RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
US lawmakers propose major cut to Ukraine aid
The US Senate has reached a provisional deal on a spending bill needed to avert a federal budget crisis, with lawmakers agreeing to slash nearly $20 billion in proposed aid for Ukraine following push-back by some Republicans.
The upper chamber ended debate on the budget legislation on Tuesday night, garnering the support needed to advance to a final vote, officials from both parties said.
“All through the weekend – night and day – Senate Democrats and Republicans worked in good faith to reach an agreement on a continuing resolution that will keep the government funded and avert a shutdown,”Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said in a statement.
The stop-gap bill will reportedly allocate $6.2 billion for assistance to Ukraine, a significant drop from the nearly $25 billion originally sought by Democrats. While a large number of Republicans appear to have accepted the more modest aid package, some GOP members have vowed to oppose any measure that includes funding for Kiev.
“It’s bad policy to bankrupt our own country to send money to Ukraine,”libertarian-leaning Senator Rand Paul said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “I will not consent to easy passage of any spending bill that includes funding for Ukraine. Those in charge of this bill need to either take it out or will have to fight me every step of the way.”
In another missive, Paul mocked leaders in both parties, sharing a photo of Schumer and his GOP counterpart Mitch McConnell with the caption: “The look on their faces when they learned Ukrainian government workers would be paid during a shutdown, but not American government workers. Priceless? No, pathetic.”
However, while the Senate appears close to an agreement on the budget measure despite Paul’s opposition, the bill must be reconciled with a separate version advancing through the House. Lawmakers in both chambers have until September 30 to produce final legislation for President Joe Biden to sign, risking a shutdown otherwise.
It remains to be seen whether House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will accept the Senate’s alterations to the spending bill, given that congressional Republicans are seeking deeper budget cuts and have opposed Ukraine aid more vocally. Earlier on Tuesday, the House leader said he would not speak in “hypotheticals” regarding the Senate bill, but suggested his party would look to boost border funding in their own version.
Though senior White House officials previously warned that a federal shutdown would hamper US military aid to Kiev, the Pentagon itself has appeared to contradict those claims.
** NATO will cause a conflict worse than WWII – ex-Russian president
The West is pushing the world closer to a global conflict unseen since World War II, by supplying ever heavier weapons to Ukraine and celebrating Nazism, former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, warned in a Telegram post on Tuesday.
Medvedev, who is currently the Deputy Chair of the Russian Security Council, was reacting to the reported arrival of US-made M1 Abrams battle tanks in Ukraine and a scandal that saw the Canadian parliament, alongside Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, give a standing ovation to a former member of the Waffen SS.
The former Russian president decried the scandal, which had already sparked outrage in Poland, Russia and in the Jewish community, labelling it “fraternization… with Nazis.”
“It looks like Russia is being left with little choice other than a direct conflict with NATO,” he reasoned, while highlighting reports that Washington has promised longer-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to Kiev.
Medvedev claimed that NATO has “turned into an openly fascist bloc similar to Hitler’s Axis, only bigger,” adding that Russia is still ready to face-off against it if needed. Such a conflict would lead to devastating consequences for humanity, he warned.
“The result would be much heavier losses for humanity than in 1945,” he warned.
The former president took a hardline position on Russia’s relations with the West amid the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev. In September, he suggested suspending diplomatic relations with the EU after the bloc backed banning Russian nationals from bringing personal cars and smartphones onto its territory, citing potential sanctions violation.
He has previously blasted Kiev’s Western backers as a “pro-Nazi” coalition and repeatedly warned about a potential direct confrontation between Russia and NATO. Moscow also warned on multiple occasions that continued Western arms supplies to Ukraine leads to the ever-deeper involvement of the NATO members into the ongoing conflict and risks spiralling into a full-blown war between Russia and the US-led bloc.
** More than 325,000 contractors join Russian army in 2023 — Medvedev
More than 325,000 contractors have joined the Russian army this year, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting on manning the armed forces.
"We continue to work on supplementing the armed forces with contract servicemen and control combat and morale-bolstering activities," he said.
"From January 1 September 26 this year, more than 325,000 men have been enlisted," Medvedev pointed out.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin reported that 1,000-1,500 were coming every day to sign contracts with the Russian Armed Forces. He pointed out that by mid-September 300,000 had signed military enlistment contracts.
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Russian Black Sea commander Sokolov shown on video call after Ukraine said it killed him
Admiral Viktor Sokolov, the commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, was shown on Russian state television on Tuesday attending a defence leaders' meeting remotely, a day after Ukrainian special forces said they had killed him.
In video and photographs released by the defence ministry, Sokolov was shown as one of several fleet commanders on video apparently joining an in-person meeting of Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and other army chiefs, although not speaking. It was not clear when the video was filmed.
Ukraine's special forces said on Monday that Sokolov had been killed along with 33 other officers in a missile attack last week on the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in the port of Sevastopol in Crimea, seized from Ukraine in 2014.
In response to the Russian video, the Ukraine special forces said on Telegram: "Since the Russians were urgently forced to publish a response with Sokolov allegedly alive, our units are clarifying the information."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had declined to comment on the Ukrainian claim, referring reporters to the ministry.
In the video, Shoigu said more than 17,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in September and that more than 2,700 weapons, including seven American Bradley fighting vehicles, had been destroyed.
Reuters could not independently verify battlefield claims.
"The Ukrainian armed forces are suffering serious losses along the entire front line," Shoigu said, adding that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had so far produced no results.
"The United States and its allies continue to arm the armed forces of Ukraine, and the Kyiv regime throws untrained soldiers to the slaughter in senseless assaults," Shoigu said.
Kyiv's counteroffensive has yet to seize much territory from Russian forces, which control about 17.5% of Ukraine's internationally recognised territory.
According to a Sept. 19 scorecard by the Belfer Center at Harvard's Kennedy School, Russia has gained 35 sq miles (91 sq km) from Ukraine in the past month while Ukrainian forces have taken 16 sq miles (41 sq km) from Russian forces.
** Polish experts confirm missile that hit grain facility was Ukrainian - media
Polish experts have confirmed that the missile that killed two people at a grain facility in southern Poland in November was fired by Ukraine, Rzeczpospolita daily reported, citing sources.
The explosion of the missile in NATO-member Poland fuelled fears that the war in Ukraine could spiral into a wider conflict by triggering the alliance's mutual defence clause, but at the time Warsaw and NATO said that they believed that it was a Ukrainian stray, easing worries about escalation.
Sources with knowledge of the investigation told Rzeczpospolita that Poland had established that the missile that landed in the village of Przewodow was an S 300 5-W-55 air-defence missile fired from Ukrainian territory.
"This rocket has a range of 75 km to 90 km," the newspaper cited a source as saying. "At that time, the Russian positions were in a place from which no Russian missile could reach Przewodow."
Ukraine has denied that one of its missiles had landed in Poland.
Rzeczpospolita reported that the Ukrainian side has not made any material available to Polish investigators.
It quoted Lukasz Lapczynski, spokesman for the Polish prosecutor's office, as saying the prosecutor had received the experts' opinion but was not disclosing its content as it was confidential.
Lapczynski could not immediately be reached for comment and the prosecutor's office did not immediately respond to an emailed request.
RT/Tass/Reuters
