- Duda pressures US on Ukraine aid
- US announces $300m military aid
- Aid amidst Republican funding block
During his visit to the White House, Polish President Andrzej Duda exerted pressure on Washington, DC, to resolve the impasse and provide Ukraine with billions of dollars in funding during a critical period in the conflict.
The United States will provide Ukraine approximately $300 million in military aid while Republicans continue to obstruct a $60 billion funding package for Kyiv.
A senior United States defence official has stated that the aid package will include anti-aircraft missiles, artillery ammunition, and armour systems.
It is the first security package announced by the US Department of Defence for Ukraine since December.
It occurred on the heels of a joint visit by Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk to the White House on Tuesday, during which they urged Washington, DC, to break the impasse and release the $60 billion (£47 billion) in US support for Ukraine that Republicans are obstructing.
The bundle would assist Ukraine in restocking its financial reserves during a critical period of the conflict.
The situation in Ukraine has deteriorated significantly, with frontline units rationing ammunition in the face of a Russian force that is considerably better supplied.
In recent days, entire Ukrainian units have informed CIA director William Burns that they are down to their last few dozen artillery projectiles.
Operations have been hampered by the months since additional US support shipments ceased, and Ukrainian forces withdrew last month from the eastern city of Avdiivka, where outnumbered defenders had resisted a Russian assault for four months.
Despite repeated appeals for assistance from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives has refused to bring the $60 billion Ukraine aid package to the floor for a vote, stating that any aid must first address border security concerns.
According to senior defence officials who spoke with reporters, the United States Department of Defence saved approximately $300 million (£235 million) on previous Ukraine contracts and, in light of the current state of the battlefield, decided to use those savings to dispatch additional weapons.
Since the inception of the Biden administration, the United States has allocated over $44.9 billion (approximately £35 billion) in security assistance to Ukraine. Post-Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022, this amount has increased to over $44.2 billion (approximately £34.6 billion).
The $300 million funding was declared on Tuesday, concurrently with Denmark’s declaration that it would aid Ukraine militarily for approximately £263 million.
It occurred at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin stated in an interview with state media that he would resort to nuclear war if the sovereignty of his country were threatened.
Additionally, on Wednesday, the Russian president stated that the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO is “meaningless” and that Moscow will station destruction systems and personnel along the Finnish border once the nation ratifies the alliance.
Mr Putin was speaking hours after a hammer attack in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius claimed the life of a longtime associate of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whom Western leaders believe was murdered by the Kremlin.
The Lithuanian police are conducting an investigation into the assault on Leonid Volkov, the perpetrator of which is still unknown.
In the interim, the Russian military reported that 234 Ukrainian militants who had entered the country had been eliminated.
The fighters had reportedly attempted to reach the border-adjacent Russian settlement of Tetkino, according to Roman Starovoit, the governor of the Kursk region in Russia.
Previously, military organisations based in Ukraine, purportedly composed of Russian partisans, claimed to have conducted an incursion along the western border of Russia.
Officials reported overnight that, for the second consecutive night, Ukraine launched a drone assault on multiple Russian regions, destroying over thirty drones in the air over the Voronezh region.
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At least ten minors were injured, and three individuals were killed in the Russian missile strike in the hometown of the Ukrainian president, Kryvyi Rih.
Earlier on Tuesday, a Russian military aircraft carrying fifteen persons crashed in the Ivanovo region of Russia.
The Russian Ministry of Defence has not disclosed specifics regarding casualties.
In the interim, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) has asserted that an alleged Russian agent stationed in the Ukrainian army intended to poison the baths of commanders to murder them.
A man who “turned out to be an active serviceman of the Ukrainian army” was apprehended, according to the SBU, after military counterintelligence thwarted the assault on army commanders in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
According to the SBU, he intended to perpetrate the crime by adding a poisonous substance to the water of the command staff’s bath and laundry complex.
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