Ukraine soon to get more HIMARS weapons, second stage of training of Ukrainian troops starts
June 28, 2022
HIMARS
“We’re continuing to work our security assistance and moving heaven and earth to get that assistance forward to the Ukrainians as fast as we can, and I think what you’re seeing on the battlefield is that the Ukrainians are making good use of not just our assistance, but systems that they’re obtaining from our partners and allies around the world,” the official said.
Reporter Jack Detch of the Foreign Policy news outlet also said that the Ukrainian military will soon begin a new stage of training in the use of the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system.
“U.S. training for about 50 Ukrainian troops on the HIMARs multiple rocket launch systems will take about two weeks: (according to a) senior U.S. defense official,” Detch tweeted.
“U.S. expects the second round of training to begin soon and to cover Ukrainian troops of different ranks.”
In early June, the United States announced that it would send four HIMARS MLRS and ammunition for them to Ukraine.
The Defense Minister of Ukraine, Oleksiy Reznikov, confirmed on June 23 that the first of the U.S. systems had already arrived in Ukraine. On the same day, the Pentagon announced another aid package for Kyiv, which, according to media reports, includes an additional four systems.
“This was Russian attempt to respond to deliveries of modern artillery and rocket systems to Ukraine, as they are hitting command centers, storages and all kinds of targets deep in the Russia-controlled territory quite hard,” Mihaylov said on Radio NV.
“The Russians are responding in the only possible way they can. These are attempts to conduct attacks on military targets that they’re aware of as those are marked on old Soviet maps. So far, we may conclude that this was another rather unsuccessful attempt to hit a defense manufacturing facility built yet in the Soviet times.”
He also emphasized that the Russians are still using Soviet intelligence data.
“As we well see, their intelligence is based on the maps that the Soviet military had. So we see these rockets miss their targets by 100 or 200 meters and produce explosions in residential blocks. We can’t say this isn’t terrorism. It could be that this attack was planned as an attempt to hit civil infrastructure, but the rockets that Russians used are not strong enough to conduct a terrorist-grade bombing operation. I mean – depressing the civil population and its ability to resist. Russia doesn’t have enough capacity to achieve these goals, doesn’t have enough strategic aircraft and rocket-operating units.”
Mihaylov also commented on Belarus and its involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine. He believes Russia wants a greater engagement from Belarus, so that it effectively joins the war, but for that to happen Ukraine needs to attack Belarus in the first place. Russia’s tactical goal is to provoke Ukraine into direct military action against Belarus as a sovereign state.
“Russian aircraft also use Belarussian airports for operations against Ukraine in the air. However, not so long ago Russia was using mostly Belarussian airports for striking Ukraine and now we see that (June 26) the attack on Kyiv was done from bombers based in Russia – this is confirmed by Ukrainian intelligence data and Belarussian activists. After hitting the targets, these planes went back to their Russian base.”
“I think Russia wants to provoke Ukraine to hit Belarus and engage it into the war, open another area for combat (in northern Ukraine). Besides that, I have to say that these Russian missiles are too old and are not good at hitting long-distance targets. So Russians have to admit strength of Ukraine’s air defense system and, therefore, launch missiles from a closer distance.”
Mihaylov was commenting after two Russian bombers hit targets in Kyiv at 6.20 a.m. on June 26. Several explosions did serious damage to at least one residential building in Lukyanivka district, an area close to the city’s downtown. At least one person was killed in the attack.
‘Russia needs to be defeated’: Russian socialists in exile say Putin has to be defeated in Ukraine
Charles R. Davis – June 27, 2022
President Vladimir Putin looks on during the Victory Day military parade marking the 77th anniversary of the end of World War II in Moscow, on May 9, 2022.Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
Ilya Matveev and Ilya Budraitskis are socialist activists from Russia.
They fled the country weeks after the February 24 invasion of Ukraine.
For the good of Ukraine — and Russia — they argue that Vladimir Putin cannot be allowed to win.
Over coffee in a bustling Eurasian neighborhood full of cafés, bars, delivery drivers on mopeds, and scores of cigarette-smoking hipsters, Ilya Matveev — a democratic socialist and academic — said he had come to terms with the fact that he may have to spend the rest of his life in exile here or in one of the handful of other places currently open to Russian expats.
He also knows that he will be hated — not just by nationalists in the country he fled, but by the victims of a war that he himself opposes.
“How can you create anything besides hatred after what Russia did?” Matveev asked. Maybe the hate won’t last forever, but if there ever is peace, there will also be loathing, with memories having been created that will last generations. “If Ukrainians don’t like me,” he said, “it’s perfectly understandable.”
In the wake of the Bucha massacre, where dozens of unarmed civilians were executed by Russian forces, and the bombing and killing of more than 600 men, women, and children sheltering in a Mariupol theater, there will be no easy postwar reconciliation.
“I feel a lot of shame,” Matveev, in his early 30s and wearing round glasses with clear frames, said in an interview. “Maybe I’m not personally responsible for the war, but when I look at these atrocities — that definitely happened — I’m very ashamed of Russian soldiers, of Russian everything.”
Even acknowledging that what Moscow is waging in Ukraine is indeed a “war” is punishable by up to 15 years in prison in Russia. It’s why Matveev — an associate dean for international relations at the North-West Academy for Public Administration in St. Petersburg, and a founder of the Openleft.ru socialist website — left a country that he loved for a land he doesn’t know. Vladimir Putin’s government had long been repressive, jailing and assassinating its opposition, but after the February invasion it became intolerable for liberals, leftists, and anyone else who would not remain silent as their homeland became an international pariah.
“I’m feeling awful because my country is destroyed in every sense possible,” Matveev said. Cultural and academic exchanges are a thing of the past, with Russia turning inward on the orders of those at the top, extinguishing hope that an open society could be built from the bottom up. “It’s just the destruction of everything.”
It’s impossible to say how many other Russians are mortified by their country’s war on its neighbor. What is known is that there was an uptick in Russians leaving the country this year. Most are not antiwar socialist dissidents but driven by concerns about their economic prospects under a pariah regime.
Even abroad, Russians who spoke to Insider did not always feel comfortable sharing their opinions on the record. Some, after all, may wish to return. Even the outspoken, like Matveev, remain cautious; he asked that his host country not be revealed, wishing to avoid drawing attention to the fact it’s hosting anti-Putin activists.
What unites all in the Russian diaspora is that they had the means to leave, something not available to the vast majority of those living under the Putin regime and suffering under sanctions for a war they cannot stop.
A necessary evil
As a leftist and a Russian, Matveev is adamant that the masses are not to blame for a war launched by one man. He takes no pleasure in seeing the pain imposed by broad sanctions that have tanked the economy and indirectly contributed to shortages of things like medicine.
Recognizing the privilege of living abroad, “I’m not going to cheer that,” he said.
At the same time, “I cannot even call for the lifting of sanctions,” he said, “because I think they can be effective.” What hurts the economy also hurts Russia’s military-industrial complex, potentially compelling an early end to the war effort in Ukraine.
And Matveev is clear: His country needs to lose.
“Russia needs to be defeated, basically,” he said.
On this count, Russia’s democratic left finds itself more anti-Moscow than some other socialists in the United States and Western Europe, where the wisdom of Noam Chomsky — the former MIT linguist who argues the US aimed to “draw the Russians into Ukraine” and is now intentionally prolonging the conflict — is sometimes given more airtime than the perspective of those in Kyiv or Moscow.
“Most of the leftists were wrong on this,” Matveev said. Chomsky, for example, dismissed concerns about an imminent invasion as an “annual media event,” an argument echoed by his anti-imperialist fellow travelers. “And they are still wrong on this,” Matveev continued, “because they cannot understand Russian imperialism. They don’t understand there is imperialism outside the West. They just reject this idea.”
This manifests itself in demands that Ukraine, viewed as a mere proxy for US power, be made to effectively surrender in order to stop the war. But ceding territory and laying down arms at this point means “ethnic cleansing,” Matveev said — the elimination of any shred of Ukrainian identity in lands seized by Russian forces. For Ukrainians, the fight is existential, “a nightmare scenario”; on the other hand, he said, “the worst thing that will happen for Russia is that it just goes back to its borders.”
Confused and in exile
Openly agitating against the government is not possible in today’s Russia. That, in some ways, has eased some Russians’ transition to the opposition abroad. There, at least, they can write and publish what they really thinks.
Until recently, Ilya Budraitskis, a stocky, left-wing political writer in his 40s, was based in Moscow. In 2015, in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Kremlin’s support for armed insurrection in east Ukraine, he warned the left abroad that his country was as imperialist as Washington.
Even so, “I didn’t believe until the last moment that this invasion was possible, because it was clear that it’s such a stupid plan,” he said, speaking to Insider thousands of miles from home in a location that he asked not be named.
Budraitskis — like Matveev — has joined the Russian diaspora. As with the invasion he did not see coming, he’s still coming to terms with his new reality and the possibility he will never go back to the place he was born.
“Little bit confused,” he said, repeating the words to himself, of his new life as an expatriate, one where he still faces the brunt of sanctions in the form of banks being hesitant to open an account for him. He blames the lack of any dissenting voices around Putin for the quagmire in Ukraine that also served to push him and others out of Russia.
“One old man is the only powerful political institution,” he said. “The system is this man, and no one around him is [able] to balance his decisions in any way.”
The point of propaganda in modern Russia, he argued, is not to rally people behind a government whose actions they cannot influence. It’s more “psychotherapy,” Budraitskis explained — a state-sponsored coping mechanism, minimizing cognitive dissonance by fashioning reality to something more bearable, so at least the masses have a rationale to help them sleep at night.
There is, indeed, not much else that a Russian can do within Russia other than to keep their head down and try to improve their own life (although resistance persists: someone has been setting fire to military-recruitment offices).
“People sort of feel — and it is proved to them by their material conditions — that they cannot do anything. Whatever they do, wherever they go, if they try to protest and do something, to organize or whatever, it doesn’t really work,” Budraitskis said. Especially in more remote regions of the country, far from Moscow and St. Petersburg, there are few prospects and less hope.
“And these people, they’re not so much supportive of either Putin or the war. It’s just their practice, their everyday life, that tells them nothing is going to change — and they’ve never seen any change in their lives,” Budraitskis said.
He’s skeptical of economy-wide sanctions, not seeing the pain inflicted on those Russians as contributing to the end of a war. But he does believe that for the sake of Ukraine as well as his own country — and for others who fear they are targets for Russian expansionism — there can be no victory for Moscow.
“To end the regime,” he said, “there should be some defeat.”
‘They’re no match for us’: Ukrainian pilot says they can defeat Russia, but only with more Western help
Alexander Nazaryan, Senior W. H. Correspondent – June 27, 2022
WASHINGTON — Moonfish and Juice, the two Ukrainian fighter pilots who visited Washington, D.C., last week with their representatives, had a simple message for the elected leaders, defense officials and journalists they met: We can win this war, and have to. Because if Russia wins, there is no telling where it will stop.
“If it’s not stopped right now, right here in Ukraine on the ground, the rest of the democratic world could find itself in a much, much worse situation,” says Moonfish — Yahoo News is not using his real name — who has been flying missions over eastern Ukraine, where Russia has been making steady gains in recent weeks.
On Sunday, rockets hit Kyiv, a reminder that the setbacks Russia suffered throughout the winter and early spring have hardly convinced the Kremlin to negotiate a compromise.
Nor is it clear that such a compromise would be palatable to Ukraine, which was initially invaded by Russia in 2014 in a bid to reclaim its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Asked by Yahoo News what victory would look like, Juice said that Ukraine must return to the borders established in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His handlers hasten to point out that Kyiv’s official position is not quite so ambitious, but Juice is not concerned with the finer points of diplomacy.
Ukrainian rescuers search a residential building hit by Russian missiles in Kyiv on Sunday. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)
“So it’s the position of politicians,” he says insistently. “But the position of soldiers is the borders of 1991.”
American policymakers have insisted that it is for Ukrainians to decide when they are ready to negotiate, but there is little secret that the foreign policy establishment in Washington is nervous about just how much longer the U.S.-European coalition will hold.
“NATO policy appears to be that, to keep the alliance together, we will give them enough to fight, but we won’t give them enough to win,” Mark Kimmitt, a former senior policy official at the departments of Defense and State, told Yahoo News. “Such a policy often leads to a lowest common denominator, held captive by the more conservative alliance members.”
When the invasion first started, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his top generals thought they might take Kyiv within three days. A ferocious Ukrainian defense repelled the Russian assault, giving hope to a victory by the much smaller nation. But now, several months later, the war has entered a grinding phase that has seen Russia take smaller cities like Severodonetsk but hardly consolidating its gains in the Donbas region to any extent that would allow Putin to claim victory.
“The Ukrainian air defense capacity was gutted in the opening few days of the war in February,” Daniel L. Davis, a military expert with Defense Priorities and a combat veteran, told Yahoo News. “Latest reports are that Russia is able to fly somewhere between 200 and 300 sorties per day. Most reliable assessments suggest Russia has had around 30 combat fixed-wing aircraft shot down during the war — which means thousands of jets fly each month and only six or seven get shot down in any given month.”
And until Ukraine can knock out Russian air defense systems, Davis warns, sending it Western fighter jets and helicopters is not likely to do much good, since those will simply be shot out of the sky.
The Ukrainians are appreciative that they have not been forgotten by the West. But the uncomfortable reality is that they are up against one of the most powerful militaries in the world, commanded by a Kremlin leadership that is fixated on proving its might to the rest of the world. Gratitude is thus followed by the question of what will come next, and when.
“We need all the help we can get,” says Yulia Marushevska, who works with the Ukrainian military in securing Western aid and who traveled to Washington with Moonfish and Juice.
A Russian aircraft shot down by Ukrainian forces crashed in a residential area of Chernihiv on April 22. (Nicola Marfisi/AGF/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The two pilots say they simply need more Western equipment: air defenses that can take down Russian missiles, jets more nimble and advanced than the Soviet-era MiGs that have been supplied to the Ukrainians thus far.
“We need to do better. We need to save more lives,” Juice says. “We are trying to do our best, but it’s old equipment.”
Both pilots say Russian rockets and missiles have hit civilian targets along with military ones. “They don’t care about hospitals or schools,” Juice says of Russia. “They are not real professionals” who follow Western standards of conduct.
“They don’t have enough technical training, enough real-fire training,” says Juice, who was involved in the initial defense of Kyiv. “So that’s why they’ve suffered such great losses.”
Moonfish, usually the more subdued of the pair, jumped in. “They’re no match for us. They’re no match for American pilots. I am 100% sure of that.” He says that even with superior aircraft like the Sukhoi Su-30, poor training blunts Russia’s advantage, as does a command-and-control structure at once chaotic and despotic.
“They’re afraid to speak up,” Moonfish says, an assessment he bases on interrogation of captured Ukrainian pilots.
Police officers detain a man during a protest in Moscow against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (AFP via Getty Images)
Fear of speaking up is endemic in Russian society, which has been cowed by two decades of Putin. “Yeah, it was disappointing,” Moonfish says of how quickly protests in cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg ended, to be replaced by acquiescence to Kremlin propaganda. “We believed that something actually might have happened, especially in the first month,” when Putin’s grip on power seemed as fragile as it had in years. Now, though, the war is popular with ordinary Russians, who have adjusted to international sanctions and widespread condemnation.
“Shit like that would never have happened in Ukraine,” Moonfish says.
“We are all set for a long-term confrontation with Russia,” Moonfish says. “And because of that, we need more weapons to free our territories. To at least make them think twice before invading again.”
Financier Bill Browder: Vladimir Putin has been a ‘psychopath’ since childhood and lacks normal ‘human emotions’
Sam Tabahriti – June 26, 2022
Bill Browder is known to be Vladimir Putin’s nemesis. Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images Financier Bill Browder: Vladimir Putin has been a ‘psychopath’ since childhood and lacks normal ‘human emotions’
Bill Browder, Vladimir Putin’s nemesis, said the Russian president has been mentally ill.
In a new documentary on Paramount+, Browder said Putin has been ill as a “psychopath.”
There have been rumors about Putin’s health – an oligarch was recorded saying he had blood cancer.
Vladimir Putin’s nemesis, investor Bill Browder, says the Russian president has been ill since childhood, but not in the way many think.
In a new documentary called, “Secrets of the Oligarch Wives,” which will stream on Paramount+ starting June 28, Browder said Putin has been ill and is a “psychopath.” The wives of Russian billionaires paint a picture of a vengeful Russian leader who saw treachery at every turn, forgave nothing, settled every score and was jealous of their lifestyles.
Insider viewed the documentary ahead of its streaming debut. It starts with 2010 footage of Putin singing in front of Western celebrities in St Petersburg.
Browder is an international investor who once ran the largest foreign investment fund in Russia. He was barred in 2005 from entering the country, “blacklisted,” and named a “threat to national security” after he accused Russian tax officials of corruption and embezzlement.
Browder says in the documentary: “Putin is ill, but not in the way that most people think Putin is ill. Putin is mentally ill, but he has been mentally ill as a psychopath since childhood.”
“Putin’s illness leads him to lack any empathy, lack any conscience, lack any normal human emotions when it comes to the fate of other people,” Browder adds.
There have been speculations about the Russian president’s health. An oligarch secretly was recorded saying Putin had “blood cancer” and Oliver Stone, who made a four-part documentary on Putin, also said he had cancer but had “licked it.”
Browder concluded that being a psychopath “will lead him to all sorts of terrible crimes.”
Tatiana Fokina, whose partner Evgeny Chichvarkin was once worth over $1.5 billion, says in the documentary that the rumors of Putin’s health are “likely to be true,” and if they are “that makes me really frightened.”
“A person who is really ill doesn’t really care about what happens next,” Fokina added.
U.S. likely to announce this week purchase of missile defense system for Ukraine – source
Steve Holland – June 26, 2022
FILE PHOTO: U.S. and Ukrainian flags are pictured prior to the start of the UUkraine Defense Consultative Group meeting hosted by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Ramstein
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is likely to announce this week the purchase of an advanced medium to long range surface-to-air missile defense system for Ukraine, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday.
Washington is also expected to announce other security assistance for Ukraine, including additional artillery ammunition and counter-battery radars to address needs expressed by the Ukrainian military, the source added.
The weaponry is the latest assistance to be offered to Ukraine by the United States since Russia invaded its eastern European neighbor in February.
This month, President Joe Biden agreed to provide Ukraine with $700 million in military aid, including advanced rocket systems that can strike with precision at long-range targets.
Ammunition, counter fire radars, a number of air surveillance radars, additional Javelin anti-tank missiles, as well as anti-armor weapons are also part of that package, officials said.
Another effort, to sell four large, armable drones to Ukraine, was paused earlier this month amid concerns that their radar and surveillance equipment could create a security risk for the United States if it fell into Russian hands.
(Reporting by Steve Holland in Washington, Additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif., writing by Ismail Shakil; Editing by Ross Colvin and Himani Sarkar)
Zelenskyy: Ukraine’s defense will be as powerful as Israel’s
Roman Petrenko – June 23, 2022
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine insists that after winning the war Ukraine will work towards becoming a truly European state – more liberal than before in many respects, but with a powerful security and defence system akin to Israel’s.
Source: Zelenskyy during a meeting with the Israeli university community
Details: Zelenskyy noted that many Ukrainians have already learned how to repulse an aggressor. In the future, Ukraine will work to widen the participation of Ukrainian citizens in the country’s defence.
Quote from Zelenskyy: “This concerns not only the security of our borders, but also internal security. With neighbours like ours, we can expect bombardments, cruise missiles and who knows what else at any moment. So the air defence system of our country has to be improved.
We will build a European country, which will be a member of the European Union. But with a defence system as powerful as that of Israel.”
Earlier: Oleksii Reznikov, Minister of Defence of Ukraine, announced that the first shipment of HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, a light multiple rocket launcher supplied to Ukraine by the US – ed.] systems has arrived in Ukraine.
Boris Johnson says the Russian army might soon run out of soldiers and weapons and lose its ‘forward momentum’ in Ukraine
Cheryl Teh – June 23, 2022
A young girl walks by a crater in front of a damaged apartment building in the Ukrainian city of Slovyansk.ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images Boris Johnson says the Russian army might soon run out of soldiers and weapons and lose its ‘forward momentum’ in Ukraine
Boris Johnson told European media outlets that Russia might soon run out of weapons and soldiers.
British intelligence on the Ukraine war suggests Russia may lose its “forward momentum,” per Johnson.
Johnson said he intends to ask the G7 to aid Ukraine in a counter-offensive with more equipment.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this week that he believes Russia will soon lose momentum in its war with Ukraine.
Speaking to the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Johnson said that he thought Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army was suffering heavy losses of soldiers and equipment just to gain ground in Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Citing intelligence reports from the British defense forces, Johnson told the outlet that he believed the Russian onslaught in Ukraine would likely lose steam in the coming few months.
“Our defense intelligence service believes, however, that in the next few months, Russia could come to a point at which there is no longer any forward momentum because it has exhausted its resources,” he said, per Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
“Then we must help the Ukrainians to reverse the dynamic. I will argue for this at the Group of Seven summit,” he said, per the outlet.
Johnson also told Sueddeutsche Zeitung that he thought it was important for the Ukrainian army to be supported in launching a counter-offensive if it is able to do so.
“This is their crisis. They are the victims of Putin’s aggression, they must decide what they want to do. But it is absolutely clear if you go to Ukraine, if you talk to the Ukrainians, and if you talk to [Ukrainian President Volodymr] Zelenskyy. you will come away with the overwhelming view that the Ukrainians will not concede their territory,” he said, per the outlet.
Johnson added that he thought a win for Ukraine would include Russian forces being repelled from the areas they invaded and for Ukraine to “regain the status quo” before the invasion on February 24, per Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
“Ukraine must win, we agree on that. The unity of the West is far more conspicuous than the divisions,” Johnson told the outlet.
War for eastern Ukraine reaches ‘fearful climax’ as European Union approves Ukraine candidacy
Nabih Bulos, Jaweed Kaleem, Tracy Wilkinson – June 23, 2022
Ukrainian soldiers fire at Russian positions from a U.S.-supplied M777 howitzer in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region on June 18. (Efrem Lukatsky / Associated Press)
Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers appeared to be all but encircled as Russian troops advanced Thursday around two strategically important cities in eastern Ukraine in what a senior Ukrainian official called a “fearful climax” of the battle for the Donbas, signaling that the fall of a significant part of the region was imminent.
The comment, from Ukrainian presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovych, highlighted the stark contrast between the battlefield and growing international diplomacy in support of Ukraine as the war approaches its fourth month.
Millions of people are displaced, cities are in ruin and air-raid sirens have become a terrifying part of everyday life across wide swaths of the nation even as Western support for it grows. Meeting Thursday in Brussels, European Union representatives acting with unusual speed granted Ukraine status as an EU candidate. The idea that once faced significant hurdles in the bloc gained greater appeal amid the protracted war and economic sanctions against Russia.
The decision does not guarantee admission to the EU, and the candidacy process could take years. Ukraine will need to fulfill economic and political requirements and gain unanimous approval from the EU’s 27 members. Still, giving Ukraine a candidacy position — which the EU also granted tiny Moldova, another former Soviet republic that borders Ukraine — is a boost to Kyiv’s aspirations to be part of the West and a snub to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This is “a good day for Europe,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in Brussels.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded via Twitter: “Ukraine’s future is within the EU.”
Zelensky, who had called the EU meeting a “crucial moment” for his nation, said in an overnight address that the war was reaching a tipping point and repeated pleas for more help from Western powers.
“We must free our land and achieve victory, but more quickly, a lot more quickly,” Zelensky said early Thursday as he asked for bigger and faster armaments.
The U.S. and other Western countries have increased shipments of heavy weaponry to Ukraine. Washington announced another $450-million package Thursday that will include long- or medium-range rocket systems, tactical vehicles, grenade launchers, machine guns and aquatic patrol boats, the latest in approximately $6 billion in U.S. equipment supplied to Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
Still, Zelensky and Kyiv’s military officials say Moscow’s military superiority is hard to match in what has become a sustained artillery battle in the east, where Putin’s forces are backed by separatists. Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzianyk estimated this week that Russian fire often outnumbers Ukrainian fire 6 to 1.
“There were massive air and artillery strikes in Donbas. The occupier’s goal here is unchanged. They want to destroy the entire Donbas step by step,” Zelensky said in his overnight video address.
The president said, “Russian troops aim to turn any city into Mariupol,” the major port city that Moscow overtook last month after relentless pounding.
Zelensky is scheduled to appear virtually at summits this and next week of the Group of 7 major economies and, separately, of NATO’s 30 countries. Major points on both summits’ agendas will be Ukraine and ways to continue to arm it and ease its humanitarian crisis.
The Russian advance around the sister cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk underscored the do-or-die strategy the Ukrainians have adopted for their defense.
Ukrainians have slowed Moscow’s push and Russians have incurred losses as they gain ground in the Donbas. But the cost has been devastating and has often left Ukrainian defenders with no path of escape.
In Lysychansk, Ukrainian personnel said Thursday that the Russian army had made gains along the Seversky Donets River with apparent aims to surround Lysychansk from the north and the south. That would leave leave thousands of Ukrainian soldiers trapped. The river separates Lysychansk from Severodonetsk.
It was not clear Thursday if the Russian encirclement around the cities had fully closed. One aid worker who was delivering assistance to Lysychansk said that he could still make it from the west into the city but that the Russians were pressing closer to cut off access. He said Russians had already overrun suburbs south of Lysychansk.
Alexander, a special forces police instructor in Lysychansk, acknowledged the situation was bad. “It’s hard, we understand,” he said Thursday. “But we stand.”
The war, now largely concentrated in the east, has also continued elsewhere in the Donbas in addition to other regions.
Shelling reported overnight in the second-largest city, Kharkiv, and towns around it left 10 people dead, said regional governor Oleh Sinegubov. The Ukrainian army — whose counteroffensives in the south have reportedly made gains around the Russian-held city of Kherson — said Thursday that three cruise missiles hit nearby Mykolaiv. The army also said two missiles were shot down near the coastal city of Odesa.
In the west, Lviv has remained among the major cities least affected. The city is a key route for refugees and international workers on their way to Poland, and Lviv’s shops were open and its streets were bustling. At a crossing at the Ukraine-Poland border, the commercial shipping truck lane was crowded while regular travelers came in quickly.
Once through the border, Ukrainian soldiers on their way to training made their way to a bus where an army officer checked off names from a list. The Polish end of the crossing was lined with hundreds of cars waiting to enter Ukraine that formed a miles-long queue.
It was a stark contrast to Ukraine’s east, where blacked-out ghost towns and the disquieting silence after air-raid sirens are most of what can be seen.
Bulos reported from Lviv and Kaleem from London. Wilkinson reported from Washington.
Distracted Putin Is About to Tumble Into a New Bloodbath, Officials Warn
Kristina Jovanovski – June 22, 2022
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
ISTANBUL—Russia’s distraction over the war in Ukraine has forced its military presence to decrease in areas that may soon face a Turkish offensive, Syrian opposition officials told The Daily Beast this week.
The officials, including in the opposition Syrian National Army (SNA), said Moscow has withdrawn from several areas in northwestern Syria near the Turkish border, including Tal Rifaat, where Ankara has said it would carry out a military operation to combat the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers a terrorist group.
The SNA, a coalition of rebel groups backed by Turkey, would take part in the possible operation, according to Yusuf Hammoud, an officer and former spokesperson for the SNA.
Hammoud, who is based in northwestern Afrin, Syria, said Russia has decreased its presence in areas around Aleppo and Tal Rifaat.
“It will make it easier for Turkey to win this war,” Hammoud told The Daily Beast.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that his country will carry out a military operation in the northwestern cities of Tal Rifaat and Manbij near the Turkish border to create a “safe zone” where 1 million Syrian refugees could return.
Tensions between Syrian refugees and locals in Turkey have been rising, putting domestic pressure on Erdogan, whose popularity has declined amid an economic crisis a year before national elections are due.
If there is an attempt to take these areas, it risks a direct confrontation between NATO member Turkey and groups allied with Russia.
Beyond engaging in conflict with possibly several armed groups, an incursion could also have a heavy humanitarian toll, leading to the death or displacement of people who have gone through 11 years of Syria’s civil war.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that Turkey’s 2019 offensive against Kurdish forces in the northeast led to the displacement of more than 150,000.
Erdogan has not said when the offensive will begin.
“Like I always say, we’ll come down on them suddenly one night. And we must,” the Turkish president stated at the end of May, according to the Associated Press.
Ankara insists the YPG, which has cooperated with the U.S. in its fight against ISIS, is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey, leading to tens of thousands of deaths.
Turkey, the U.S., and the EU consider the PKK a terrorist organization. Ankara has carried out four previous incursions into Syria, including against the YPG.
Turkey’s presence in Syria has put Ankara at odds both with its NATO allies and powerful competitors, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, who backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
A Russian soldier is awarded the Participant in Military Operations in Syria medal during the Victory Day parade in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo on May 9, 2022.AFP via Getty Images
While Erdogan has continued support for opposition rebel groups, he has had to placate the competing interests of Russia, a nearby nuclear power with a permanent UN security council seat and a crucial source of energy and tourism to Turkey.
After Moscow put economic sanctions on Turkey for downing a fighter jet in 2015 that Ankara said had violated its airspace, Russia said Erdogan had apologized for the incident.
If the Kremlin now tacitly accepts a Turkish incursion into areas it or its allies controlled, it could be seen as a sign of how the invasion of Ukraine has overstretched the Russian military and it can no longer enforce its interests or its allies, even against a country with less geopolitical weight and military power.
The Turkish government did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment on the possible operation.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price has expressed concern over the possible operation, stating it would undermine regional stability, and put U.S. troops and the fight against ISIS at risk.
Still, Moscow-based analyst Kerim Has, who specializes in Turkish-Russian relations, said that Russia could give Turkey a green light to launch an offensive, despite its public comments.
Has stated that if Turkey, or groups it backs, take control over Tal Rifaat, that could lead to an attempt to take nearby Aleppo, controlled by Russia’s ally, Assad.
Has believes Russia’s war in Ukraine has made Moscow more dependent on Ankara, a NATO member that has not imposed sanctions on Russia and which could serve the Kremlin’s interests by delaying NATO membership for Sweden and Finland.
“Mr. Edrdgan’s hands are stronger now in regards to Russia compared to four months ago,” Has said.
He added that since Russia would want Erdogan to win the upcoming election, Moscow could allow the incursion to boost the Turkish president’s popularity among his nationalist base.
Hammoud, with the SNA, said that Iranian forces were taking over some of the areas the Russians have retreated from.
Ahmad Misto, a civil leader in northwestern Syria with a brigade in the SNA, stated that Iranian forces have taken control of areas around Aleppo and Idlib province in the northwest where Russia has withdrawn.
“The Russians still have political power over the [Syrian] regime but the Iranians have it military-wise on the frontlines,” Misto said.
He added that the pullback of Russian forces happened about one to one-and-a-half months after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mohammad Ismail, a senior leader of the Kurdish National Council, based in Qamishli, northeastern Syria, said the increased presence of forces from Iran would provide more motivation for Turkey to go on the offensive.
“Some [areas] have noticed a Russian withdrawal and it was filled by Iranian forces instead. If Iran is increasing their influence, then also Turkey has to get in,” he said.
Turkey and Iran are long-time rivals, battling for influence in the region and taking opposing sides in Syria where Tehran backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Ismail added there was a noticeable decrease in Russia’s presence a month ago, specifically in areas around Tal Rifaat, going towards the west of the Euphrates river.
Soon after, Erdogan announced on June 1 that the military operation would be carried out in Tal Rifaat, along with Manbij.
Ismail believes Kurdish forces would hand over territory to the Syrian regime for protection against a Turkish offensive.
The Syrian Democratic Forces said earlier this month that it may cooperate with Damascus if Ankara carries out an incursion.
That would be another motivation for an operation by Ankara as the increased regime presence could push civilians fearful of Assad towards the border, potentially leading to more refugees in Turkey.
But civilians in Syria also fear Turkey and its allies, said Ismail.
In 2020, a UN war crimes expert stated that the SNA may have committed torture and looting in northern Syria.
“There’s no clean war,” Ismail stated. “International forces [are] going to decide everything on the ground.”
