Yahoo! News

Inside the cutting-edge Switchblade drones the U.S. is shipping to Ukraine

Niamh Cavanagh, Producer – March 18, 2022

On Wednesday. the White House announced a new $800 million military support package for Ukraine in a bid to help that country fight back against the ongoing Russian invasion. Part of the aid package is for cutting-edge aerial drones that experts say could prove exceedingly lethal to Russian forces.

The list of weapons to be shipped, President Biden said, includes 9,000 anti-armor systems, 7,000 small arms and 100 tactical unmanned aerial systems. A U.S. official later confirmed to ABC that the aerial systems to be sent would be small Switchblade drones.

Manufactured by the California company AeroVironment, the drones come in two variations: the Switchblade 600 and the 300. The latter is built to hit at smaller and more precise targets; the 600 is built to strike armored vehicles and tanks.

The 300 is less than 2 feet long, weighs 5.5 pounds and can fly up to 15 minutes. The larger drone weighs 50 pounds and can fly for 40 minutes over a range of 25 miles. Both can be carried in a backpack and deployed by individual soldiers. It has not been confirmed whether both models will be included in the shipment.

According to its manufacturer, the drones can cruise at around 65 mph and come fitted with cameras and GPS systems. They are single-use, which means they explode after striking their target and are not recoverable after they have been launched. The Switchblades also have a “wave-off” feature so that operators can abort a mission if civilians appear near the target or if the enemy withdraws.

“These were designed for U.S. Special Operations Command and are exactly the type of weapons systems that can have an immediate impact on the battlefield,” Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, told ABC News.

Ukraine’s drones have proved vital in carrying out successful attacks in the early stages of the invasion. Jack Watling of the London-based Royal United Services Institute told Euronews that Ukraine had used drones to strike Russian forces before they were able to set up their air defenses in the battlefield.

Watling went on to say that the Ukrainian army drones “have been essentially flying in at a low level and then coming up and raiding with them. So striking targets of opportunity.”

A senior defense official confirmed the Switchblades’ effectiveness for Ukrainian forces by claiming that the drones would be useful in taking out long-range Russian artillery as Russia ramps up the bombardment of major cities in Ukraine.

“These tactical UAVs can be useful against Russian vehicles and artillery,” the official told reporters this week.

On Friday, the Times of London reported that an elite Ukrainian drone unit had destroyed dozens of “priority targets” by attacking static Russian forces as they slept. That specialist unit within the army, named Aerorozvidka, has reportedly been striking vehicles, including tanks and trucks, since the invasion began on Feb. 24.

“We strike at night, when Russians sleep,” Yaroslav Honchar, the unit’s commander, said from his base in Kyiv.

The latest allocation of military aid came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the West to “do more” in the fight against Moscow’s aggression when he addressed Congress on Wednesday. In his speech, Zelensky invoked the horror of the 9/11 terror attacks as he pleaded for more military aid.

Asociated Press

Turkey builds massive bridge linking Europe and Asia

Susan Fraser- March 18, 2022

• Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan poses for photos in front of the 1915 Canakkale Bridge, in Çanakkale, western Turkey, Friday, March 18, 2022. The bridge links the Asian side of Turkey with European side over Dardanelles Strait. South Korean Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum also attended the opening ceremony. (Turkish Presidency via AP) Associated Press
• Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, center, and South Korean PM Kim Boo-kyum, left, attend the opening ceremony of the 1915 Canakkale Bridge, in Çanakkale, western Turkey, Friday, March 18, 2022. The bridge links the Asian side of Turkey with European side over Dardanelles Strait. (Turkish Presidency via AP) Associated Press
• Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, center, and South Korean PM Kim Boo-kyum, center left, attend the opening ceremony of the 1915 Canakkale Bridge, in Canakkale, western Turkey, Friday, March 18, 2022. The bridge links the Asian side of Turkey with European side over Dardanelles Strait. (Turkish Presidency via AP) Associated Press
• Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, and South Korean PM Kim Boo-kyum shake hands before a meeting in Çanakkale, western Turkey, Friday, March 18, 2022. Kim will attend the opening ceremony of the Canakkale Bridge later in the day. (Turkish Presidency via AP) Associated Press

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The president of Turkey, South Korea’s prime minister and other officials inaugurated a massive suspension bridge Friday over the Dardanelles Strait that connects the European and Asian shores of the key waterway.

With a a 2,023-meter (6,637 feet) span between its towers, the “1915 Canakkale Bridge” becomes the world’s longest suspension bridge, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

It connects the town of Gelibolu, located in the European side of Turkey’s northwestern province of Canakkale, with the town of Lapseki on the Asian side. The bridge allows travelers to cross the Dardanelles — which connects the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara — in just six minutes compared to the previous 1 1/2 hours by ferry, the president said.

“Turkey has overtaken Japan, which has the longest bridge in the world in terms of the midspan, and has taken the first place,” Erdogan said during the inauguration ceremony.

The inauguration was timed to coincide with the 107th anniversary of Turkey’s World War I naval victory over a joint British and French fleet attacking the Dardanelles. The failure of the naval campaign led to the ill-fated 1915 landings on the Gallipoli peninsula by the allies led by Britain and France along with troops from Australia and New Zealand.

“The 1915 Canakkale Bridge will leave this history of collision and conflict behind and will be a bridge between East and West, starting a new era of peace and prosperity,” South Korean Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said during the ceremony, in reference to the Canakkale region’s historic battlefields.

The bridge, which was build by a consortium of Turkish and South Korean companies, will also strengthen the bonds between Turkey and South Korea, Kim said.

The “1915 Canakkale Bridge” cost 2.5 billion euros ($2.7 billion) to build but Turkey will save 415 million euros ($458 million) per year from a reduction of fuel consumption and carbon emissions, Erdogan said. He announced the bridge’s toll will be 200 Turkish lira ($13.60).

The bridge’s architecture is awash with symbolism. It’s central span of 2,023 meters (6,637 feet) is in recognition of the year 2023, when Turkey celebrates the centenary of the founding of the Turkish Republic following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Erdogan said. The height of the bridge’s towers is 318 meters (1,043 feet) — a nod to March 18 (or 3/18) when Turkey commemorates soldiers killed during the Gallipoli sea and land battles.

The World War I Gallipoli campaign aimed to secure a naval route from the Mediterranean Sea to Istanbul through the Dardanelles, and take the Ottoman Empire out of the war. The April 25, 1915 Gallipoli landings marked the start of a fierce battle that lasted for eight months. Around 44,000 Allied troops and 86,000 Ottoman soldiers died in the fighting.

Business Insider

Ex-partner of Russian oligarch close to Putin said life in Russia was like ‘The Godfather’ and there was a ‘lack of normal human morals’

Rebecca Cohen – March 18, 2022

• The ex-partner of Putin’s former banker said living in Russia was like “The Godfather.”
• “This crazy insane wealth, and also a complete lack of sort of normal, human morals,” Alexandra Tolstoy said.
• While she was together with Sergei Pugachev, she got a front-row look at the inner-workings of Putin’s government.

Alexandra Tolstoy, the former partner of Russian oligarch Sergei Pugachev, said living in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s world was like “The Godfather.”

“It was sort of like everything you probably imagine, as someone earlier said, like ‘The Godfather,'” Tolstoy told Erin Burnett on CNN Thursday.

“This crazy insane wealth, and also a complete lack of sort of normal, human morals,” Tolstoy said of living in Putin’s Russia for eight years with Pugachev.

She added that Putin’s top aides all “hate each other” and that their government is “ruthless.”

Tolstoy and Pugachev were together for eight years before Pugachev’s falling out with Putin. The pair share three children and their relationship is the subject of the BBC documentary “The Countess and the Russian Billionaire.”

Pugachev was once known as “Putin’s banker,” but left the Kremlin in 2011, according to The Guardian.

He once owned two shipyards, the world’s largest mine, and significant real estate across Russia, but he claims it was all taken from him. The Kremlin said Pugachev is a criminal, claiming he stole hundreds of millions of dollars from loans given to Russia’s central bank in 2008, The Guardian reported.

Business Insider

Ukraine publishes video of artillery barrage on Russian military post near Kyiv, set to AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’

Sophia Ankel – March 17, 2022

• Ukraine posted aerial footage of what it said was an artillery barrage of a Russian military post.
• The video, shared on Facebook on Wednesday, was set to the AC/DC song “Highway to Hell.”
• UK intelligence said Thursday that Russia’s invasion remained stalled due to fierce resistance.

Ukraine on Wednesday published a video it said showed an artillery barrage of a Russian military post outside of Kyiv, set to AC/DC’s song “Highway to Hell.”

The video was shared on Facebook by the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi.

Zaluzhnyi wrote that the artillery attack had created: “a highway to hell for the command post and support point of the 35th Army of the Eastern Military District of the Russian Federation.”

The aerial footage appears to have been recorded by a drone, in common with other Ukrainian footage of attacks. It shows vehicles and barracks being blown up amid thick white smoke.

The scene is a forested area that Insider could not immediately identify or geolocate. Reporters and military analysts shared the footage on social media but also did not give a location or further details.

Russian forces have struggled to advance on Kyiv and other crucial targets in Ukraine. The invading troops “have made minimal progress on land, sea or air in recent days and they continue to suffer heavy losses,” the UK’s Ministry of Defense wrote in an intelligence assessment early on Thursday.

“Ukrainian resistance remains staunch and well-coordinated. The vast majority of Ukrainian territory, including all major cities, remains in Ukrainian hands.”

Ukraine’s armed forces said on Thursday that Russian forces had lost 444 tanks and 1,435 armored personnel carriers since the start of the conflict on February 24.

Neither Russia nor other countries have confirmed those figures. Russia acknowledged the death of about 500 troops in early March but has given no further figures in the weeks since.

On Wednesday, The New York Times cited US officials estimating the latest Russian death toll at about 7,000, a figure it said was conservative.

The Week

Ukrainian forces and volunteers handed Putin one of his ‘most comprehensive routs’ in a small town

Peter Weber, Senior editor – March 17, 2022

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has largely stalled on all fronts,” Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in a public intelligence assessment early Thursday. “Russian forces have made minimal progress on land, sea, or air in recent days and they continue to suffer heavy losses. Ukrainian resistance remains staunch and well-coordinated. The vast majority of Ukrainian territory, including all major cities, remains in Ukrainian hands.”

One Ukrainian town, Voznesensk, is still in Ukraine’s hands because Ukrainian soldiers and local volunteers repelled a Russian attempt to capture it, in “one of the most comprehensive routs President Vladimir Putin’s forces have suffered since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine,” The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, based on reporting in the strategically located southern town of 35,000.

“Judging from the destroyed and abandoned armor,” the Ukrainians “eliminated most of a Russian battalion tactical group on March 2 and 3,” killing an estimated 100 Russians and capturing or destroying 30 of 43 Russian tanks and other vehicles, the Journal reports. “The Ukrainian defenders’ performance against a much-better-armed enemy in an overwhelmingly Russian-speaking region was successful in part because of widespread popular support for the Ukrainian cause — one reason the Russian invasion across the country has failed to achieve its principal goals so far.”

Conservatively, more than 7,000 Russian troops have been killed since Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion, “a staggering number amassed in just three weeks of fighting,” The New York Times reports. “Pentagon officials say a 10 percent casualty rate, including dead and wounded, for a single unit renders it unable to carry out combat-related tasks,” and “Russian casualties, when including the estimated 14,000 to 21,000 injured, are near that level.”

The New York Times

Putin’s War on Ukraine Is About Ethnicity and Empire

Steven Erlanger – March 16, 2022

BRUSSELS — President Joe Biden took office with the idea that this century’s struggle would be between the world’s democracies and autocracies.

But in waging war on Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin of Russia has been driven by a different concept, ethno-nationalism. It is an idea of nationhood and identity based on language, culture and blood — a collectivist ideology with deep roots in Russian history and thought.

Putin has repeatedly asserted that Ukraine is not a real state and that the Ukrainians are not a real people, but actually Russian, part of a Slavic heartland that also includes Belarus.

“Putin wants to consolidate the civilizational border of Russia, as he calls it, and he is doing that by invading a sovereign European country,” said Ivan Vejvoda, a senior fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna.

In this sense, argues Ivan Krastev, the war is one of recolonization, capturing lands ruled by the Russian empire and the Soviet Union.

“Even if Ukraine were autocratic, it would not be tolerated by Putin,” he said. “He’s reconsolidating imperial nationalism.”

If Putin began as a “Soviet man, a red colonel,” said Krastev, a Bulgarian who is chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, “He now attacks the Soviet Union as a repressor of the Russian people. For him, this is an identity war.”

For Putin’s opponents in Ukraine and the West, nations are built on civic responsibility, the rule of law and the rights of individuals and minorities, including free expression and a free vote.

“What Russia is doing is not just making war against an innocent nation here,” said Timothy Snyder, a professor at Yale who has written extensively about Russia and Ukraine, but attacking assumptions about a peaceful Europe that respects borders, national sovereignty and multilateral institutions.

“The Russian leadership is deliberately undoing the linguistic and the moral structure that we drew from the Second World War,” he said.

Underlying the war is a clash of political systems, “a war against liberal democracy” and Ukraine’s right to self-determination, said Nathalie Tocci, the director of Italy’s International Affairs Institute. But that is just part of a larger conflict, she said, as Putin tries to change the meaning of what it is to be sovereign.

“He’s going back to a dangerous, irredentist and ethnic nationalist view of sovereignty and self-determination,” Tocci said.

Vejvoda, who is a Serb, notes that the concept of ethno-nationalism is one that former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic manipulated as well, asserting that the old Yugoslavia repressed Serbian identity and ambitions. While Milosevic used such arguments in a cynical fashion, Putin seems to have imbibed them wholeheartedly.

The idea of Russia as a separate civilization from the West with which it competes goes back centuries, to the roots of Orthodox Christianity and the notion of Moscow as a “third Rome,” following Rome itself and Constantinople. Snyder has examined the sources of what he has called a form of Russian Christian fascism, including Ivan Ilyin, a writer born in 1883, who saw salvation in a totalitarian state led by a righteous individual.

Ilyin’s ideas have been revived and celebrated by Putin and his close circle of security men and allies like Yuri Kovalchuk, who was described recently by Mikhail Zygar, the former editor of the independent news channel TV Rain, as “an ideologue, subscribing to a worldview that combines Orthodox Christian mysticism, anti-American conspiracy theories and hedonism.”

Putin has been similarly taken by the ideas of Lev Gumilyov, a Soviet-era historian and ethnologist who promoted “Eurasianism” as an antidote to European influence, and Aleksandr Dugin, who has advanced that notion to promote an ultranationalist view of Russia’s destiny as a conservative empire in perpetual conflict with the liberal Western world. Their histories have been described notably by Charles Clover in his book, “Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism.”

Dugin, who has long pressed for the reabsorption of Ukraine, is sometimes called “Putin’s philosopher.” In 2014, Dugin said: “Only after restoring the Greater Russia that is the Eurasian Union, we can become a credible global player.” The Ukrainian revolt against Russian influence that year he called “a coup d’état by the United States,” a Western attempt to stop “the advance of Russian integration.”

But if Putin once seemed to use such views cynically to fill the ideological hole left by the collapse of communism, he now seems to have absorbed them — and acted upon them.

There is prepared soil for such ideas in Russia, which has been torn for centuries between “Westernizers” and those who see the West as a cancer — alien, decadent, insidious and threatening.

Western Europeans coped differently with their own failed empires, combining their weakened nation-states into the European Union, in part to constrain aggressive nationalism.

“The European Union was the transformation of empires that failed, desperate to find something new,” said Pierre Vimont, a former French ambassador to the United States now at Carnegie Europe — something safer and less prone to war.

Putin’s concept of a nation is an ethnic and autocratic one, in contrast to the Western idea of a multicultural state built on civic responsibility, the rule of law and individual rights. To be an American, many have suggested, it is necessary simply to swear allegiance to the flag, obey the law and pay your taxes.

Efforts to more narrowly define what it is to be a “true American” have fed into a far-right populism, and in former President Donald Trump’s praise of Putin there are elements of identification with a strong leader defending “traditional” — and restrictive — definitions of national belonging.

But as with the far right in European countries like Germany, France and Italy, association with Putin now, during his war of aggression in Ukraine, is an embarrassing reminder of where such views can lead.

China, the other great autocracy in the Biden formulation, is built on similar ideas of ethnic nationalism — that all Chinese are part of the same nation, that minorities like the Uyghurs are inferior or dangerous, and that Taiwan’s separation is illusory, a crime of history that must be repaired.

Even India, a great democracy, has been pushed into ethnic nationalism by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with his Hindu ascendancy. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has re-created historical tales of the Ottoman Empire while acting in solidarity with Turkic-speaking peoples in Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and in Central Asia.

In Europe, too, Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, has promoted Hungarian identity and nationalism despite censure from Brussels. He has handed out Hungarian passports to ethnic Hungarians in Romania and other countries, who are allowed to vote in Hungary, giving him, so far, an electoral edge. But Orban faces parliamentary elections next month, and his long, close relations with Putin have hurt him politically, even as he has moved quickly to support European Union sanctions on Russia and welcome Ukrainian refugees.

Putin’s ethno-nationalist war has not gone particularly well, apparently to his surprise, unfolding as a bloody slog rather than a swift triumph. Casting it as a civilizational war creates all kinds of difficulties for Russian invaders — after all, if Russians and Ukrainians are one people, as Putin insists, they are firing on their brothers and sisters.

“It’s not easy for those kids to kill Ukrainians, who share the language and look like them,” Krastev said. “It was easier with the Chechens,” the non-Slavic people of the Caucasus whom Russia has been fighting since Catherine the Great.

Putin’s great disappointment, said Krastev, was to discover that Russian speakers in Ukraine fought his forces. Even his favorite Ukrainian oligarchs, like Rinat Akhmetov and Dmytro Firtash, “have suddenly discovered Ukrainian-ness.”

Putin has also worked to build a more militaristic society, based on Russia’s pride in its defeat of Nazi Germany in what is called “The Great Patriotic War.” But now Ukraine, which also fought and suffered under the Nazis, is using the same tropes against the invading Russians. For Ukraine, Krastev said, “this is their Great Patriotic War.”

Putin has done more to build Ukrainian nationhood than anyone in the West could have done, Krastev said.

“Putin wanted to be the father of a new Russian nation,” he said, “but he is the father of a new Ukrainian nation instead.”

March 16, 2022

CNN Business

Russia could lose 30% of its oil output within weeks, IEA warns

By Charles Riley, CNN Business – March 16, 2022

London (CNN Business)Russia could soon be forced to curtail crude oil production by 30%, subjecting the global economy to the biggest supply crisis in decades — that is, unless Saudi Arabia and other major energy exporters start pumping more.

The world’s second-largest crude oil exporter could be forced to limit output by 3 million barrels per day in April, the International Energy Agency warned on Wednesday, as major oil companies, trading houses and shipping companies shun its exports and demand in Russia slumps. Russia was pumping about 10 million barrels of crude per day, and exporting about half of that, before it invaded Ukraine.

“The implications of a potential loss of Russian oil exports to global markets cannot be understated,” the IEA said in its monthly report. The crisis could bring lasting changes to energy markets, it added.

Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia have banned imports of Russian oil, affecting roughly 13% of Russia’s exports. But moves by major oil companies and global banks to stop dealing with Moscow following the invasion are forcing Russia to offer its crude at a huge discount.

Big Western oil companies have abandoned joint ventures and partnerships in Russia, and halted new projects. The European Union on Tuesday announced a ban on investment in Russia’s energy industry.

The IEA, which monitors energy market trends for the world’s richest nations, said that refiners are now scrambling to find alternative supply sources. They could be forced to reduce their activity just as global consumers are hit with higher gasoline prices.

So far, there’s little sign of relief. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the only producers with significant spare capacity. Both countries are part of the 23-member OPEC+ coalition, which also includes Russia. OPEC+ has been increasing its collective output by a modest 400,000 barrels per day in recent months, but often fails to meet its own targets.

The UAE’s ambassador to the United States said last week that his country supported pumping more, but other officials have since said it is committed to the OPEC+ agreement. Neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia has so far shown a “willingness to tap into their reserves,” according to the IEA.”

The long-running inability of the bloc to meet its agreed quotas, mostly due to technical issues and other capacity constraints, has already led to sharp draws in global inventories,” the IEA said. If major producers do not change course and open the taps wider, global markets will be under supplied in the second and third quarters of 2022, the agency warned.

The West is trying to persuade Saudi Arabia and the UAE to change course. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was visiting the Gulf Wednesday to discuss ways of increasing diplomatic and economic pressure on Russia with the leaders of both countries.

The UK government said in a statement that the leaders are expected to discuss “efforts to improve energy security and reduce volatility in energy and food prices.”

Wild markets

Global energy markets have been extremely volatile in the wake of Russia’s invasion.Just over a week ago, Brent crude leaped above $139 per barrel. Analysts warned prices could touch $185, then $200 as traders shunned Russian oil, pushing inflation even higher and adding huge strain to the global economy.But there’s been a rapid reversal since then. Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, have cratered almost 30% from their peak. They settled below $100 per barrel for the first time this month after shedding another 6.5% on Tuesday.

The crisis could help drive huge changes in global energy markets.

Additional supply could eventually come online from Iran and Venezuela if the United States and its allies ease sanctions on the two countries. Talks over a nuclear deal with Iran appear to have stalled, but an agreement could still be reached.

Last week, the European Union outlined plans to slash gas imports from Russia this year by finding alternative suppliers, speeding up the shift to renewable energy, reducing consumption through energy efficiency improvements and extending the life of coal and nuclear power plants.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is in talks with Beijing to price some of its oil sales in yuan, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. That would erode the US dollar’s dominance in global energy markets and deepen Riyadh’s ties in the east.— Mark Thompson and Julia Horowitz contributed reporting.

ABC News

What to know about the 100 US ‘Switchblade’ drones heading to Ukraine

Luis Martinez and Matt Seyler – March 16, 2022

In a White House list of weapons being sent to Ukraine as part of a new $800 million military support package announced by President Joe Biden Wednesday — among nearly 10,000 anti-armor weapons, 800 anti-aircraft Stinger systems, and thousands of rifles — appeared 100 “tactical unmanned aerial systems.”

But these aren’t the large U.S. drones you’re used to seeing.

MORE: Message to Moscow: Biden boosts military aid to Ukraine in public display

The 100 unmanned systems heading to Ukraine are actually small “Switchblade” drones, a U.S. official told ABC News.

Unlike long-range Predator drones, which look similar to small planes and fire missiles at targets, the smallest Switchblade model fits in a rucksack and flies directly into targets to detonate its small warhead.

MORE: Russia ramps up missile strikes on Kyiv as ground forces stall: Pentagon Day 20 update

Less than 2-feet long and weighing only 5.5 pounds, the Switchblade 300 can be launched from a small tube that resembles a mortar, after which it can fly for up to 15 minutes. The larger Switchblade 600 is effective against armored targets and can fly for more than 40 minutes, but weighs 50 pounds, according to the manufacturer.

MORE: Biden details US military aid for Ukraine following Zelenskyy’s appeal to Congress

The U.S. official could not say whether one or both of the systems would be included in the 100 units destined for Ukraine.

Both Switchblades use onboard sensors and GPS to guide them to their targets. Both also have a “wave-off” feature so that human operators can abort an attack if civilians appear near the target or if the enemy withdraws.

“These were designed for U.S. Special Operations Command and are exactly the type of weapons systems that can have an immediate impact on the battlefield,” said Mick Mulroy, former deputy assistant secretary of defense and an ABC News national security and defense analyst.

Related:

Politico

U.S. sending Switchblade drones to Ukraine in $800 million package

Paul McLeary and Alexander Ward – March 16, 2022

The U.S. will send 100 Switchblade drones to Ukraine as part of the Biden administration’s new $800 million weapons package, Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told POLITICO.

The inclusion of the “tactical” drones, which crash into their targets, represents a new phase of weaponry being sent to Ukraine by the U.S., which so far has shipped mostly anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. An administration official confirmed McCaul’s account that the U.S. is sending the Switchblade.

The Switchblade is a small, light drone that can loiter in the air for up to 30 minutes before being directed to its target by an operator on the ground, dozens of miles away. The drone is launched from a tube, like a mortar shell. Its real-time GPS guidance allows a service member in the field to fly it until the moment it crashes and explodes into whatever the target might be.

The weapon was first fielded in Afghanistan by U.S. special operations forces, but quickly was picked up by the Army and Marine Corps, who saw value in the light, accurate munition that can help thwart ambushes or take out vehicles.

McCaul also said that the U.S. was “working with allies” to send more S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine. The country has had the S-300 for years, so troops should require little-to-no training on how to operate the Soviet-era anti-aircraft equipment. CNN reported that Slovakia had preliminarily agreed to transfer their S-300s to Ukraine.

The revelations come shortly after President Joe Biden announced the new $800 million in military assistance to Ukraine, which also includes 800 more Stinger anti-aircraft systems, 2,000 anti-armor Javelins, 1,000 light anti-armor weapons and 6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems. The AT-4 is a lightweight recoilless rifle already used by American special operations forces.

“The United States and our allies and partners are fully committed to surging weapons of assistance to the Ukrainians, and more will be coming as we source additional stocks of equipment that we’re ready to transfer,” Biden said.

Hours earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered a virtual speech to members of Congress, imploring the president and lawmakers to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine and provide his country with more materiel.

A Western diplomat familiar with Ukraine’s requests said Kyiv specifically has asked the U.S. and allies for more Stingers and Starstreak man-portable air-defense systems, Javelins and other anti-tank weapons, ground-based mobile air-defense systems, armed drones, long-range anti-ship missiles, “off-the-shelf” electronic warfare capabilities, and satellite navigation and communications jamming equipment.

“I have a dream. These words are known to each of you today,” Zelenskyy said. “I can say, I have a need. I need to protect our sky. I need your help.”

“We need to give him more defense mechanisms. He kept saying no-fly zone. I think that’s probably still a non-starter,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told POLITICO. “That doesn’t mean we can’t up the amount, do more with equipment and drones and other things that would be just as helpful.”

Ukraine has succeeded in defending Kyiv, the capital, and stalling Russia’s advances three weeks after the invasion started. The U.S.-led Western push to put advanced, lethal weaponry in Ukrainian hands boosted the resistance, which to date has met a shambolic Russian advance lacking in strategy and logistics.

To further help, there is a push to get Eastern European allies to send new air defense systems to Ukraine that the U.S. doesn’t have. At the top of the list are mobile, Russian-made missile systems such as the SA-8 and S-300. Like the S-300, Ukraine also possesses SA-8s.

The SA-8 is a mobile, short-range air defense system still in the warehouses of Romania, Bulgaria and Poland. The larger, long-range S-300 is still in use by Bulgaria, Greece and Slovakia.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s trip to Europe this week will include not only NATO headquarters in Brussels, but also stops in Bulgaria and Slovakia — countries that own S-300s and SA-8s — before heading back to Washington, D.C.

Reuters

World Court orders Russia to halt military operations in Ukraine

Stephanie van den Berg – March 16, 2022

THE HAGUE (Reuters) -The United Nations’ top court for disputes between states ordered Russia on Wednesday to immediately halt its military operations in Ukraine, saying it was “profoundly concerned” by Moscow’s use of force.

Although the rulings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are binding, it has no direct means of enforcing them, and in rare cases in the past countries have ignored them.

“The Russian Federation shall immediately suspend the military operations that it commenced on Feb 24, 2022 on the territory of Ukraine,” the ICJ judges said in a 13-2 decision.

They added that Russia must also ensure that other forces under its control or supported by Moscow should not continue the military operation.

Ukraine filed its case at the ICJ shortly after Russia’s invasion began on Feb. 24, saying that Moscow’s stated justification, that it was acting to prevent a genocide in eastern Ukraine, was unfounded.

In addition to disputing the grounds for the invasion, Kyiv also asked for emergency “provisional” measures against Russia to halt the violence before the case was heard in full. Those measures were granted on Wednesday.

GENOCIDE

During hearings earlier this month, Ukraine said there was no threat of genocide in eastern Ukraine, and that the U.N.’s 1948 Genocide Convention, which both countries have signed, does not allow an invasion to prevent one.

Ukrainian government forces have been battling Russia-backed separatists in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine since 2014. Kyiv and its Western allies reject Moscow’s claims of any genocide being perpetrated against Russian speakers there.

Russia said it had skipped the hearings at the ICJ, also known as the World Court, “in light of the apparent absurdity of the lawsuit”. It later filed a written document arguing that the court should not impose any measures.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday welcomed the ruling by the ICJ on emergency mesaures as “a complete victory” in its case against Russia.

“The (ICJ) order is binding under international law. Russia must comply immediately. Ignoring the order will isolate Russia even further,” Zelenskiy said on Twitter.

Reading out Wednesday’s ruling, presiding judge Joan Donoghue said the court was “profoundly concerned about the use of force by the Russian Federation in Ukraine which raises very serious issues of international law”.

(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg, Marine Strauss, Natalia Zinets and Max Hunder; Writing by Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Michael Perry, Jonathan Oatis and Gareth Jones)

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Associated Press

UN court orders Russia to cease hostilities in Ukraine

March 16, 2022

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The United Nations’ top court on Wednesday ordered Russia to stop hostilities in Ukraine granting measures requested by Kyiv, although many remain skeptical that Russia would comply.

Ukraine had two weeks ago asked the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, to intervene, arguing Russia violated the 1948 Genocide Convention by falsely accusing Ukraine of committing genocide and using that as a pretext for the ongoing invasion.

The court’s president, U.S. judge Joan E. Donoghue, demanded that “the Russian Federation shall immediately suspend the special military operations it commenced on Feb. 24.”

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The United Nations’ top court is set to rule Wednesday on a request by Ukraine for its judges to order Russia to halt its devastating invasion.

But it remains to be seen if Moscow would comply with any order made by the International Court of Justice, or ICJ, which is sometimes known as the World Court.

Russia snubbed a hearing last week at which lawyers for Ukraine accused their powerful neighbor of “resorting to tactics reminiscent of medieval siege warfare” in its brutal assault.

If a nation doesn’t abide by an order made by the court, judges could seek action from the U.N. Security Council, where Russia holds veto power.

In the days since the March 7 hearing, Russia has intensified its military strikes on towns and cities across Ukraine hitting civilian infrastructure across the country, including a deadly strike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol, and sending more than 3 million refugees fleeing across borders.

As part of a wider case that could take years to complete at the Hague-based ICJ, Ukraine asked judges to order Russia to “immediately suspend the military operations” launched Feb. 24 “that have as their stated purpose and objective the prevention and punishment of a claimed genocide” in the separatist eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.

David Zionts, a lawyer in Ukraine’s legal team, called that Russian claim “a grotesque lie.”

The request for an order to halt Russia’s attack is linked to a case Ukraine has filed based on the Genocide Convention, which has a clause allowing nations to take disputes based on its provisions to the World Court.

The success of Ukraine’s request will depend on whether the court accepts it has “prima facie jurisdiction” in the case.

Before last week’s hearing, the court’s president, U.S. judge Joan E. Donoghue, sent a message to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on March 1 pressing home the necessity to act “ in such a way as will enable any order the Court may make on the request for provisional measures to have its appropriate effects.”

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Axios

UN top court orders Russia to halt military operations in Ukraine

Ivana Saric – March 16, 2022

The United Nations’ International Court of Justice ruled on Wednesday that Russia should immediately suspend its military operations in Ukraine.

Why it matters: This constitutes the first decision by an international court regarding Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. But while rulings by the ICJ are considered binding, the court doesn’t have the means to enforce them, per Deutsche Welle.

The big picture: Ukraine’s complaint to the ICJ, filed on Feb. 26, accused Russia of illegally attempting to justify the war in Ukraine through false claims of genocide being perpetrated in eastern Ukraine.

• “The Court is acutely aware of the extent of the human tragedy that is taking place in Ukraine. … The Court is profoundly concerned about the use of force by the Russian Federation in Ukraine, which raises very serious issues of international law,” presiding judge Joan Donoghue wrote in the ruling.
• Russia “shall immediately suspend the military operations commenced on 24 February 2022 that have as their stated purpose and objective the prevention and punishment of a claimed genocide in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts of Ukraine,” the ruling stated.

What they’re saying: “Ukraine gained a complete victory in its case against Russia at the International Court of Justice. The ICJ ordered to immediately stop the invasion,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted in response to the ruling.

• “The order is binding under international law. Russia must comply immediately. Ignoring the order will isolate Russia even further,” he added.