 billion to support Ukraine - a dramatic escalation of US funding for the war with Russia - and for new tools to siphon assets from Russian oligarchs.
The vast funding request includes over $20 billion for weapons, ammunition and other military assistance, as well as $8.5 billion in direct economic assistance to the government and $3 billion in humanitarian aid.
“We need this bill to support Ukraine in its fight for freedom,” Biden said at the White House ater signing the request on Thursday. “The cost of this fight - it’s not cheap - but caving to aggression is going to be more costly.”
The Security Council failed to go far enough in its efforts to “prevent and end” Russia’s war in Ukraine, the UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres admited Thursday while visiting Kyiv.
“Let me be very clear: the Security Council failed to do everything in its power to prevent and end this war. And this is the source of great disappointment, frustration and anger,” he said at a joint news conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
President Joe Biden asked Congress for $33 billion to support Ukraine - a dramatic escalation of US. funding for the war with Russia - and for new tools to siphon assets from Russian oligarchs.
The vast funding request includes over $20 billion for weapons, ammunition and other military assistance, as well as $8.5 billion in direct economic assistance to the government and $3 billion in humanitarian aid.
“We need this bill to support Ukraine in its fight for freedom,” Biden said at the White House ater signing the request on Thursday.
“The cost of this fight - it’s not cheap - but caving to aggression is going to be more costly.”
The United States has ruled out sending its own or Nato forces to Ukraine but Washington and its European allies have supplied weapons to Kyiv such as drones, Howitzer heavy artillery, anti-aircrat Stinger and anti-tank Javelin missiles.
Biden also wants the ability to seize more money from Russian oligarchs to pay for the war effort.
His proposal would let US officials seize more oligarchs’ assets, give the cash from those seizures to Ukraine and further criminalise sanctions dodging,
Funding request includes over $20b for arms and other military aid as well as $8.5b in direct economic assistance to the government and $3b in humanitarian aid
the White House said. The proposed steps include leting the Justice Department use the strict US racketeering law once deployed against the mafia, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, to build cases against people who evade sanctions.
Biden also wants to give prosecutors more time to build such cases by extending the statute of limitations on money laundering prosecutions to 10 years, instead of five.
He would also make it a criminal act to hold money knowingly taken from corrupt dealings with Russia, according to a summary of the legislative proposals.
The measures are part of US efforts to isolate and punish Russia for its Feb.24 invasion of Ukraine, as well as to help Kyiv recover from a war that has reduced cities to rubble and forced more than 5 million people to flee abroad.
The new request represents the full amount US officials expect to need through September, the end of the fiscal year.
It includes food security assistance, economic stimulus for Ukraine and funding to use the Cold
War-era Defense Production Act to expand domestic production of key minerals in short supply due to the war. But the funding measure may face issues on Capitol Hill.
Biden asked for $22.5 billion in money for the COVID-19 response in March and Democrats with narrow control of the Senate and House of Representatives may push to have that passed at the same time as the Ukraine measure.
While lawmakers are broadly supportive of spending on Ukraine, Republican congressional aides said on Thursday that efforts to combine the war funding with the pandemic response could make it difficult to pass.
“I don’t care how they do it,” Biden said. “They can do it separately or together, but we need them both.”
US military aid to Ukraine alone has topped $3 billion since Russia launched what it calls a “special military operation” to demilitarise and remove fascists in Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies reject that as a false pretext.
The United States and its European allies have frozen $30 billion of assets held by wealthy individuals with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, including yachts, helicopters, real estate and art, the Biden administration has said.
Ukrainian investigators have identified more than 8,000 cases of suspected war crimes since Russia’s invasion, Ukraine prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova told a German TV channel on Thursday.
“It’s actually 8,600 cases only about war crimes, and more than 4,000 cases that are connected with war crimes,” Venediktova told the Deutsche Welle broadcaster.
Venediktova has been investigating and tallying the mounting cases of suspected crimes by Russian forces.
There are now more than 8,000 investigators gathering evidence on the ground, she said, including state security services, national police and foreign investigators.
The alleged crimes documented include “killing civilians, bombing of civilian infrastructure, torture” and “sexual crimes” that are being reported in the “occupied territory of Ukraine,” Venediktova said.