Justice Neil Gorsuch fumes that the Supreme Court ‘failed’ to ‘honor this Nation’s promises’ as it rolled back tribal authority in Oklahoma
Jake Epstein and Oma Seddiq – June 29, 2022
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
The Supreme Court Wednesday authorized Oklahoma to handle certain crimes on Native American land.
Justice Neil Gorsuch blasted the ruling, saying it “failed” to “honor this Nation’s promises.”
A 2020 ruling said only tribal and federal authorities could prosecute crimes in the jurisdiction.
Justice Neil Gorsuch on Wednesday blasted the Supreme Court for handing states more power over Native American land, saying the ruling failed to “honor this Nation’s promises.”
The nation’s highest court delivered a victory to state authorities, declaring that Oklahoma officials had jurisdiction over crimes involving non-Native Americans in Native American territory.
The 5-4 majority opinion, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, received the votes of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett. Gorsuch and the court’s three liberal justices — Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor — dissented.
“Truly, a more ahistorical and mistaken statement of Indian law would be hard to fathom,” Gorsuch wrote in a fiery dissenting opinion.
Wednesday’s ruling limits a Supreme Court decision handed down two years ago that said a large chunk of eastern Oklahoma was considered Native American reservations, meaning only tribal and federal authorities — not state officials — could handle criminal prosecutions on that land.
Gorsuch authored that 2020 ruling, and the court’s liberal wing joined him then as well, forming the majority at the time. But now, the court has an expanded 6-3 conservative majority. Gorsuch, who’s from Colorado, has had a track record of standing up for tribal rights in his opinions.
“One can only hope the political branches and future courts will do their duty to honor this Nation’s promises even as we have failed today to do our own,” Gorsuch wrote in his dissent.
The case, known as Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, concerned Victor Castro-Huerta, a non-Native American who was convicted by state authorities of neglecting his 5-year-old stepdaughter, a Native American, in Cherokee Nation territory. An Oklahoma appeals court tossed out his conviction after the 2020 Supreme Court ruling. Federal authorities then stepped in and charged Castro-Huerta, who pleaded guilty. He has not been sentenced.
The state’s Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, celebrated Wednesday’s ruling as a “clear victory for all four million Oklahomans, the state of Oklahoma, and the rule of law.”
“Justice has been delayed and denied to thousands of Native victims in our state for no reason other than their race. Now Oklahoma law enforcement can help uphold and enforce the law equally, as we have done for over a century,” he said in a statement.
The head of the Cherokee Nation on Wednesday said he was “disappointed” in the Supreme Court’s decision.
“The dissent today did not mince words — the Court failed in its duty to honor this nation’s promises, defied Congress’s statutes, and accepted the ‘lawless disregard of the Cherokee’s sovereignty,'” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a statement.
Cassidy Hutchinson says she was ‘scared’ about Trump’s plan to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6
David Knowles, Senior Editor – June 28, 2022
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified before the House select committee on Tuesday that she was “scared” when she learned about plans for Trump to go to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to press his assertion that he had not lost the 2020 election.
Hutchinson, a key witness in the Jan. 6 select committee’s investigation into the Capitol riot and the former president’s role in it, recounted a Jan. 2 meeting with then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
“As Mr. Giuliani and I were walking to his vehicle that evening, he looked at me and said something to the effect of, ‘Gosh, are you excited for the 6th? It’s going to be a great day.’ And I remember saying, ‘Rudy, can you explain what’s happening on the 6th?’” Hutchinson testified. “He responded something to the effect of, ‘We’re going to the Capitol. It’s going to be great. The president is going to be there, he’s going to look powerful. He’s going to be with the members. He’s going to be with the senators. Talk to the chief about it, talk to the chief about it. He knows about it.’”
Cassidy Hutchinson testifies at a House select committee hearing on Tuesday. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
The testimony provided the first eyewitness account that the Trump White House had indeed planned for the then president to personally go to the U.S. Capitol in his bid to block the certification of the Electoral College vote showing he had lost.
Hutchinson continued her testimony, saying she then returned to the West Wing and asked Meadows about Giuliani’s comments.
“I just had an interesting conversation with Rudy, Mark. Sounds like we’re going to go to the Capitol,” she told Meadows. “He didn’t look up from his phone and said something to the effect of, ‘There’s a lot going on, Cass, but I don’t know, things might get real, real bad on January 6th.”
Meadows, who perhaps had more direct knowledge of Trump’s intentions than any other White House staff member, initially provided text messages to the committee, then refused to testify further in the investigation.
Hutchinson in her prerecorded testimony as seen at the House select committee hearing on Tuesday. (House TV)
Hutchinson told the committee that learning of the plan for Trump to go to the Capitol, where his supporters would later stage a riot in an effort to block the certification of the election, frightened her.
“In the days before January 2nd I was apprehensive about the 6th. I had heard general plans for a rally. I had heard tentative movements to potentially go to the Capitol, but when hearing Rudy’s take on January 6th and then Mark’s response, that was the first, that evening was the first moment that I remember feeling scared and nervous for what could happen on January 6th, and I had a deeper concern for what was happening with the planning aspects of it.”
U.S. Supreme Court takes aim at separation of church and state
Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung – June 28, 2022
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court has chipped away at the wall separating church and state in a series of new rulings, eroding American legal traditions intended to prevent government officials from promoting any particular faith.
In three decisions in the past eight weeks, the court has ruled against government officials whose policies and actions were taken to avoid violating the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment prohibition on governmental endorsement of religion – known as the “establishment clause.”
The court on Monday backed a Washington state public high school football coach who was suspended by a local school district for refusing to stop leading Christian prayers with players on the field after games.
On June 21, it endorsed taxpayer money paying for students to attend religious schools under a Maine tuition assistance program in rural areas lacking nearby public high schools.
On May 2, it ruled in favor of a Christian group that sought to fly a flag emblazoned with a cross at Boston city hall under a program aimed at promoting diversity and tolerance among the city’s different communities.
The court’s conservative justices, who hold a 6-3 majority, in particular have taken a broad view of religious rights. They also delivered a decision on Friday that was hailed by religious conservatives – overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide – though that case did not involve the establishment clause.
Cornell Law School professor Michael Dorf said the court’s majority appears skeptical of government decision-making premised on secularism.
“They regard secularism, which for centuries has been the liberal world’s understanding of what it means to be neutral, as itself a form of discrimination against religion,” Dorf said of the conservative justices.
In Monday’s ruling, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the court’s aim was to prevent public officials from being hostile to religion as they navigate the establishment clause. Gorsuch said that “in no world may a government entity’s concerns about phantom violations justify actual violations of an individuals First Amendment rights.”
‘WALL OF SEPARATION’
It was President Thomas Jefferson who famously said in an 1802 letter that the establishment clause should represent a “wall of separation” between church and state. The provision prevents the government from establishing a state religion and prohibits it from favoring one faith over another.
In the three recent rulings, the court decided that government actions intended to maintain a separation of church and state had instead infringed separate rights to free speech or the free exercise of religion also protected by the First Amendment.
But, as liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the Maine case, such an approach “leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.”
Opinions vary over to how much flexibility government officials have in allowing religious expression, whether by public employees, on public land or by people during an official proceeding. Those who favor a strict separation of church and state are concerned that landmark Supreme Court precedents, including a 1962 ruling that prohibited prayer in public schools, could be imperiled.
“It’s a whole new door that (the court) has opened to what teachers, coaches and government employees can do when it comes to proselytizing to children,” said Nick Little, legal director for the Center for Inquiry, a group promoting secularism and science.
Lori Windham, a lawyer with the religious liberty legal group Becket, said the court’s decisions will allow for greater religious expression by individuals without undermining the establishment clause.
“Separation of church and state continues in a way that protects church and state. It stops the government from interfering with churches but it also protects diverse religious expression,” Windham added.
Most of the religious-rights rulings in recent years involved Christian plaintiffs. But the court also has backed followers of other religions including a Muslim woman in 2015 who was denied a retail sales job because she wore a head scarf for religious reasons and a Buddhist death row inmate in 2019 who wanted a spiritual adviser present at his execution in Texas.
The court also sided with both Christian and Jewish congregations in challenges based on religious rights to governmental restrictions such as limits on public gatherings imposed as public safety measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nicole Stelle Garnett, a Notre Dame Law School professor who joined a brief filed with the justices backing the football coach, said the court was merely making clear that governments must treat religious people the same as everyone else.
Following Monday’s ruling, many issues relating to religious conduct in schools may be litigated anew under the court’s rationale that the conduct must be “coercive” in order to raise establishment clause concerns.
“Every classroom,” Garnett said, “is a courtroom.”
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)
Reznikov reports on the thousands of Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters who are training abroad: We learn fast
Alona Mazurenko – June28, 2022
Ukrainian Minister of Defence Oleksii Reznikov has reported that thousands of Ukrainian defenders have mastered the use of weapons provided by Western partners, and their training is still ongoing. He said Ukrainian fighters learn quickly, and any weapon becomes even more effective in the hands of Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Quote: “We’re learning. We learn fast. We will master aviation and other types of high-tech weapons just as quickly. Those who doubted this have already changed their minds.
Any weapon becomes even more effective in the hands of our soldiers. We will drive the occupying terrorists out of our land. Victory will be on our side.”
Details: The Minister stated that the Ukrainian army is being equipped with powerful modern military machinery and weapons.
Ukrainian fighters are undergoing training in the UK, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, France and Germany.
In addition, a basic general military training course for Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen was launched this week with the support of the United Kingdom.
Oleksii Reznikov said that the first few hundred Ukrainian servicemen had already arrived for training, and the project overall was designed to train thousands of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers.
Ukrainian military personnel abroad are acquiring basic skills in operating M777 and AHS Krab 155-mm-calibre artillery systems and M142 HIMARS, M270 and MARS II multiple rocket launchers.
Ukrainian military personnel are also undergoing training in operating Gepard 1A2 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, Sandown-class minehunters, and VAB and M80-A combat vehicles. Training is also being provided for Ukrainian specialists in air reconnaissance and surveillance, and specialists in explosives disposal and demining, including underwater.
Reznikov said that thousands of servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been trained abroad to use and operate foreign-made weapons and military equipment since April.
Ukrainian fighters have already mastered the M777, FH-70, ACS M109, Caesar and Panzerhaubitze 2000 155-mm artillery systems, the M142 HIMARS multiple rocket launcher, the AHS Krab self-propelled artillery system, and a significant number of armored combat vehicles, including the M113, FV-103, Bushmaster, Senator, Mastiff, Husky and Wolfhound.
‘They’re Not Here to Hurt Me’: Trump Urged Secret Service to Allow Armed Supporters into January 6 Address, Witness Testifies
Brittany Bernstein – June 28, 2022
A former White House aide testified on Tuesday that former president Trump urged Secret Service to allow his armed supporters to attend the speech he delivered on January 6, 2021, ahead of the Capitol riot.
“I don’t f***ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f***ing mags away,” Trump said, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, apparently referring to metal detectors — or magnometers — that were deterring armed Trump supporters from entering the cordoned-off area where he was speaking.
Hutchinson, who was an aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified before the House select committee on the Capitol riot that Trump said at the time, “Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the f***ing mags away.”
White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato apparently warned Meadows on January 6 that the crowd seemed ready for violence, with some supporters arriving armed with knives, guns, bear spray, body armor, spears and flagpoles. Hutchinson testified that Meadows did not look up from his phone to address Ornato, asking only if he had informed Trump. Ornato replied that he had.
Hutchinson testified that Meadows “almost had a lack of reaction” to the Capitol insurrection.
She said that Trump grew irate when Secret Service told him he would not be allowed to visit the Capitol after his remarks, and tried to grab the wheel from the driver.
She testified that Ornato told her that when Trump got into his presidential vehicle, known as the “beast,” the president was “under the impression from Mr. Meadows that off-the-record movement to the Capitol was still possible and likely to happen” but that Secret Service agent Bobby Engel “had more information.”
Hutchinson said Engel then told the president that they could not head to the Capitol because the Secret Service weren’t prepared and that it wasn’t secure.
“The president had a very strong, very angry response to that,” Hutchinson testified. “Tony described him as being irate. The president said something to the effect of, ‘I’m the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now.’”
“Bobby responded, ‘Sir, we have to go back to the West Wing,’” she testified. “The president reached up toward the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm and said, ‘Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol.’ Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel and when Mr. Ornato recounted this story to me, he motioned toward his clavicles.”
Earlier in the day, White House lawyers urged speechwriters not to include talk about marching to the Capitol in Trump’s address, Hutchinson testified.
She said Trump wanted to say things like, “Fight for Trump,” “We’re going to march to the Capitol,” and other words about Vice President Mike Pence.
White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said it would be “foolish” to indulge some of Trump’s requests. White House counsel Pat Cipollone said it would be a mistake to march to the Capitol, according to Hutchinson.
“We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen,” Hutchinson quoted Cipollone as saying ahead of January 6.
She testified that House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy called her after Trump said he was marching to the Capitol.
“He sounded rushed and also frustrated and angry at me,” she testified of McCarthy, who allegedly told her, “Don’t come up here.”
Hutchinson’s testimony came during a surprise hearing that the committee announced just one day earlier, saying it would be “to present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony.”
Trump’s former acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney called the testimony “explosive” and said he believes Hutchinson is telling the truth.
“My guess is that before this is over, we will be hearing testimony from Ornato, Engle, and Meadows,” he said. “This is explosive stuff. If Cassidy is making this up, they will need to say that. If she isn’t they will have to corroborate. I know her. I don’t think she is lying.”
The committee currently has two more hearings scheduled for July as the Democrat-led panel works to make its case that Trump plotted to undermine American democracy.
Putin’s Chechen warlord ally plans to bolster Russia’s forces in Ukraine with 4 new battalions
Cheryl Teh – June 28, 2022
Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic, claimed he fought in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Yelena Afonina/TASS via Getty Images Putin’s Chechen warlord ally plans to bolster Russia’s forces in Ukraine with 4 new battalions
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said he is assembling four military battalions to aid Russia.
Per Kadyrov, the battalions will comprise an “impressive number” of troops.
Their purpose would be to help “replenish” Russia’s forces in Ukraine, Kadyrov said.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Sunday that he would be sending more troops to aid the Russians in their fight against Ukraine.
Kadyrov announced the move in a Telegram post, stating that four battalions featuring an “impressive number” of soldiers would be formed to aid Russia.
“The military contingent will include only Chechen guys,” Kadyrov wrote. “They will replenish the composition of the troops of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.”
He said the four battalions would be named “North-Akhmat”, “South-Akhmat”, “West-Akhmat,” and “Vostok-Akhmat,” and would be deployed from the Chechen Republic.
“The desire to form new battalions with fully equipped personnel is caused by an extremely patriotic mood among the youth of the region,” Kadyrov wrote.
“The number of people wishing to defend the Motherland is growing exponentially, and our task is to provide them with such an opportunity,” the warlord added.
Ukraine has lost more troops during the Russian invasion than there are infantry in the British army, defense expert says
Katie Anthony – June 28, 2022
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/Associated Press
More Ukrainian troops have been killed or seriously injured than there are in the British infantry, a defense expert said.
Jack Watling announced the statistic at the RUSI Land Warfare Conference Tuesday in London.
Up to 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers are being killed or wounded each day, Axios reported earlier this month.
Ukraine’s military has suffered more casualties in the four months since Russia’s invasion than there are infantry troops the British Army all together, a defense expert said.
There were 18,000 infantry in the British Army in 2021, according to the UK Defence Journal.
Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), came to the startling conclusion during a speech at the RUSI Land Warfare Conference Tuesday, according to reporters and attendees at the conference.
The full scale of Russian and Ukrainian casualties have been difficult to assess. Russian officials have only confirmed 1,300 deaths, far below what even independent researchers have established based on funeral announcements; NATO reportedly estimated as many as 40,000 Russian casualties in the first month of war.
Ukraine has not released reliable figures for its casualties, but officials have made clear that the war in Ukraine’s east is growing deadly for its forces as Russian artillery barrages have forced the Ukrainians to give up ground.
David Arakhamia, one of Ukraine’s top officials, told Axios earlier this month up to 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers were being killed or wounded each day in the Donbas region of Ukraine.
On Monday, a pair of Russian missiles struck a Ukrainian shopping mall with more than 1,000 civilians inside, killing at least 18 people.
Retired US General Ben Hodges on how the war might develop
June 28, 2022
Don’t stop: retired US general Ben Hodges considers continuous training of the Ukrainian military to be the key to Ukraine’s victory in the war
In an interview with NV, Hodges also laments the slow Western reaction to the outbreak of the war, as well as the too-low initial level of Ukrainian readiness.
Hodges is currently the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis and warned of imminent Russian escalation of the conflict in the summer of 2021.
He has also criticized the West for not having a Black Sea security strategy, and a lack of attention to Russian provocations.
NV: Many compare the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war with the Second World War, in terms of its nature and duration. Would you agree with that?
Hodges: I think one of the things they have in common is the horrifying scale of barbarity, destruction, and bloodshed, the likes of which the world hasn’t seen in 80 years. I’d also like to point out Russian war crimes and atrocities against civilians – those were of both Second World War and Nazi crimes. Naturally, there are discrepancies: emerging technologies, especially with drones, and modern weapons are much more sophisticated than the Second World War ones. The thinking of Russian military leadership, however, is virtually unchanged since the Second World War.
NV: We’ve also been talking about this war as a long one, lasting years, not months. Do you agree with this assessment?
Hodges: If Ukraine gets everything it needs from Western countries, and if Ukrainians continue to fight for their land as fiercely as they do now, I think the Russians will be pushed back to their Feb. 24 positions by the end of the year. Should the West become reluctant to keep aiding Ukraine in this war – then yes, it could drag on for years.
NV: We’re grateful to our Western partners, but the weapons we’ve been getting from them thus far are not enough to even hold the line. Why do you think weapons shipments to Ukraine are so sluggish?
Hodges: There are several reasons. Clearly, the decision to provide security assistance to Ukraine should have been taken much more quickly, and these weapons should have been in Ukrainian hands much sooner. Western countries were reluctant for a while, for their own reasons. Some overestimated Russian capabilities.
But your audience shouldn’t forget how many weapons, how much equipment and another kind of assistance has already been provided to Ukraine. Many countries have significantly depleted their own defense capabilities in order to send Ukraine what it needs. Millions upon millions of dollars have already been spent, and will be spent still.
It’s important you understand that as well, I think. Of course, it’s not enough, not much has yet been given. There are some other reasons we shouldn’t brush off. Let’s be frank: Ukraine didn’t prepare for a possible invasion as effectively as it could have during the last eight years. Much more should have been done – a strategic stockpile of artillery shells should have been established, for example.
The territorial defense force was formed much later than it should have been. Too much blame is currently directed at the West, but I think that doesn’t paint a full picture of why the war is going the way it is.
NV: Do you think Ukraine will get enough weapons to at least hold the line in the east and south in the coming months?
Hodges: First of all, ever more artillery and rockets are arriving in Ukraine right now. German howitzers are already here, along with French weapons, U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS are coming in right now, and more ammunition from other countries. Everything’s going in the right direction, and the supply isn’t drying up.
Logistics is the main challenge now: how to actually deliver all this from Poland and western Ukraine to the front lines in a timely manner. I think the situation will shift significantly once all (these weapons) end up in the hands of Ukrainian troops.
NV: How much more weapons, do you think, does Ukraine need to be able to transition to counter-offensives? Can we make any guesses about when that might happen?
Hodges: I can’t make such forecasts, since I don’t know what Ukraine already has, exactly. But I’m sure that Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief, defense minister, their counterparts and allies in the United States and the UK are all well aware of everything that’s going on. I don’t have that kind of information as a civilian, and I’d wager that none of the civilian experts have it either. All this talk of what exactly Ukraine needs, how much and what kind of weapons – it only helps Russia.
NV: Russia is clearly successful in its traditional approach to war – overwhelming artillery firepower. How can the Ukrainian army respond to this doctrine? In some asymmetrical way, perhaps?
Hodges: I’d say Ukraine is already able to muster a very flexible response – your artillery and missiles are striking their artillery and missiles, while the equipment Ukraine is getting, is of better quality than Russia’s. Naturally, the next step is to use every tool you have at your disposal to intercept Russian missiles and hit their artillery.
NV: Judging by the pace of weapon supplies to Ukraine, it seems that the West is looking to exhaust Russia, as opposed to facilitate its total military defeat. Would you agree with that?
Hodges: I don’t know. Personally, I want a total Russian defeat in this war.
NV: What about the popular Western talking point that nobody wants Russia to lose badly enough to resort to nukes, so it’s important to strangle Moscow’s economy instead.
Hodges: I wouldn’t be that dramatic. Many people across the globe are interested in Russia’s total defeat. You’re incorrect in saying that nobody wants Moscow to lose.
NV: Around 300 Russian and 200 Ukrainian troops die every day. It’s a very high price we’re paying for our defense. Do you think Russian manpower will be exhausted in near future?
Hodges: Every nation decides for itself whether the price it has to pay for victory is acceptable or not. Every soldier killed is a loss to a Ukrainian family, and I’m sure that Ukraine’s Armed Forces are doing everything they can to minimize these losses.
Unfortunately, we can see that Russia does not value its own citizens, and there’s nothing to indicate this will change. Ukraine and its Western allies are doing everything to ensure the losses in this war aren’t colossal. It’s important for Ukraine to continue training its troops, extending it to the territorial defense forces. It’s as important as getting more artillery.
NV: How effective, in your opinion, are the regular Ukraine, EU, and NATO defense minister meetings at the U.S. Air Force Ramstein base in Germany?
Hodges: I think it’s a very effective format, and the U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, along with all other participating countries should get credit for it. I think these are meetings between very reasonable and practical people, and they are valuable for Ukraine and the rest of the world.
NV: You’ve talked a lot about the strategic importance of the Black Sea. Turkey has rejected the U.S. proposal to get a NATO naval task force to clear the Black Sea of naval mines and facilitate maritime trade. Is it possible to convince Turkey to reconsider its position?
Hodges: As you know, Turkey has closed the Bosporus to all military ships, since the very beginning of the war. This includes NATO ships as well. There are still some NATO vessels in the Black Sea – Turkish, Romanian, and Bulgarian. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to come up with a comprehensive security strategy for the Black Sea before the war, and our current relations with Turkey aren’t good enough to resolve this. I still hope that we will eventually be able to take care of this problem.
NV: When do you think this war will end? Will it end with a ceasefire?
Hodges: We all sincerely hope that the war will end with Ukraine liberating and reclaiming all of its lost territories. And I’m convinced that the Ukrainian army will be able to push the Russians back to their Feb. 24 positions by the end of this year.
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.
