RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
US running low on cash for Ukraine – White House
The Pentagon will only be able to support Ukraine’s war effort for a “few weeks” should Congress fail to pass a new funding bill, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has claimed.
Speaking to CNN for an interview published on Monday, Kirby was asked what impact a government shutdown could have on US aid to Kiev, as lawmakers continue heated negotiations over a stop-gap budget bill which could contain up to $25 billion in assistance to Ukraine.
“We’ve got a little bit more funding to go, so I think we’ll be ok for the next few weeks or so. But without the supplemental request that we asked for, it will absolutely have an effect on our ability to support Ukraine well into the fall and into the winter months,” the White House official said. “Not getting that supplemental request if there’s a shutdown – that’s gonna have a significant impact on their ability to succeed on the battlefield.”
Debate over the new spending bill has largely been centered on additional aid to Kiev, according to unnamed lawmakers cited by the New York Times, who said that some Republicans had rejected a proposal for another $25 billion in assistance.
“Despite broad bipartisan support in the Senate for money for Ukraine, officials said, some Republicans were arguing that it would present an added complication in trying to provide [House] Speaker Kevin McCarthy with a way out of the spending logjam,” the outlet reported, noting that GOP opposition could delay the legislation with “little time to spare” ahead of the September 30 shutdown deadline.
However, while officials have warned that Washington’s coffers are running dry – with deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh recently calling a shutdown “the worst thing that could happen” – last week the Defense Department insisted the current budget woes would have no impact on US aid to Ukraine.
In a statement to media outlets on Friday, Pentagon spokesperson Chris Sherwood said the military had designated American assistance to Kiev as “essential,” deeming it “an excepted activity under a government lapse in appropriations.”
Though the same spokesman had suggested otherwise just days prior, Sherwood reversed course and stated that US military operations related to the Ukraine conflict would not be affected by a government shutdown, including the training of troops and the provision of arms.
Washington has approved billions of dollars in direct military aid to Kiev since fighting with Russia escalated in February 2022, including dozens of shipments of heavy weapons, vehicles and munitions. The latest deliveries have featured the first round of US Abrams main battle tanks, 31 of which were authorized for Ukraine early this year, with Kirby voicing hopes they would have a “significant impact on the battlefield.”
Moscow has repeatedly condemned foreign arms shipments to Ukraine, arguing they will do little to deter its aims and only prolong the conflict. Commenting on the Abrams shipments earlier this year, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that Western countries were drastically overestimating the effect the tanks would have, adding that the American weapons would “burn like all the rest of them.”
** Ukraine to either surrender on Moscow’s terms or cease to exist — top Russian lawmaker
Ukraine is fated either to capitulate on Moscow’s terms or cease to exist as a state, Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament), said.
"When speaking about the conflict in Ukraine, [US President Joe] Biden, [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg and other Western officials have started calling it 'a war of attrition.' They have put huge amounts of money into militarizing the Kiev regime. Where has it gotten them? The simple facts are these: the West is experiencing weapons and ammunition shortages, people in Europe and the US have lost trust in politicians, and the Kiev regime’s counteroffensive has failed," Volodin stated.
According to him, the outcome of the "war of attrition" also includes economic problems in Europe and the US, a lack of manpower for the Ukrainian armed forces, and ultimately bankruptcy and demographic disaster for Ukraine. "These seven facts speak for themselves: Ukraine will cease to exist as a state unless the Kiev regime capitulates on Russia’s terms," Volodin stressed.
"More than 10.5 million people have fled Ukraine. Another 11.2 million residents of Crimea, Sevastopol, the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions decided to join Russia. Ukraine has lost 53.7% of its population since 2014," the State Duma speaker highlighted.
Volodin noted that, in June, then-British Defense Minister Ben Wallace stated that Western countries had run out of stockpiles of those weapons that they could send to Kiev from their own national arsenals. Biden, in turn, admitted in July that the decision to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions had been driven by the fact that stocks of conventional ammunition were exhausted. "The approval ratings of EU and US leaders have hit historical lows. The share of people who disapprove of their leaders’ performance stands at 57% for Biden, at 69% for [French President Emmanuel] Macron, and at 72% for [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz. The majority of people in the United States and European countries oppose weapons supplies to Ukraine," the Duma speaker added.
In addition, the senior lawmaker emphasized that the NATO-backed Ukrainian military had suffered huge troop and equipment losses, while "the lack of achievements has disappointed [Kiev’s] Western sponsors.
"The economies of the Eurozone countries are going through a recession. The costs of Ukraine’s militarization have forced Germany to cut benefit payments to poor families. France has reduced the number of beneficiaries; people in need no longer receive food packages and reimbursements for drug costs. International agencies have downgraded the United States’ long-term investment rating as they expect the financial situation in the country to worsen in the next three years," Volodin said.
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine says Russia Black Sea Fleet commander killed; no comment by Moscow
Ukraine's special forces said on Monday they had killed Moscow's top admiral in Crimea along with 33 other officers in last week's missile attack on the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in the port of Sevastopol.
The Russian Defence Ministry did not immediately respond when asked by Reuters to confirm or deny that Admiral Viktor Sokolov, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet and one of Russia's most senior navy officers, had been killed.
Moscow-installed authorities in Sevastopol, however, were taking extra measures to address Ukraine's increased attacks on Crimea, a critical region providing a platform from which Russia has launched many of its air attacks on Ukraine in the 19-month-long war.
If confirmed, Sokolov's killing would be one of Kyiv's most significant strikes on Crimea, which Russia seized and annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
"After the strike on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, 34 officers died, including the commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Another 105 occupiers were wounded. The headquarters building cannot be restored," Ukraine's special forces said on the Telegram messaging app.
It was not immediately clear how Ukraine's Special Forces counted the dead and wounded in the attack.
Reuters could not independently verify the report. Each side has at times exaggerated enemy losses in the war and says little about its own losses.
In a statement after the attack, the Russian defence ministry said one serviceman was missing, revising an earlier statement that the man had been killed. Air defences had downed five missiles, the ministry said.
Ukraine has stepped up its attacks in the Black Sea and on the Crimean Peninsula and started using missiles in addition to assault drones. Kyiv has said that destroying the Russian Black Sea fleet would significantly speed up the end of the war.
Earlier this month, Russia's defence ministry said that Ukraine attacked a Black Sea naval shipyard with 10 cruise missiles.
In a possible indication of how serious the recent Ukrainian attacks on Sevastopol have been, the Russian-installed governor of the city held a meeting on Monday to work out better defence and attack warning systems for the city.
"We understand that we have moved into a new situation that requires a systemic response," Russian agencies cited the governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, as saying.
"Earlier, we and our military faced attacks from unmanned vehicles ... Now everything has changed and we must be prepared for this kind of threat."
** Russian air strikes on Ukraine kill four, damage grain and port facilities
Russian air strikes and shelling killed six people in Ukraine and caused "significant damage" to infrastructure at the Black Sea port of Odesa and to grain storage facilities, Ukrainian officials said on Monday.
The air attacks were part of a campaign that has made it harder for major grain producer Ukraine to export its products since Moscow quit a deal in mid-July that had enabled Black Sea shipments and helped combat a global food crisis.
The strikes have intensified as Kyiv presses on with a counteroffensive in the south and east that has made slow gains but could be boosted by the delivery of U.S.-made Abrams tanks, announced on Monday by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
"Another massive attack on Odesa!", Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on X. "The attack resulted in the destruction of grain storage facilities and significant damage to the seaport."
Oleh Kiper, the Odesa region governor, said the facilities that were hit had contained almost 1,000 tons of grain and that the bodies of two men were found under the rubble of a warehouse where grain was stored.
Ukraine's military said 19 Iranian-made Shahed drones and 11 cruise missiles were shot down overnight, most of them directed at Odesa region. The grain storage facilities that were destroyed were hit by two supersonic missiles.
The energy ministry said damage to power grids cut off power to more than 1,000 consumers in the Odesa region, a reminder of air strikes that at times left millions of Ukrainians without heating and light in the freezing cold last winter.
ATTACKS ON KHERSON
A man aged 73 and a woman of 70 were killed in a separate air strike on the town of Beryslav in the southern Kherson region, officials said.
The administrative head in the city of Kherson - the region's main centre - later said that two city residents had died and two were injured in Russian shelling.
Russian forces abandoned Kherson city and the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson region late last year, but regularly shell different areas from positions on the east bank.
The Ukrainian Defence Ministry said the latest air attack was "a pathetic attempt" to retaliate for a strike on the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea navy on Friday.
Ukraine has been heavily reliant on Western weapons to defend itself against Russia and then to hit back in the counteroffensive that began in early June.
Announcing the latest arms delivery, Zelenskiy said Abrams tanks had already arrived in Ukraine and were being prepared for action.
"I am grateful to our allies for fulfilling the agreements! We are looking for new contracts and expanding our supply geography," said Zelenskiy, who visited the U.S. last week.
Ukraine's counterattack has included stepping up its attacks which Moscow says have hit targets in Russia and Crimea, the peninsula seized and annexed by Moscow in 2014.
The Russian Defence Ministry said on Monday its air defences had shot down drones over the northwestern part of the Black Sea, over Crimea, and over the Russian regions of Kursk and Belgorod. It mentioned no deaths.
Kyiv did not comment on the Russian reports, and Moscow offered no comment on the air strikes in Ukraine.
Kyiv says the air strikes against port and grain facilities are intended to prevent it exporting grain to the world, and global traders follow them closely for fear of further disruption to world markets.
Ukraine is increasingly shipping grain along the Danube River, by road and by train, and has established a "humanitarian corridor" hugging the Black Sea coast to ship grain for African and Asian markets. The first two vessels carrying grain to use the corridor left the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk last week.
RT/Tass/Reuters
