U.S. PREPARING TO ANNOUNCE $6BN IN WEAPONS FOR UKRAINE: REPORT

WASHINGTON/KYIV: The United States is preparing to announce $6 billion in weapons contracts for Ukraine, Politico reported on Thursday.

The package, which could be made public as early as Friday, was expected to include Patriot air defence systems, artillery ammunition, drones, counterdrone weapons, and air-to-air missiles, Politico reported.

When he signed the sweeping $95 billion national security legislation on Wednesday, President Joe Biden said assistance to Ukraine would begin to move within “hours”.

He said the military aid would include “air defence munitions, artillery for rocket systems, and armoured vehicles”. The assistance had been held up in the US House for months while Russia gained the initiative in the conflict, now in its third year.

Meanwhile, intense artillery, rocket and drone attacks either side of the Russia-Ukraine frontline left at least 10 people dead and more than a dozen wounded, regional officials said.

Russian forces are pressing hard in the eastern Donetsk region ahead of May 9, when Moscow hails the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II.

Russian attacks killed at least six in the Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials said. Four people were killed in Russianoccupied parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, according to Moscow-installed authorities.

Also, Russia has arrested a journalist from the Russian edition of Forbes magazine over charges of spreading “false” information about Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine, his lawyer and Forbes said on Friday.

Journalist Sergei Mingazov, who faces 10 years in prison on the charges, was arrested in the Far Eastern Khabarovsk region for “reposting about the events in Bucha” on the Telegram social media platform, his lawyer Konstantin Bubon said, referring to a Kyiv suburb.