Bankrolling the Ukrainian military has been a costly endeavor for the US.
With the American economy wracked by inflation and rising energy costs, the Biden administration has thus far committed more than $54 billion in military and economic aid to Kiev since February.
Russia says United States is directly involved in Ukraine war
Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends a parade marking Navy Day in Saint Petersburg, Russia July 31, 2022. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
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LONDON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Russia on Tuesday said that the United States, the world's top military power, was directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine because U.S. spies were approving and coordinating Ukrainian missile strikes on Russian forces.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war.
Russia's defence ministry, headed by a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said Vadym Skibitsky, Ukraine's deputy head of military intelligence, had admitted to the Telegraph newspaper that Washington coordinates HIMARS missile strikes.
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"All this undeniably proves that Washington, contrary to White House and Pentagon claims, is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine," the defence ministry said.
U.S. President Joe Biden has said he wants Ukraine to defeat Russia and has supplied billions of dollars of arms to Kyiv but U.S. officials do not want a direct confrontation between U.S. and Russian soldiers.
Russia said the Biden administration was responsible for missile attacks on civilian targets in areas controlled by Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine.
"It is the Biden administration that is directly responsible for all Kiev-approved rocket attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure in populated areas of Donbas and other regions, which have resulted in mass deaths of civilians," the defence ministry said.
Russia and the West frame the conflict in Ukraine very differently.
Putin calls it a "special military operation" aimed at preventing what he says is a Western attempt to use Ukraine to threaten Russia and at protecting Russian speakers from persecution from dangerous nationalists in Ukraine.
The 69-year-old Kremlin chief increasingly casts the conflict as an existential battle with the West whose outcome will reshape the global political order.
Kyiv and its Western backers say Putin's claims are without foundation and that there is no justification for waging an unprovoked war against a sovereign state whose borders Russia recognised.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who sometimes holidays with Putin in the Russian wilderness, said the operation in Ukraine was going to plan with Russian and Russian-backed forces pushing back Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donetsk region.
"After taking control of the territory of the Luhansk People's Republic, the Donetsk People's Republic is being liberated as planned," Shoigu told top generals.
He said the settlements of Hryhorivka, Berestove, Stryapivka, Pokrovske, Semyhirya and Novoluhanske had been taken recently, including the largest thermal power plant in Europe.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine discloses its losses.
U.S. intelligence estimates that some 15,000 Russians have been killed so far in Ukraine - equal to the total Soviet death toll during Moscow's occupation of Afghanistan in 1979-1989.
Ukrainian losses are probably a little less than that, U.S. intelligence believes, according to U.S. estimates. Neither Ukraine nor Russia has given detailed estimates of its own losses.
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Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Nick Macfie
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Kiev will receive artillery, drones, and anti-aircraft weaponry to keep fighting “over the long term”
US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that the US will send an additional $2.98 billion worth of weapons to Kiev. In an announcement coinciding with Ukraine’s Independence Day, Biden said that the US envisions Kiev fighting for some time to come.
According to a White House statement, Ukraine will receive “air defense systems, artillery systems and munitions, counter-unmanned aerial systems, and radars to ensure it can continue to defend itself over the long term.”
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On Tuesday, US officials told the Associated Press, Reuters and CBS that the package would include at least three different drone systems, such as the hand-launched Puma drone, the longer-range ScanEagle surveillance vehicle, as well as the UK-made Vampire drone, which has not previously been provided to Kiev.
Referencing Ukraine’s independence day, which celebrates its split from the Soviet Union in 1991, Biden said that “today is not only a celebration of the past, but a resounding affirmation that Ukraine proudly remains – and will remain – a sovereign and independent nation.” Given his vow to support the Ukrainian military “over the long term,” and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s declaration on Tuesday that the alliance would back Kiev “for as long as it takes,” Biden evidently plans for the conflict to be a long one.
However, several US media outlets reported on Tuesday that the contents of Wednesday’s arms package may not reach the battlefield for months or even years. Unnamed US officials told the Associated Press that Washington expects Ukrainian forces “to fight for years to come.”
Bankrolling the Ukrainian military has been a costly endeavor for the US. With the American economy wracked by inflation and rising energy costs, the Biden administration has thus far committed more than $54 billion in military and economic aid to Kiev since February.
Meanwhile in Ukraine, Russia continues to advance on Ukrainian positions in the south of the country and on the borders of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, where Kiev has spent the last eight years building a network of bunkers and fortifications. While Ukraine does not publish casualty figures, President Vladimir Zelensky said earlier this summer that 60 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers were being killed in Donbass on a daily basis, with another 500 injured.
Americans Are Still Unsure How The U.S. Should Respond To The Invasion Of Ukraine
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
The ongoing war in Ukraine appears to have Americans in a bind: While roughly half of U.S. adults want to impose some type of punishment on or sanction against the Russian government for waging a war on Ukraine, another chunk of the country thinks it’s best for President Biden and others in power to stay out of European affairs.
My colleague Geoffrey Skelley previously documented the sort of quandary many Americans are in regarding the war. And recent polling suggests that most voters are on the fence on where to go from here. That said, certain things are clearer based on recent polling: For starters, Americans are still somewhat dissatisfied with Biden’s response to the crisis. As my colleague Nathaniel Rakich wrote the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden already had low approval ratings, including on his handling of foreign policy. Unfortunately for the president, though, his numbers haven’t significantly improved on the issue since. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll fielded in late February and early March, only 40 percent said they approved of the way Biden has handled Russia, while 43 percent said the same about how he’s handled Ukraine. Moreover, per the same survey, most Americans (63 percent) are against sending the U.S. military to Ukraine to help defend them against Russian forces — a reality Biden has said is off the table. Other polls yield a similar finding: According to an early February Economist/YouGov survey, 55 percent of Americans said that sending troops to Ukraine to fight Russian soldiers was a bad idea.
Beyond that, though, public opinion is a bit murky, and the data suggests that Americans have mixed feelings on the U.S. response — whether that’s things like imposing sanctions on Russia (which experts warn could raise gas prices here), allowing Ukraine to join NATO or sending U.S. troops to NATO countries in Eastern Europe.
According to that Reuters/Ipsos survey, roughly one-third of Americans (34 percent) said Ukraine’s current problems should stay their own. And per the Economist/YouGov survey, adults were split on a number of potential courses of action. On imposing economic sanctions on Russia, a bare majority (50 percent) thought this was a good idea, while 20 percent disagreed. Meanwhile, allowing Ukraine to join NATO earned the support of 43 percent of adults, compared with 15 percent who said that was a bad idea. And 42 percent of citizens said they wanted the U.S. to send financial aid to Ukraine; 24 percent did not. What’s somewhat striking from YouGov’s survey, though, is that large shares of Americans are simply unsure how the U.S. should respond. Thirty-one percent and 42 percent of respondents, respectively, said they didn’t know whether it was a good or bad idea for the U.S. to impose economic sanctions on Russia or let Ukraine join NATO. But, to some extent, these numbers should be expected, as Americans often don’t know a lot about foreign policy and look to political elites to signal what to do.
Of course, the situation in Europe is fluid, so these numbers could change with time. Greater media coverage of the war will likely shape Americans’ opinions on the issue, but it’s also possible that more people will begin paying attention if things start to affect them personally — or if they start to feel even more strongly about Biden’s inability to handle international affairs.
Why Russia is waging war in Ukraine | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
Indeed, there’s already evidence that public opinion on the crisis in Ukraine has changed — particularly on the question of whether what’s happening overseas will increase the cost of goods and services, like gas prices. On imposing additional sanctions against Russia, 69 percent of Americans said they were in favor, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that was conducted in the two days prior to the invasion on Feb. 24. But despite widespread support, only about half of the public said those sanctions were worthwhile if they led to more expensive gas prices. A CNN/SSRS poll fielded just after the invasion began found a similar result: Per the survey, 71 percent of Americans agreed that the U.S. should consider gas prices when deciding its actions toward Russia, a major oil and natural gas producer.
Beyond that, it’s hard to tell just how much
Americans’ views on the war could change, especially given how volatile
the situation is. But, so far, evidence suggests that as time goes on, the public is paying more attention
to European affairs. The CNN/SSRS poll found that 79 percent of adults
were following the war at least somewhat closely, though only 3 in 10
said they were watching it very closely. Here at FiveThirtyEight, we’ll continue to cover what’s happening in Europe, but unless the war has a more direct effect on Americans’ day-to-day lives, it’s possible that the public won’t have strong opinions on this conflict moving forward.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As Russia’s war on Ukraine drags on, U.S. security assistance is shifting to a longer-term campaign that will likely keep more American military troops in Europe into the future, including imminent plans to announce an additional roughly $3 billion in aid to train and equip Ukrainian forces to fight for years to come, U.S. officials said.
U.S. officials told The Associated Press that the package is expected to be announced Wednesday, the day the war hits the six-month mark and Ukraine celebrates its independence day. The money will fund contracts for as many as three types of drones, and other weapons, ammunition and equipment that may not see the battlefront for a year or two, they said.
The total of the aid package — which is being provided under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and is the largest to date— could change a bit overnight, but not likely by much. Officials said that it will include money for the small, hand-launched Puma drones, the longer-endurance Scan Eagle surveillance drones, which are launched by catapult, and, for the first time, the British Vampire drone system, which can be launched off ships.
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Several officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the aid before its public release.
Unlike most previous packages, the new funding is largely aimed at helping Ukraine secure its medium- to long-term defense posture, according to the officials familiar with the matter. Earlier shipments, most of them done under Presidential Drawdown Authority, have focused on Ukraine’s more immediate needs for weapons and ammunition and involved materiel that the Pentagon already has in stock that can be shipped in short order.
A Russian soldier speaks out against the war in Ukraine after fleeing his country. (CNN/Russian Defense Ministry/afp/Courtesy of Pavel Filatyev)
In addition to providing longer-term assistance that Ukraine can use for potential future defense needs, the new package is intended to reassure Ukrainian officials that the United States intends to keep up its support, regardless of the day-to-day back and forth of the conflict, the officials said.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg noted the more extended focus Tuesday as he reaffirmed the alliance’s support for the conflict-torn country.
“Winter is coming, and it will be hard, and what we see now is a grinding war of attrition. This is a battle of wills, and a battle of logistics. Therefore we must sustain our support for Ukraine for the long term, so that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation,” Stoltenberg said, speaking at a virtual conference about Crimea, organized by Ukraine.
Six months after Russia invaded, the war has slowed to a grind, as both sides trade combat strikes and small advances in the east and south. Both sides have seen thousands of troops killed and injured, as Russia’s bombardment of cities has killed countless innocent civilians.
There are fears that Russia will intensify attacks on civilian infrastructure and government facilities in Ukraine in the coming days because of the independence holiday and the six-month anniversary of the invasion.
Late Monday, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine and the State Department issued a new security alert for Ukraine that repeated a call for Americans in the country to leave due to the danger.
“Given Russia’s track record in Ukraine, we are concerned about the continued threat that Russian strikes pose to civilians and civilian infrastructure,” it said.
Other NATO allies are also marking the independence day with new aid announcements.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his country is providing more than 500 million euros (nearly $500 million) in aid, including powerful anti-aircraft systems. The aid will also include rocket launchers, ammunition, anti-drone equipment, a dozen armored recovery vehicles and and three additional IRIS-T long-range air defense systems, the German news agency dpa reported.
The funding must still be approved by parliament, and some of it won’t be delivered until next year.
And Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced $3.85 million for two Ukraine projects through the Peace and Stabilization Operations Program. It includes about $2.9 million in funding for ongoing development of Ukraine’s national police force and other emergency services, and about $950,000 to help advise Ukraine’s defense ministry.
To date, the U.S. has provided about $10.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, including 19 packages of weapons taken directly from Defense Department stocks since August 2021.
U.S. defense leaders are also eyeing plans that will expand training for Ukrainian troops outside their country, and for militaries on Europe’s eastern and southern flanks that feel most threatened by Russia’s aggression.
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Associated Press writer Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.
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