WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Russian missile strikes apartment block in Lviv, kills at least three
A Russian missile attack killed at least three people in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, and rescuers were searching through the debris of a apartment building for survivors and casualties, the local mayor said.
"Three people have been killed," Mayor Andriy Sadovy said in a post on his Telegram channel. He said the street would remain closed until emergency workers "clear debris and pull out all the dead."
Sadovy said in a previous post that eight people had been wounded, but it was unclear if the three who died were included in that number. He said about 60 apartments and 50 cars were damaged.
Regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyi posted a 13-second video showing a wide, curving, four-storey apartment building with parts of the upper floors missing or in rubble.
The posts from the officials followed widespread air alerts across Ukraine and reports of cruise missiles entering Ukrainian airspace. Sadovy reported a series of explosions in the city.
** Ukraine's Zelenskiy says sought Western weapons to start counteroffensive sooner
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told CNN he wanted a counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces to have started sooner than it did in June and that he had urged Western allies to quicken the supply of weapons for that mission, according to excerpts via a translator released on Wednesday.
"I wanted our counteroffensive to happen much earlier, because everyone understood that if the counteroffensive unfolds later, then a bigger part of our territory will be mined," Zelenskiy said. "We give our enemy the time and possibility to place more mines and prepare their defensive lines."
He said difficulties in the battlefield had led to Ukrainian forces slowing down the counteroffensive, which is aimed at reclaiming territory in eastern and southern Ukraine seized by Russia since its February 2022 invasion began.
The Ukrainian leader has consistently pushed the United States and other Western allies to supply his armed forces with more sophisticated weaponry, such as U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets and longer range missiles.
He did so again in the CNN interview while also thanking Washington and the European allies for their support.
"It's not even about the Ukrainian advantage in the sky over the Russians," Zelenskiy said. "This is only about being equal. F-16s help not only those on the battlefield to move forward. It is simply very difficult without cover from the air."
Last week, Zelenskiy said the counteroffensive was "slower than desired", without getting too specific but he said advances had been made "in all directions".
Reuters was unable to verify the situation on the battlefield. Russia has not acknowledged Ukrainian gains and has said Ukraine's forces are suffering heavy casualties.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will be attempting to consolidate his power following a short-lived mutiny on June 24 by Wagner Group mercenaries led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, Zelenskiy said. Prigozhin has gone into exile in Belarus after striking a deal with Putin.
"After all these events, where did Putin go?" asked Zelenskiy. "He rarely comes outside to the street. We see him in his offices, etc., but we never see him out and about."
Days after the mutiny, Putin appeared in public to tell about 2,500 Russian security personnel at a ceremony on a square in the Kremlin complex in Moscow that the people and the armed forces stood together in opposition to the rebel mercenaries.
"You have saved our motherland from upheaval. In fact, you have stopped a civil war," he said.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Newsweek reveals CIA role in Ukraine
Central Intelligence Agency has boots on the ground in Ukraine and operates a clandestine supply network to help the government in Kiev fight Russia, Newsweek reported on Wednesday, citing anonymous sources within the US government.
“The CIA was central to the war even before it started,” claimed the article, written by William Arkin. Its director, William Burns, famously visited Moscow in January 2022 and, though he failed to persuade Russia not to “invade,” he got the Kremlin to accept US “rules” – at least according to Arkin and his sources.
Supposedly articulated by US President Joe Biden, the “rules” state that Washington and Kiev “will not undertake any actions that might threaten Russia itself or the survival of the Russian state.” In return, Moscow “won’t escalate the war beyond Ukraine or resort to the use of nuclear weapons.”
It “falls to the US to enforce those pledges,” a senior defense intelligence official told Newsweek on condition of anonymity. Arkin said he spoke with “over a dozen” officials and intelligence experts over the course of a three-month investigation. No named sources appear in the article.
Arkin’s sources admitted that the CIA is running a campaign of support for Ukraine based out of Poland, including a “gray fleet” of commercial aircraft shuttling weapons and other material through central and eastern Europe. CIA agents also “went into and out of Ukraine on secret missions, to assist with the operations of new weapons and systems,” but always tried to “avoid direct confrontation with Russian troops.”
“Is the CIA on the ground inside Ukraine? Yes, but it’s also not nefarious,”said another senior intelligence officer, who framed it as part of a Biden administration effort to “keep Americans out of harm’s way and reassure Russia that it doesn’t need to escalate.”
The problem appears to be that Ukraine is not following Biden’s “rules,”however. Newsweek blames Kiev for the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, the Kerch Bridge bombing, and the drone attacks on Russian air bases and the Kremlin. These attacks have “raised questions” as to whether the CIA knows enough about Ukrainian plans “to both influence them and to adhere to their secret agreement with Moscow.”
The agency is now “as uncertain about Vladimir Zelensky’s thinking and intentions as it is about [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s,” the article claims.
“The CIA learned with the attack on the Crimean Bridge that Zelensky either didn’t have complete control over his own military or didn’t want to know of certain actions,” according to the anonymous military intelligence official.
Meanwhile, Zelensky himself directly contradicted Arkin’s article two days before it was published. “We don’t have any secrets from the CIA,” he told CNN on Monday, commenting on a recent visit to Kiev by the agency’s director.
Reuters/RT