Slovakia is first Western nation to provide jets
Slovakia delivered four MiG-29 fighter jets to the Ukrainian military Thursday, the first Western nation to provide warplanes that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he desperately needs to drive Russian troops out of his war-battered country.
Slovak Defense Minister Jaro Nad said nine more jets would be handed over in coming weeks but declined to give a specific timeline. Poland has also agreed to supply Ukraine with jets; the U.S. is among several Western nations supporting Ukraine that have declined to provide jets, citing concerns of expanding the war.
“Slovakia stands on the right side, and with this gesture we as a country have written ourselves in capital letters in modern world history,” Nad said on Facebook. “We are doing the right thing because it is Russia that invaded Ukraine, it is Russia that is in Ukraine and it is Russia that, when it withdraws troops, the war will end immediately.”
The Slovak Defense Ministry said the U.S. has offered Slovakia 12 new military helicopters as compensation for the fighter jets.
Developments:
⬤ In a video address to EU leaders, Zelenskyy lobbied for a peace summit in Kyiv. He said any EU capital would also work.
⬤ Russia is unable to deliver vital defense supplies it had committed to India’s military because of the war in Ukraine, Reuters reports, citing the Indian Air Force. Russia accounted for $8.5 billion of the $18.3 billion India has spent on arms imports since 2017, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
⬤ Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev dismissed claims that Russia is running low on weapons and ammunition, saying the country will produce 1,500 battle tanks and boost production of other weapons to meet the army’s needs.
As Russian momentum in Bakhmut wanes, Ukraine set to ‘take advantage’
The battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut, which once favored Russia to the point Ukraine contemplated withdrawing its forces, may be turning.
A day after the British military assessed that Russia was losing its limited momentum in Bakhmut partly because it had reallocated troops elsewhere, Ukraine’s top ground forces commander said his country is about to launch a counteroffensive.
“Very soon, we will take advantage of this opportunity, as we did in the past near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Balakliya and Kupiansk,” commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said Thursday on Telegram, naming locations where Ukraine reclaimed territory through counterattacks last year.
‘Just an idiot’: US disses, Russia honors pilot who downed drone
Russia honored two pilots involved in the crash of an American drone with Orders of Courage, while National Security Council spokesman John Kirby dismissed the pilot who apparently hit the drone as “at best just an idiot.” Remote U.S. handlers crashlanded the reconnaissance MQ-9 Reaper last week after a confrontation over the Black Sea. The Kremlin lauded the pilots for preventing the drone from “violating the boundaries of the temporary airspace regime established for the special military operation.”
Kirby said video of the confrontation does not make clear whether the pilot was “intentionally trying to ram the drone, but he did.”
“I don’t know of another military in the world, another air force in the world, that would award a pilot for smashing into a drone,” Kirby said at a briefing. “I have no clue why they would give a bravery award to a pilot who was at worst maliciously putting himself and U.S. property at great risk and at best just an idiot.”
Court chastises Russia for veiled missile threat
The board that oversees the International Criminal Court expressed support Thursday for its prosecutors and judges amid veiled threats made by Russia after the court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another Russian official. The Assembly of State Parties issued a statement saying it “regrets these attempts to hinder international efforts to ensure accountability for acts that are prohibited under general international law.”