Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky postponed all his upcoming foreign trips as Ukraine’s army battled to contain a front-line push by the Kremlin’s forces, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on May 15 visited a drone manufacturing facility in Kyiv on the second day of a visit meant to reassure Ukrainians of continuing American support.

Mr. Zelensky canceled all foreign visits “that were planned for the coming days,” his office said May 15. The head of state instructed his team to reschedule the visits.

“We are grateful to our partners for understanding,” the announcement said.

Mr. Zelensky had been expected to visit Spain, and perhaps Portugal, later this week. No reason was given for his decision, but Ukraine is having a hard time fending off the latest Russian assault.

Mr. Blinken also toured a grain transshipment facility and a bionics factory, praising Ukrainian innovation and ingenuity in the face of wartime difficulties.

“Ukraine has had to adapt and adjust to this and it’s done so remarkably,” Mr. Blinken said of grain exports now being taken by rail after traditional shipping routes were interrupted by Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.

Russian troops are pressing a fresh offensive in northeast Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. It began last week, marking the most significant border incursion since the full-scale invasion began and forcing almost 8,000 local people to flee their homes. Together with Moscow’s weekslong effort to build on its recent gains in the eastern Donetsk region, the more than two-year war has entered a critical stage for Ukraine’s depleted army.

Against that grim backdrop, with thousands of Ukrainian troops locked in fierce battles in towns and villages, Mr. Blinken on May 14 pledged unceasing U.S. support for the country, during and beyond the war. He also tried to lift spirits in Kyiv, performing on guitar with a band at a city bar and eating pizza at a veteran-run restaurant.

Russia is opening new fronts in order to stretch Ukraine’s army, which is short of ammunition and manpower, along the about 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, hoping defenses will crumble. Russian artillery and sabotage raids have also been menacing Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv and Sumy regions.

Mr. Zelensky said in his nightly video address May 14 that the army has sent reinforcements to the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.

“It is too early to draw conclusions, but the situation is under control,” he said.

The pace of Russia’s advance in the Kharkiv border region, where it launched an offensive late last week and has made significant progress, has slowed, the Institute for the Study of War said late May 14. The Washington-based think tank said Moscow’s main aim there is to create a “buffer zone” that will prevent Ukrainian cross-border strikes on Russia’s Belgorod region.

Mr. Blinken on May 15 visited a drone manufacturer on the outskirts of Kyiv and toured a grain transshipment facility where Ukrainian grain is loaded into containers for export by rail.

Mr. Blinken praised the ingenuity of the process, which local companies adopted after traditional shipping routes were interrupted by Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.

“Ukraine has had to adapt and adjust to this and it’s done so remarkably,” Mr. Blinken said.

Meanwhile, Russian air defenses shot down several Ukrainian missiles over the Black Sea and near the Belbek air base, Sevastopol Gov. Mikhail Razvozhayev said. Sevastopol is where the Russian Black Sea Fleet is headquartered.

The fragments of downed missiles fell into residential areas but caused no casualties, Mr. Razvozhayev said.

Russian air defenses also shot down nine Ukrainian drones, two Vilha rockets, two anti-radar HARM missiles and two Hammer guided bombs over the Belgorod region early Wednesday, the Defense Ministry said.

Two people were injured in the village of Dubovoye when a Ukranian rocket set their house ablaze, according to Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov.

The military said five other Ukrainian drones were downed over the Kursk region and three drones were shot down over the Bryansk region.

The Defense Ministry also said that another Ukrainian drone was downed over the Tatarstan region. Tatarstan is located more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) east of the border with Ukraine.

Vasily Golubev, the governor of the Rostov region, said two drones attacked a fuel depot. He said there were no casualties or fire.

Ukraine has launched a steady series of drone attacks on oil refineries and fuel depots across Russia over the past months, causing significant damage.

Victoria Spartz. File
| Photo Credit: AP

A Ukrainian-born congresswoman who recently opposed sending aid to her war-torn country is defending her seat on May 7 against a fellow Republican who has outpaced her in spending and fundraising.

U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz is the first and only Ukrainian-born House member and previously backed support for the country. But ahead of her primary contest, she reversed her position and voted against sending $61 billion in aid to Ukraine. She defended the switch, arguing her loyalty is to America first and that she wanted to see policy on the U.S.-Mexico border included in the aid package, a position largely shared by her Republican challengers.

The election in the northern suburbs of Indianapolis will determine whether Ms. Spartz’s maneuvers will pay off. More broadly, the race is a barometer of whether support for Ukraine is a powerful issue among GOP voters. The issue has become an increasingly divisive topic among Republicans in Washington, where many are pressing for a drawdown in aid.

If she’s defeated, Ms. Spartz would be the first House Republican to lose a primary this year in a race that wasn’t affected by redistricting.

The primary marks the latest twist in Ms. Spartz’s political career. She won a tight primary race in 2020 and wasn’t challenged for the GOP nomination in 2022. She initially planned to leave Congress last year, opting against reelection to her House seat and forgoing a chance to seek the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Mike Braun.

She later reversed course, deciding to seek another term in the House. But her shifting plans gave an opening to state Rep. Chuck Goodrich to outraise Spartz by millions of dollars and become her main competitor in the primary.

Statewide, presumptive Pesidential nominees former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden seek to pile up more delegates heading to their respective party conventions later this summer. Mr. Trump took Indiana by 16 points in 2020. The only question on the GOP side is how many votes will go to former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who is still on the primary ballot after dropping out of the race in March.

Indiana voters do not have the option to vote “ uncommitted.” The protest-vote movement in some states against Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war has cast doubt on the President’s Democratic support in November.

The most watched and expensive contest within the state is the six-way race to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb. Braun is considered the race’s front-runner, bolstered by several advantages: name recognition, money and Mr. Trump’s endorsement. He spent more than $6 million in the first three months of 2024 alone.

Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch has campaigned to slash the state’s income tax. Also running are two former commerce secretaries, Brad Chambers — who has contributed $10 million to his campaign — and Eric Doden.

Once seen as a probable Hoosier State governor, former Attorney General Curtis Hill has struggled to compete. Political novice Jamie Reitenour is also on the ballot. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jennifer McCormick is uncontested.

Washington:

The United States is the first to acknowledge that its long-awaited $61 billion aid package for Ukraine is not a “silver bullet.”

As weapons and ammunition are rushed to the country, other issues such as manpower shortages in Kyiv’s struggling military have come to the fore.

Meanwhile, the monthslong delay in passing the aid package — caused by wrangling among US lawmakers — has further weakened Ukraine’s position on the battleground, according to analysts. 

President Joe Biden, who quickly signed the law Wednesday after it passed Congress, said the bill “should have gotten there sooner.”

Jake Sullivan, his National Security Advisor, said the aid package “will make a difference,” but warned “there is no silver bullet in this conflict.”

“One capability is not going to be the ultimate solution,” Sullivan told a White House briefing, though he added “Ukraine’s position in this conflict will improve and we believe that Ukraine can and will win.”

Kyiv has been heavily reliant on billions of dollars of US military aid in its war with Russia following Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. 

But in recent months Ukrainian forces — outgunned and outmanned — have struggled to hold back Russian troops. 

And in the United States — Ukraine’s largest provider of military assistance — a bogged-down Congress had not approved large-scale funding for Kyiv since December 2022 before the new package was passed this week.

It contains nearly $14 billion to train, equip and finance the needs of the Ukrainian army.

Manpower shortage

Garret Martin, of the American University School of International Service in Washington, said the delay by US lawmakers in passing the aid package “had a cost.”

“The aid can shore up Ukraine but it’s not a magic wand that could fix all the challenges they face,” Martin said.

“What the package cannot do is deal with the shortage of manpower,” he added. 

Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky have discussed the manpower issue, according to the White House.

In April, Kyiv reduced the minimum age for military conscription from 27 to 25, making thousands more men eligible for the draft. 

And this week, it stopped issuing new passports abroad to military-aged Ukrainian men, as part of measures to push them to return home and fight.

Max Bergmann, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the impact of American aid would depend on European efforts.

“European nations need to ramp up (weapons) production now,” Bergmann said. 

“Europe’s goal should be to put itself in a position to potentially fill a future gap left by the United States should it not pass another supplemental.”

Bergmann said that Ukraine should use 2024 to “hold the line, exhaust and attrit Russian forces,” with next year possibly presenting an opportunity for a Kyiv offensive.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed legislation authorizing desperately needed military aid for Ukraine, saying Washington would begin sending new assistance to Kyiv within hours.

The passage of the $95 billion package — which also includes aid for Israel and Taiwan and a measure to potentially ban TikTok in the United States — comes after months of delay that saw Ukrainian forces run short of ammunition and suffer battlefield setbacks.

“I just signed into law the national security package that was passed by the House of Representatives this weekend, and by the Senate yesterday,” Biden told reports, saying he is “making sure the shipments start right away, in the next few hours.”

“It’s going to make America safer, it’s going to make the world safter and it continues American leadership in the world and everyone knows it,” Biden said of the legislation.

“It gives vital support to America’s partners so they can defend themselves against threats to their sovereignty and to the lives and freedoms of their citizens.”

The aid legislation only passed the House of Representatives after months of acrimonious debate among lawmakers over how or even whether to help Ukraine — which Russia invaded in February 2022 — defend itself.

A similar aid package passed the Senate in February, but had been stalled in the House while Republican Speaker Mike Johnson — heeding calls from ex-president Donald Trump and his hardline allies — demanded concessions from Biden on immigration policies, before a sudden reversal.

The United States has been a key military backer of Ukraine, but Congress had not approved large-scale funding for Kyiv for nearly a year and a half, and the financing of the war has become a point of contention ahead of a presidential election in November.

Ukraine’s military is facing a severe shortage of weapons and recruits as Moscow exerts constant pressure from the east, with frontline circumstances are expected to worsen in the coming weeks.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The Senate has passed $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden after months of delays and contentious debate over how involved the United States should be in foreign wars.

The bill passed the Senate on an overwhelming 79-18 vote late on April 23 after the House had approved the package on April 20. Mr. Biden, who worked with congressional leaders to win support, is expected to quickly sign the legislation and start the process of sending weapons to Ukraine, which has been struggling to hold its front lines against Russia. The legislation would also send $26 billion in wartime assistance to Israel humanitarian relief to citizens of Gaza, and $8 billion to counter Chinese threats in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific.

U.S. officials said about $1 billion of the aid could be on its way shortly, with the bulk following in coming weeks.

In an interview with The Associated Press shortly before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that if Congress hadn’t passed the aid, “America would have paid a price economically, politically, militarily.”

“Very few things we have done have risen to this level of historic importance,” he said.

On the Senate floor, Mr. Schumer said the Senate was sending a message to U.S. allies: “We will stand with you.”

Mr. Schumer and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made passage of the legislation a top priority, agreeing to tie Ukraine and Israel aid to help ensure passage and arguing there could be dire consequences for the United States and many of its global allies if Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression is left unchecked. They worked with House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, to overcome seemingly intractable Republican opposition to the Ukraine aid, in particular — eventually winning large majorities in both chambers.

Mr. McConnell said in a separate interview before the vote that it “is one of the biggest days in the time that I’ve been here.”

“At least on this episode, I think we turned the tables on the isolationists,” Mr. McConnell said.

The House approved the package in a series of four votes on April 20, with the Ukraine portion passing 311-112.

The $61 billion for Ukraine comes as the war-torn country desperately needs new firepower and as Russian President Vladimir Putin has stepped up his attacks. Ukrainian soldiers have struggled as Russia has seized the momentum on the battlefield and gained significant territory.

Mr. Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on April 22 the U.S. will send badly needed air defense weaponry as soon as the legislation is passed.

“The President has assured me that the package will be approved quickly and that it will be powerful, strengthening our air defence as well as long-range and artillery capabilities,” Mr. Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Monday.

To gain more votes, Republicans in the House majority also added a bill to the foreign aid package that could ban the social media app TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owners do not sell their stake within a year. That legislation had wide bipartisan support in both chambers.

The TikTok bill was one of several tweaks Johnson to the package the Senate passed in February as he tried to move the bill through the House despite significant opposition within his conference. Other additions include a stipulation that $9 billion of the economic assistance to Ukraine is in the form of “forgivable loans”; provisions that allow the U.S. to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine; and bills to impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime hawk who voted against the foreign aid package in February because it wasn’t paired with legislation to stem migration at the border, was one of the Republicans who switched their votes. “If we don’t help Ukraine now, this war will spread, and Americans who are not involved will be involved,” Ms. Graham said.

The package has had broad congressional support since Biden first requested the money last summer. But congressional leaders had to navigate strong opposition from a growing number of conservatives who question U.S. involvement in foreign wars and argue that Congress should be focused instead on the surge of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, a Republican who is a close ally to Donald Trump, said that despite the strong showing of support for funding Ukraine’s defense, opposition is growing among Republicans.

“The United States is spread too thin,” Mr. Vance said, “And that that argument I think, is winning the American people and it’s slowly winning the Senate, but it’s not going to happen overnight.”

The growing fault line in the GOP between those conservatives who are skeptical of the aid and the more traditional, “Reagan Republicans” who strongly support it may prove to be career-defining for the two top Republican leaders.

Mr. McConnell, who has made the Ukraine aid a top priority, said last month that he would step down from leadership after becoming increasingly distanced from many in his conference on the Ukraine aid and other issues. Mr. Johnson, who said he put the bills on the floor after praying for guidance, faces threats of an ouster after a majority of Republicans voted against the aid to Ukraine.

Mr. Johnson said after House passage that “we did our work here, and I think history will judge it well.”

Opponents in the Senate, like the House, included some left-wing senators who are opposed to aiding Israel as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has bombarded Gaza and killed thousands of civilians. Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, voted against the package.

“We must end our complicity in this terrible war,” Mr. Sanders said.

Moscow:

Russia said on Sunday US lawmakers’ support for $60.84 billion more in aid for Ukraine showed that Washington was wading much deeper into a hybrid war against Moscow that would end in humiliation on a par with the Vietnam or Afghanistan conflicts.

President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine has touched off the worst fall-out in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, according to Russian and U.S. diplomats.

On Saturday, the US House of Representatives passed with broad bipartisan support a $95 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from some far-right Republicans.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was clear that the United States wanted Ukraine “to fight to the last Ukrainian” including with attacks on Russian sovereign territory and civilians.

“Washington’s deeper and deeper immersion in the hybrid war against Russia will turn into a loud and humiliating fiasco for United States such as Vietnam and Afghanistan,” Zakharova said.

Russia, she said, will give “an unconditional and resolute response” to the U.S. move to get more involved in the Ukraine war.

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns warned last week that without more U.S. military support Ukraine could lose on the battlefield, but that with support Kyiv’s forces could hold their own this year.

The United States has repeatedly ruled out sending its own or other NATO-member troops to Ukraine, which is fighting a grinding artillery and drone war with Russia along a heavily fortified 1,000-km (600-mile) front.

The United States lost more than 58,000 military personnel in the 1955-75 Vietnam War, which ended with Communist North Vietnam’s victory and takeover of the South, while hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed.

In the 2001-2021 war in Afghanistan, the U.S. reported 2,459 dead and over 20,000 wounded in the conflict which ended with the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces and return to power of the Islamist Taliban movement.

The Soviet Union lost 14,453 personnel in the 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan. Civilian deaths in both the wars in Afghanistan were vast.

UKRAINE WAR

Russia now controls about 18% of Ukraine – in the east and south of its neighbour – and has been incrementally gaining ground since the failure of Kyiv’s 2023 counter-offensive to make any serious inroads against Russian troops dug in behind minefields patrolled by drones and guarded by heavy artillery.

Ukraine has for months been begging the United States to release more money and weapons to help it fight, though Russian officials have asserted that U.S. aid will not change the ultimate course of the war.

Zakharova said that ordinary Ukrainians were being “forcibly driven to slaughter as “cannon fodder” but that the United States was now no longer betting on a Ukrainian victory against Russia. Washington, she said, was hoping Ukraine could hold on until the U.S. presidential election in November.

The U.S. legislative package includes measures that would allow the U.S. to seize billions of dollars’ worth of Russian assets frozen by sanctions imposed on Moscow. That, said Zakharova, was simply “theft”, adding that the true beneficiaries of the whole package were U.S. defence companies.

The leaders of the West and Ukraine have cast the war in Ukraine as an imperial-style land-grab showing that post-Soviet Russia is one of the top two biggest nation-state threats to global stability, alongside China.

Putin presents the war as part of a much broader struggle with the U.S., which he says ignored Moscow’s interests after the Soviet Union’s 1991 break-up and then plotted to cleave Russia apart and grab its natural resources.

The West denies that it wants to destroy Russia, which in turn denies that it intends to invade any NATO member state.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

“Two years ago, here, we met enemy landing forces with fire; two years later, we meet our friends and our partners here,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the airport just outside of Kyiv

February 24, 2024 11:04 pm | Updated 11:05 pm IST – KYIV

“More than ever we stand firmly by Ukraine. Financially, economically, militarily, morally. Until the country is finally free,” Ms. von der Leyen said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

On the front line in the eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian soldiers pleaded for ammunition.

“When the enemy comes in, a lot of our guys die. … We are sitting here with nothing,” said Volodymyr, 27, a senior officer in an artillery battery.

“In order to protect our infantry … we need a high number of shells, which we do not have now,” said Oleksandr, 45, a commander of an artillery unit. The two officers only gave their first names, citing security concerns.

In a message on the war’s second anniversary, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, thanked Ukrainian soldiers for their sacrifices and Western allies for their support, saying, “Every projectile, every tank, every armoured vehicle is, first of all, saving the life of a Ukrainian soldier.”

Earlier this month, Mr. Zelensky fired top military commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi and replaced him with Syrskyi, marking the most significant shakeup of top brass since the full-scale invasion.

Authorities also pointed to successes, including the downing of a Russian early warning and control aircraft on February 23.

If confirmed, it would mark the loss of the second such aircraft in just over a month. The Ukrainian military says Russia uses the aircraft to direct missile attacks.

The war has also come to Russia. Drones hit a steel plant in the Lipetsk region in southern Russia on February 24, causing a large fire, regional Governor Igor Artamonov said, adding there are no casualties. Independent Russian media said the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant is the largest steel plant in Russia. Videos shared on Russian social media showed several fires burning at the plant, and an explosion could be heard.

Independent Russian news outlet Mediazona said on February 24 that around 75,000 Russian men died in 2022 and 2023 fighting in the war.

A joint investigation published by Mediazona and Meduza, another independent Russian news site, indicates that the rate of Russia’s losses in Ukraine is not slowing and that Moscow is losing around 120 men a day. Based on a statistical analysis of the recorded deaths of soldiers compared with a Russian inheritance database, the journalists said around 83,000 soldiers are likely to have died in the two years of fighting.

According to Mediazona and Meduza‘s analysis, regular Russian troops sustained the heaviest losses in the first months of the war. But, after prisoners were offered their freedom in exchange for fighting and after President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization, those groups started to sustain more casualties, particularly in the early months of 2023.

A somber mood hangs over Ukraine as the war against Russia enters its third year and Kyiv’s troops face mounting challenges on the front line amid dwindling ammunition supplies and personnel challenges. Its troops recently withdrew from the strategic eastern city of Avdiivka, handing Moscow one of its biggest victories.

Russia still controls roughly a quarter of the country after Ukraine failed to make any major breakthroughs with its summertime counteroffensive. Meanwhile, millions of Ukrainians continue to live in precarious circumstances in the crossfire of battles, and many others face constant struggles under Russian occupation. Most are waiting for a Ukrainian liberation that hasn’t come.

Olena Zelenska, the President’s wife, said on February 24 that more than 2 million Ukrainian children have left the country since the war began and that at least 528 have been killed. “The war started by Russia deliberately targets children,” she said.

Britain has pledged an additional 8.5 million pounds ($10.8 million) of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, bolstering efforts to provide medical care, food and basic services to residents as the nation marks the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

About 14.6 million people, or 40% of Ukraine’s population, need assistance, with many left homeless or without adequate access to food, water and electricity, Britain’s Foreign Office said in announcing the aid.

In the U.S. Congress, Republicans have stalled $60 billion in military aid for Kyiv, desperately needed in the short term. The EU recently approved a 50 billion-euro (about $54 billion) aid package for Ukraine meant to support Ukraine’s economy, despite resistance from Hungary.

President Joe Biden tied the loss of the defensive stronghold of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region after months of gruelling battles to the stalled U.S. aid. Fears have since spiked that Ukrainian forces will face similar difficulties across other parts of the 1,000-km front line as they come under mounting pressure from Russian assaults.

Despite a heavy crackdown on dissent, some Russians marked the anniversary by laying flowers at Moscow monuments or holding anti-war signs in the streets.

According to OVD-Info, a Russian rights group that tracks political arrests and provides legal aid, at least five people were arrested in Moscow on February 24 while holding signs saying “No to war” or attending a weekly demonstration calling for the return of mobilized Russian soldiers from Ukraine.

Police also detained a young woman who brought flowers in Ukraine’s national colours, blue and yellow, to a Moscow monument to victims of political repression, OVD-Info reported.