U.S. to send Ukraine $325M more in equipment
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon will deliver a new package of military aid to Ukraine that totals up to $325 million and will include a wide range of rockets, missiles and other munitions aimed at bolstering the counteroffensive against Russia, the State Department said Tuesday.
The aid will include missiles for what are considered critical air defense systems — the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System and the High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System, as well as Stingers and Javelin missiles and more than two dozen Bradley and Stryker armored fighting vehicles.
The aid comes as Ukraine has intensified attacks along the 600-mile front line in the beginning stages of a counteroffensive to retake territory seized by the Russians.
Including the latest aid, the U.S. has committed nearly $40 billion in weapons and other equipment to Ukraine since Russia attacked Feb. 24, 2022.
This latest package will be done under presidential drawdown authority, which allows the Pentagon to quickly take weapons from its own stocks and deliver them to Ukraine, officials said.
Also in the new aid delivery will be 22 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades and a variety of other rockets and munitions. It also includes spare parts, communications and demolition equipment and funding for training.
“The United States continues to stand with the people of Ukraine, whose enduring courage and solidarity inspires the world,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
‘MAKING PROGRESS’
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told President Joe Biden at an Oval Office meeting Tuesday that Ukrainians are “making progress” with their counteroffensive, which could bolster their position when there’s an opportunity to reach a diplomatic end to the war with Russia.
“The support that we are providing together for Ukraine is now making a difference on the battlefield as we speak,” Stoltenberg said, “because the offensive has launched, and the Ukrainians are making progress, making advances.”
He added, “It’s still early days, but what we do know is that the more land that Ukrainians are able to liberate, the stronger hand they will have at the negotiating table.”
Biden said NATO has grown more unified during the Ukraine war and “we’re going to be building on that momentum” when the alliance holds its annual summit July 11-12 in Vilnius, Lithuania.
No consensus has emerged over who will be NATO’s next leader. Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, plans to step down as secretary general at the end of September. He’s held the job since 2014.
NATO has expanded since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with the addition of Finland. Sweden has also sought to join, but Turkey, another member of the alliance, has objected.
However, Biden has expressed confidence that the issue will be sorted out and Sweden will become the 32nd country in NATO.
The meeting with Stoltenberg was delayed by a day because Biden got a root canal Monday.
‘CATASTROPHIC’ LOSSES
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested Tuesday that he could order his troops to try to seize more land in Ukraine to protect bordering Russian territory though the Kremlin lacks full control over areas it already annexed.
The Russian leader also asserted that Ukrainian forces had suffered “catastrophic” losses in a new counteroffensive, and he said he was not contemplating a new troop mobilization, as many Russians have feared, but he did not rule out another troop call-up later.
He reiterated Russia’s claim that Ukraine was responsible for blowing up a Dnieper River dam that caused vast flooding on both sides of the front line last week in the country’s south.
Putin’s comments at an open meeting with military journalists and bloggers followed Kyiv’s claims that Ukrainian troops had captured a handful of villages in the early stages of the counteroffensive as they seek to push Russian troops out of four regions of Ukraine that the Kremlin illegally annexed last fall.
Putin said Ukraine’s counteroffensive has been unsuccessful. He asserted that Ukraine lost 160 tanks and more than 360 other armored vehicles, while Russia lost 54 tanks since the new assault began. Those claims could not be immediately verified. Ukrainian officials typically do not comment on losses.
The White House offered no immediate reaction to Putin’s claims.
A U.S. official familiar with American intelligence said Putin’s comments were “not accurate” and cautioned against putting any stock in Russia’s public assessments. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to offer an internal assessment.
Referring to alleged Ukrainian incursions into Russia and shelling of border regions, Putin said he was considering whether “to create on Ukrainian territory a kind of sanitary zone at such a distance from which it would be impossible to get our territory.”
BORDER ATTACKS
In recent weeks, Russia’s border areas have come under increasing attack, with the Kremlin blaming Ukrainian forces for incursions of fighters and drone strikes.
Ukrainian authorities have not confirmed Kyiv’s involvement in the attacks. Russian volunteer units sympathizing with Ukraine have claimed responsibility for the incursions.
Putin acknowledged that Russian authorities should have foreseen and prepared to stop such attacks.
Earlier Tuesday, his defense ministry published a video showing what it said was a Leopard 2 tank and a Bradley fighting vehicle captured from Ukrainian forces. According to the ministry, Russian soldiers shot the video after fierce fighting in Zaporizhzhia.
It was not immediately possible to verify the video’s authenticity.
Also Tuesday, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, told Ukrainian TV that the country’s forces are continuing the offensive in four areas in the south and east.
The head of Ukraine’s ground troops said forces were “moving forward” outside Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s east. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote on Telegram that Russian forces are “losing positions on the flanks.”
Elsewhere, Ukrainian authorities said at least 11 people were killed and 36 wounded overnight in a Russian missile strike on the city of Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown.
Without providing details of the locations or timing, the Russian Defense Ministry said Russian forces used longrange air-launched cruise missiles to hit Ukrainian military reserves and depots holding Western weapons and ammunition.
The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, wrote on Telegram that the bodies of seven people were recovered from a private company’s warehouse, and “another four destinies were cut short” at the apartment building.