As the Russian army continues to advance menacingly on the eastern Donbas front, the Govt Biden is in a hurry to send as soon as possible the weapons that Kiev needs, and they are part of the massive package of American aid, amounting to 61 billion dollars.
According to CNN and Le Monde, the Pentagon’s first delivery, worth about one billion dollars, will be one of the most important in the more than two years of the war. The previous delivery, on March 12, was worth $300 million and included conventional military missile systems (ATACMS). These are high-precision, GPS-guided missiles. By that time the American missiles reaching the Ukraine they had a range that was limited to 165 kilometers. The new package to be delivered, however, will include missiles with a range of up to 300 kilometers, as the Ukrainian president has been insisting for months Volodymyr Zelensky.
As US media revealed on Wednesday, the Pentagon has already secretly sent long-range ATACMS to Ukraine, which the Ukrainian military recently used to hit Russian forces in Crimea and Berdyansk. The shift in the policy of the Biden administration changes the facts of the war to some extent, as the Ukrainians now have the ability to strike the strategically important Crimean bridge from behind the front lines, while the Russian Black Sea fleet becomes even more vulnerable. This is also the reason that the German chancellor Olaf Solz refrained from giving the Ukrainians the corresponding German missiles Taurusfearing an uncontrolled escalation of the war.
Moscow Threatens Poland If It Hosts NATO Nukes – Russian Veto at UN to Ban Weapons of Mass Destruction in Space.
The new US aid package will also include Bradley armored vehicles and 155mm howitzers to close dramatic gaps in Ukrainian artillery supplies and the gap that currently separates it from Russia. At the same time, the training of 12 Ukrainian pilots continues intensively in Britain and France F-16. US warplanes are expected to begin arriving in Ukraine in early summer, possibly earlier, from the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium and Denmark.
Military analysts noted, however, that Western military aid is not the magic wand that will magically solve the Ukrainians’ problems on the battlefield. In recent days, the Russian army has advanced another 10 kilometers on the Donetsk front, reaching the operationally important town Oheretinewhile the Kharkiv is bombarded daily. The wave of unruly Ukrainians fleeing abroad to avoid conscription is taking on serious proportions. In an attempt to address the problem, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry announced that from now on Ukrainian passports will only be renewed inside the country.
In Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned that if the Poland install nuclear weapons of NATO, as its president has threatened, then the respective bases will become primary targets of the Russian military. Responding, from the floor of the Polish parliament, Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski stated that Russia will be the one that will come out defeated if it dares to attack a NATO member country. At the same time, the president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko announced that dozens of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons had been deployed in his country under an agreement signed last year.
Earlier, Russia had vetoed the UN Security Council when a US-Japan plan to ban nuclear weapons in space was put to a vote. Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia accused the US of political expediency and presented an alternative plan for a universal ban on all types of weapons in space, not just nuclear ones.
Blinken Wedge
The pressure on China to stop supporting the supply of the Russian military with the war material it needs for its operations in Ukraine is a key aspect of the visit to his country Anthony Blinken, which has been ongoing since Wednesday. Yesterday the US Secretary of State spent the day in Shanghai, where trade issues dominated his discussions with local officials. Today he will visit Beijing, where he is expected to meet with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, and possibly with the country’s president, Xi Jinping.
China does not directly supply weapons and ammunition to the Russian military, but the Americans say that its companies help supply the Russian military industry by exporting “dual-use” components, meaning they can be used for either civilian or military purposes. In Moscow, the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova stated that the US openly admits that it seeks to “drive a wedge” in relations between Russia and China.
