Europe
Biden urges Western unity on Ukraine amid war fatigue
President Joe Biden and Western allies opened a three-day summit in the Bavarian Alps on Sunday intent on keeping economic fallout from the war in Ukraine from fracturing the global coalition working to punish Russia’s aggression. Britain’s Boris Johnson warned the leaders not to give in to “fatigue” even as Russia lobbed new missiles at Kyiv.
The Group of Seven leaders were set to announce new bans on imports of Russian gold, the latest in a series of sanctions the club of democracies hopes will further isolate Russia economically. They also were looking at possible price caps on energy meant to limit Russian oil and gas profits that Moscow can pump into its war effort.
And following up on a proposal from last year's G-7 summit, Biden formally launched a global infrastructure partnership designed to counter China’s influence in the developing world. The initiative aims to leverage $600 billion with fellow G-7 countries by 2027 for global infrastructure projects. Some $200 billion would come from the United States, Biden said.
U.S. officials have long argued that China's infrastructure initiative traps receiving countries in debt and that the investments benefit China more than their hosts.
In a pre-summit show of force, Russia launched its first missile strikes against the Ukrainian capital in three weeks, striking at least two residential buildings, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Read:G-7 to ban Russian gold in response to Ukraine war: Biden
Biden condemned Russia’s actions as “more of their barbarism,” and stressed that allies need to remain firm even as the economic reverberations from the war take a toll around the globe in inflation, food shortages and more.
“We have to stay together, because Putin has been counting on, from the beginning, that somehow NATO and the G-7 would splinter, but we haven’t and we’re not going to,” Biden said during a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who holds the G-7′s rotating presidency and is hosting the gathering.
As the G-7 leaders sat down for their opening session, they took a light-hearted jab at Putin. Johnson could be heard asking whether he should keep his jacket on, adding, “We all have to show that we’re tougher than Putin.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chimed in: “A bare-chested horseback ride.”
Over the years, the Kremlin has released several photos of the Russian leader in which he appears shirtless.
Biden and his counterparts were using the gathering to discuss how to secure energy supplies and tackle inflation triggered by the war’s fallout.
The leaders also came together on the new global infrastructure partnership meant to provide an alternative to Russian and Chinese investment in the developing world. One by one, the leaders stepped up to the microphone to discuss the partnership and their roles in it — without mentioning China by name.
Ukraine cast a shadow over the gathering, but the leaders were determined to project resolve.
Scholz told Biden that the allies all managed "to stay united, which obviously Putin never expected.”
Biden said of Putin's war: “We can’t let this aggression take the form it has and get away with it."
Scholz, who has faced criticism at home and abroad for perceived reluctance to send Ukraine heavy weapons, said, “Germany and the U.S. will always act together when it comes to questions of Ukraine’s security.”
Johnson, for his part, urged fellow leaders not to give in to “fatigue.” He has expressed concern that divisions may emerge in the pro-Ukraine alliance as the four-month-old war grinds on.
Asked whether he thought France and Germany were doing enough, Johnson praised the “huge strides” made by Germany to arm Ukraine and cut imports of Russian gas. He did not mention France.
Read: Russia strikes Kyiv as Western leaders meet in Europe
Biden and Scholz, in their pre-summit meeting, agreed on the need for a negotiated end to the Ukraine war, but did not get into specifics on how to achieve it, said a senior Biden administration official, who requested anonymity to reveal details of a private conversation.
However, they did not have an extensive discussion about oil price caps or inflation, the official said.
Other leaders echoed Biden’s praise of coalition unity.
The head of the European Union’s council of governments said the 27-member bloc maintains “unwavering unity” in backing Ukraine against Russia’s invasion with money and political support, but that “Ukraine needs more and we are committed to providing more.”
European Council President Charles Michel said EU governments were ready to supply “more military support, more financial means, and more political support” to enable Ukraine to defend itself and “curb Russia’s ability to wage war.”
The EU has imposed six rounds of sanctions against Russia, the latest one being a ban on 90% of Russian crude oil imports by the end of the year. The measure is aimed at a pillar of the Kremlin’s finances, its oil and gas revenues.
Biden and the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, plus the EU, spent Sunday in both formal and informal settings discussing the war’s effects on the global economy, including inflation.
Biden said G-7 nations, including the United States, will ban imports of gold from Russia. A formal announcement was expected Tuesday as the leaders wind up their annual summit.
Johnson said the ban will “directly hit Russian oligarchs and strike at the heart of Putin’s war machine.”
“Putin is squandering his dwindling resources on this pointless and barbaric war. He is bankrolling his ego at the expense of both the Ukrainian and Russian people,” Johnson said. “We need to starve the Putin regime of its funding.”
Gold, in recent years, has been the top Russian export after energy — reaching almost $19 billion or about 5% of global gold exports, in 2020, according to the White House.
Of Russian gold exports, 90% was consigned to G-7 countries. More than 90% of those exports, or nearly $17 billion, was exported to the U.K. The United States imported less than $200 million in gold from Russia in 2019, and under $1 million in 2020 and 2021.
As for the idea of price caps on energy, Michel said, “we want to go into the details, we want to fine-tune ... to make sure we have a clear common understanding of what are the direct effects and what could be the collateral consequences” if such a step were to be taken by the group.
Russia strikes Kyiv as Western leaders meet in Europe
Russia shattered weeks of relative calm in the Ukrainian capital with long-range missiles fired toward Kyiv early Sunday, an apparent Kremlin show-of-force as Western leaders meet in Europe to strengthen their military and economic support of Ukraine.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the missiles hit at least two residential buildings, and President Volodymr Zelenskyy said a 37-year-old man was killed and his 7-year-old daughter and wife injured. Associated Press journalists saw emergency workers battling flames and rescuing civilians.
Read:G-7 to ban Russian gold in response to Ukraine war: Biden
The strikes also damaged a nearby kindergarten, where a crater pocked the courtyard. U.S. President Joe Biden called the attacks “barbarism” after he arrived in Germany for a Group of Seven summit.
Later Sunday, a local official reported a second death, telling the Unian news agency that a railroad worker was killed and several others were injured in the attacks while servicing rail infrastructure.
Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said the first air-launched weapons successfully to target the capital since June 5 were Kh-101 cruise missiles fired from warplanes over the Caspian Sea, more than 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) away.
Kyiv's mayor told journalists he thought the airstrikes were “maybe a symbolic attack” ahead of a NATO summit in Madrid that starts Tuesday. A former commander of U.S. forces in Europe said the strikes also were a signal to the leaders of G-7 nations meeting Sunday in Germany.
“Russia is saying, ‘We can do this all day long. You guys are powerless to stop us,’” retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of U.S. Army forces in Europe, said. “The Russians are humiliating the leaders of the West.”
The G-7 leaders were set to announce the latest in a long series of international economic steps to pressure and isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine: new bans on imports of Russian gold. Standing with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the three-day meeting's host, Biden said of the missile strikes on Kyiv: “It’s more of their barbarism.”
Zelenskyy, speaking in his nightly video address, appealed to the G-7 leaders for more help, saying stopping Russian aggression “is possible only if we get everything we ask for, and in the time we need it - weapons, financial support and sanctions against Russia.”
A Ukrainian parliament member, Oleksiy Goncharenko, wrote on the Telegram messaging app that preliminary information indicated that Russia launched 14 missiles toward the capital region and Kyiv itself. Zelenskyy said some were intercepted, and he vowed revenge against “all pilots, dispatchers, technicians and other people who ensure the launch of missiles in Ukraine.”
“We will find you all. Each of you will be responsible for these blows,” Zelenskyy vowed. “And if someone thinks he will evade responsibility by saying that this was an order, you are wrong. When your missiles hit homes, it’s a war crime. The court is what awaits you all. And you will not hide anywhere - neither on the shores of the Caspian Sea, over which your missiles are launched, nor in Belarus ... Nowhere.”
In a phone interview, retired U.S. general Hodges told The Associated Press that Russia has a limited stock of precision missiles and “if they are using them, it’s going to be for a special purpose,”
Russia has denied targeting civilians during the 4-month-old war, and Hodges said it was hard to know if the missiles launched Sunday were intended to strike the apartments buildings.
Russian forces tried to seize control of Kyiv early in the war. After Ukrainian troops repelled them, the Kremlin largely shifted its focus to southern and eastern Ukraine.
Russian rocket strikes in the city of Cherkasy, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Kyiv, killed one person and injured five, regional governor Ihor Taburets said Sunday.
In the east, Russian troops fought to consolidate their gains by battling to swallow up the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in Luhansk province. Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai said Sunday that Russia was conducting intense airstrikes on the city of Lysychansk, destroying its television tower and seriously damaging a road bridge.
“There’s very much destruction. Lysychansk is almost unrecognizable,” he wrote on Facebook.
For weeks, Lysychansk and the nearby city of Sievierodonetsk have been subject to a bloody and destructive offensive by Russian forces and their separatist allies aimed at capturing all of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.
Read:Russia fires missiles across Ukraine, cements gains in east
They have made steady and slow progress, with Haidai confirming Saturday that Sievierodonetsk, including a chemical plant where hundreds of Ukrainian troops and civilians were holed up, had fallen.
Commenting on the battle for Sievierodonetsk, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said late Saturday that Russian and Moscow-backed separatist forces now control not only the city but the villages surrounding it. He said the Russian military had thwarted Ukrainian forces' attempt to turn the Azot chemical plant into a “stubborn center of resistance.”
Capturing Lysychansk would give Russian and separatist forces control of every major settlement in Luhansk. At last report, they controlled about half of Donetsk, the second province in the Donbas.
On Saturday, Russia launched dozens of missiles on several areas across the country far from the heart of the eastern battles. Some of the missiles were fired from Russian long-range Tu-22 bombers deployed from Belarus for the first time, Ukraine’s air command said.
Reacting to the shelling from the Russian bombers, Zelenskyy appealed to the people of Belarus to resist cooperation with the Russian military. “The Russian leadership wants to draw you - all Belarusians - into the war, wants to sow hatred between us,” he said in his video address Sunday. “You can refuse to participate in this war. Your lives belong only to you, not to someone in the Kremlin.”
Belarus hosts Russian military units and was used as a staging ground before Russia invaded Ukraine, but its own troops have not crossed the border. In a meeting Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that Russia planned to supply Belarus with the Iskander-M missile system.
On the economic front, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said banning imports of Russian gold would represent a significant escalation of sanctions.
“That is the second-most lucrative export that Russia has after energy.” Blinken told American news channel CNN. “It’s about $19 billion a year. And most of that is within the G-7 countries. So cutting that off, denying access to about $19 billion of revenues a year, that’s significant.”
Russia is poised to default on its foreign debt for the first time since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, further alienating the country from the global financial system following international sanctions imposed over its war in Ukraine.
The country faces a Sunday night deadline to meet a 30-day grace period on interest payments originally due May 27. But it could take time to confirm a default.
Russia calls any default artificial because it has the money to pay its debts but says sanctions have frozen its foreign currency reserves held abroad.
G-7 to ban Russian gold in response to Ukraine war: Biden
President Joe Biden said Sunday that the United States and other Group of Seven leading economies will ban imports of gold from Russia, the latest in a series of sanctions that the club of democracies hopes will further isolate Russia economically over its invasion of Ukraine.
A formal announcement was expected Tuesday as the leaders hold their annual summit.
Biden and his counterparts will huddle on the summit's opening day Sunday to discuss how to secure energy supplies and tackle inflation, aiming to keep the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from splintering the global coalition working to punish Moscow.
Read:Congress sends landmark gun violence compromise to Biden
Hours before the summit was to formally open, Russia launched missile strikes against the Ukrainian capital Sunday, striking at least two residential buildings, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. They were the first such strikes by Russia in three weeks.
Senior Biden administration officials said gold is Moscow's second largest export after energy, and that banning imports would make it more difficult for Russia to participate in global markets. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details before the announcement.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the ban on Russian gold will “directly hit Russian oligarchs and strike at the heart of Putin’s war machine," a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Putin is squandering his dwindling resources on this pointless and barbaric war. He is bankrolling his ego at the expense of both the Ukrainian and Russian people,” Johnson said. “We need to starve the Putin regime of its funding.”
In recent years, gold has been the top Russian export after energy — reaching almost $19 billion or about 5% of global gold exports, in 2020, according to the White House.
Of Russian gold exports, 90% was consigned to G-7 countries. Of these Russian exports, over 90%, or nearly $17 billion, was exported to the UK. The United States imported less than $200 million in gold from Russia in 2019, and under $1 million in 2020 and 2021.
Biden arrived in Germany’s picturesque Bavarian alps early Sunday to join his counterparts for the annual meeting of the world's leading democratic economies. Reverberations from the brutal war in Ukraine will be front and center of their discussions. Biden and the allies aim to present a united front in support of Ukraine as the conflict enters its fourth month.
Unity was the message Biden took into a pre-summit sit-down with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who holds the G-7's rotating presidency and is hosting the gathering.
“We've got to make sure we have us all staying together. You know, we’re gonna continue working on economic challenges that we face but I think we get through all this,” Biden said.
Scholz replied that the “good message” is that “we all made it to stay united, which Putin never expected,” a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Read: Biden takes spill while getting off bike after beach ride
“We have to stay together, because Putin has been counting on, from the beginning, that somehow NATO and the G7 would splinter, but we haven’t and we’re not going to," Biden said. "We can’t let this aggression take the form it has and get away with it.”
Biden and the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, plus the European Union, were spending Sunday in both formal and informal settings, including working sessions on dealing with the war's effects on the global economy, including inflation, and on infrastructure.
Among the issues to be discussed are price caps on energy, which are meant to limit Russian oil and gas profits that Moscow can put to use in its war effort. The idea has been championed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
A senior German official, speaking on condition of anonymity consistent with department rules, said the U.S. idea of price caps was being discussed intensely, in terms of how it would work and how it would fit with the U.S., EU, British, Canadian and Japanese sanctions regimes.
Officials were also set to discuss how to maintain commitments to addressing climate change while also solving critical energy supply needs as a result of the war.
“There’s no watering down of climate commitments,” John Kirby, a spokesman for Biden's National Security Council, said Saturday as the president flew to Germany.
Biden is also set Sunday to formally launch a global infrastructure partnership designed to counter China’s influence in the developing world. He had named it “Build Back Better World” and introduced the program at last year’s G-7 summit.
Kirby said Biden and other leaders would announce the first projects to benefit from what the U.S. sees as an “alternative to infrastructure models that sell debt traps to low- and middle-income partner countries, and advance U.S. economic competitiveness and our national security.”
After the G-7 wraps up on Tuesday, Biden will travel to Madrid for a summit of the leaders of the 30 members of NATO to align strategy on the war in Ukraine.
Deaths rise to 23 from mass attempt to enter Spanish enclave
The number of people who were killed after they tried to scale a border fence between Morocco and a Spanish enclave in North Africa rose to 23 Saturday as human rights organizations in Spain and Morocco called on both countries to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths.
Moroccan authorities said the individuals died as a result of a “stampede” of people who attempted Friday to climb the iron fence that separates the city of Melilla and Morocco. In a statement, Morocco’s Interior Ministry said 76 civilians were injured along with 140 Moroccan security officers.
The ministry initially reported five deaths. Local authorities cited by Morocco’s official Television 2M updated the number to 18 on Saturday and then reported that the death toll had climbed to 23. The Moroccan Human Rights Association reported 27 dead, but the figure could not immediately be confirmed.
Two members of Morocco's security forces and 33 migrants who were injured during the border breach were being treated at hospitals in the Moroccan cities of Nador and Oujda, MAP said.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Saturday condemned what he described as a “violent assault” and an “attack on the territorial integrity” of Spain. Spanish officials said 49 Civil Guards sustained minor injuries.
“If there is anyone responsible for everything that appears to have taken place at that border, it is the mafias that traffic in human beings,” Sánchez said.
His remarks came as the Moroccan Human Rights Association shared videos on social media that appeared to show dozens of migrants lying on the ground, many of them motionless and a few bleeding, as Moroccan security forces stood over them.
“They were left there without help for hours, which increased the number of deaths,” the human rights group said on Twitter. It called for a “comprehensive” investigation.
In another of the association’s videos, a Moroccan security officer appeared to use a baton to strike a person lying on the ground.
In a statement released late Friday, Amnesty International expressed its “deep concern” over the events at the border.
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“Although the migrants may have acted violently in their attempt to enter Melilla, when it comes to border control, not everything goes," said Esteban Beltrán, the director of Amnesty International Spain. "The human rights of migrants and refugees must be respected and situations like that seen cannot happen again.”
Five rights organizations in Morocco and APDHA, a human rights group based in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia, also called for inquiries.
The International Organization for Migration and U.N. refugee agency UNHCR also weighed in with a statement that expressed “profound sadness and concern” over what happened at the Morocco-Melilla border.
“IOM and UNHCR urge all authorities to prioritize the safety of migrants and refugees, refrain from the excessive use of force and uphold their human rights,” the organizations said.
In a statement published Saturday, the Spanish Commission for Refugees, CEAR, decried what it described as “the indiscriminate use of violence to manage migration and control borders" and expressed concerns that the violence had prevented people who were eligible for international protection from reaching Spanish soil.
The Catholic Church in the southern Spanish city of Malaga also expressed its dismay over the events. “Both Morocco and Spain have chosen to eliminate human dignity on our borders, maintaining that the arrival of migrants must be avoided at all costs and forgetting the lives that are torn apart along the way,” it said in a statement penned by a delegation of the diocese that focuses on migration in Malaga and Melilla.
A spokesperson for the Spanish government’s office in Melilla said that around 2,000 people had attempted to make it across the border fence but were stopped by Spanish Civil Guard Police and Moroccan forces on either side of the border fence. A total 133 migrants made it across the border.
The mass crossing attempt was the first since Spain and Morocco mended relations after a year-long dispute related to Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1976. The thaw in relations came after Spain backed Morocco’s plan to grant more autonomy to the territory, a reversal of its previous support for a U.N.-backed referendum on the status of Western Sahara.
Russia fires missiles across Ukraine, cements gains in east
Russian forces were seeking to swallow up the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Luhansk region, pressing their momentum after taking full control Saturday of the charred ruins of Sievierodonetsk and the chemical plant where hundreds of Ukrainian troops and civilians had been holed up.
Russia also launched dozens of missiles on several areas across the country far from the heart of the eastern battles. Some of the missiles were fired from Russian long-range Tu-22 bombers deployed from Belarus for the first time, Ukraine's air command said.
The bombardment preceded a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, during which Putin announced that Russia planned to supply Belarus with the Iskander-M missile system.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said late Saturday that Russian and Moscow-backed separatist forces now control Sievierodonetsk and the villages surrounding it. He said the attempt by Ukrainian forces to turn the Azot plant into a “stubborn center of resistance” had been thwarted.
Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk province, said Friday that Ukrainian troops were retreating from Sievierodonetsk after weeks of bombardment and house-to-house fighting. He confirmed Saturday that the city had fallen to Russian and separatist fighters, who he said were now trying to blockade Lysychansk from the south. The city lies across the river just to the west of Sievierodonetsk.
Capturing Lysychansk would give Russian forces control of every major settlement in the province, a significant step toward Russia’s aim of capturing the entire Donbas. The Russians and separatists control about half of Donetsk, the second province in the Donbas.
Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a spokesman for the separatist forces, Andrei Marochko, as saying Russian troops and separatist fighters had entered Lysychansk and that fighting was taking place in the heart of the city. There was no immediate comment on the claim from the Ukrainian side.
Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk have been the focal point of a Russian offensive aimed at capturing all of the Donbas and destroying the Ukrainian military defending it — the most capable and battle-hardened segment of the country’s armed forces.
Russian bombardment has reduced most of Sievierodonetsk to rubble and cut its population from 100,000 to 10,000. The last remaining Ukrainian troops were holed up in underground shelters in the huge Azot chemical plant, along with hundreds of civilians. A separatist representative, Ivan Filiponenko, said earlier Saturday that its forces evacuated 800 civilians from the plant during the night, Interfax reported.
READ: ‘It’s just hell there’: Russia still pounds eastern Ukraine
Ukrainian military analyst Oleg Zhdanov said some of the troops were heading for Lysychansk. But Russian moves to cut off Lysychansk will give those retreating troops little respite.
Some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to the west, four Russian cruise missiles fired from the Black Sea hit a “military object” in Yaroviv, Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskyy said. He did not give further details of the target, but Yaroviv has a sizable military base used for training fighters, including foreigners who have volunteered to fight for Ukraine.
Russian missiles struck the Yaroviv base in March, killing 35 people. The Lviv region, although far from the front lines, has come under fire at various points in the the war as Russia's military worked to destroy fuel storage sites.
About 30 Russian missiles were fired on the Zhytomyr region in central Ukraine on Saturday morning, killing one Ukrainian soldier, regional governor Vitaliy Buchenko said. He said all of the strikes were aimed at military targets.
In the northwest, two missiles hit a service station and auto repair center in Sarny, killing three people and wounding four, the Rivne regional governor, Vitaliy Koval, said. He posted a picture of the destruction. Sarny is located about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the border with Belarus.
In southern Ukraine along the Black Sea coast, nine missiles fired from Crimea hit the port city of Mykolaiv, the Ukrainian military said.
In the north, about 20 missiles were fired from Belarus into the Chernihiv region, the Ukrainian military said.
Ukraine's military intelligence agency said the Russian bombers' use of Belarusian airspace for the first time for Saturday's attack was “directly connected to attempts by the Kremlin to drag Belarus into the war.”
Belarus hosts Russian military units and was used as a staging ground before Russia invaded Ukraine, but its own troops have not crossed the border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address that as a war that Moscow expected to last five days moved into its fifth month, Russia “felt compelled to stage such a missile show."
He said the war was at a difficult stage, “when we know that the enemy will not succeed, when we understand that we can defend our country, but we don’t know how long it will take, how many more attacks, losses and efforts there will be before we can see that victory is already on our horizon.”
During his meeting in St. Petersburg with Lukashenko, Putin told him the Iskander-M missile systems would be arriving in the coming months. He noted that they can fire either ballistic or cruise missiles and carry nuclear as well as conventional warheads. Russia has launched several Iskander missiles into Ukraine during the war.
Following a botched attempt to capture Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in the early stage of the invasion that started Feb. 24, Russian forces have shifted their focus to the Donbas, where the Ukrainian forces have fought Moscow-backed separatists since 2014.
A senior U.S. defense official, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity, on Friday called the Ukrainians’ withdrawal from Sievierodonetsk a “tactical retrograde” to consolidate forces into positions where they can better defend themselves. The move will reinforce Ukraine’s efforts to keep Russian forces pinned down in a small area, the official said.
After repeated Ukrainian requests to its Western allies for heavier weaponry to counter Russia’s edge in firepower, four medium-range American rocket launchers arrived this week, with four more on the way.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry released a video Saturday showing the first use of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, in Ukraine. The video gave no location or indication of the targets. The rockets can travel about 45 miles (70 kilometers).
The senior U.S. defense official said Friday that more Ukrainian forces are training outside Ukraine to use the HIMARS and are expected back in their country with the weapons by mid-July. Also to be sent are 18 U.S. coastal and river patrol boats.
The official said there is no evidence Russia has intercepted any of the steady flow of weapons into Ukraine from the U.S. and other nations. Russia has repeatedly threatened to strike, or actually claimed to have hit, such shipments.
US sending advanced rocket systems, other aid to Ukraine
The United States will send another $450 million in military aid to Ukraine, including some additional medium-range rocket systems, to help push back Russian progress in the war, officials announced Thursday.
The latest package includes four High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, which will double the number they have now. All four were prepositioned in Europe, and training on those systems has already begun with the Ukrainian troops who will use them, said Marine Corps Lt. Col. Anton Semelroth, a Pentagon spokesman. The first four HIMARS that the U.S. previously sent have already gone to the battlefield in Ukraine and are in the hands of troops there.
Read:European Union leaders set to grant Ukraine candidate status
According to the Pentagon, the aid also includes 18 tactical vehicles that are used to tow howitzers, so the weapons can be moved around the battlefield, as well as 18 coastal and riverine patrol boats, thousands of machine guns, grenade launchers and rounds of ammunition, and some other equipment and spare parts.
The new aid comes just a week after the U.S. announced it was sending $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine, and as the Russian military continues to slowly expand its control in the eastern Donbas region. Ukrainian leaders have persistently asked for the more advanced, precision rocket systems in order to better fight back against Russia.
The Russian military captured two villages in eastern Ukraine on Thursday and is fighting for control of a key highway in a campaign to cut supply lines and encircle frontline Ukrainian forces, according to British and Ukrainian military officials.
Russian forces have been bombarding the city of Sievierodonetsk for weeks with artillery and air raids, and fought the Ukrainian army house-to-house. The HIMARS gives Ukraine the ability to strike Russian forces and weapons from further away, making it less risky for Ukrainian troops. The systems are mounted on trucks, which carry a container with six precision-guided rockets that can travel about 45 miles (70 kilometers).
Read:‘It’s just hell there’: Russia still pounds eastern Ukraine
It took about three weeks to train Ukrainian troops on the first four HIMARS, before the systems were moved to the fight.
The aid is part of the $40 billion in security and economic assistance passed last month by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden. And it is the 13th package of military weapons and equipment committed to Ukraine since the war began.
Overall, since the war started in late February, the U.S. has committed about $6.1 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, including this latest package. The $450 million in equipment and weapons will be from drawdown authority, which means the Defense Department will take it all from its own stocks and ship it to Ukraine.
European Union leaders set to grant Ukraine candidate status
European Union leaders on Thursday are set to make Ukraine a candidate for joining the 27-nation bloc, a first step in a long and unpredictable journey toward full membership that could take many years to navigate.
Making Ukraine a contender now seems to be a done deal after national leaders were initially divided on how quickly to embrace the war-torn country’s request to become an EU member, which the Ukrainian government submitted only a few days after Russia invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24.
According to several diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity before a leaders’ summit in Brussels, Ukraine will receive the unanimous approval required for candidate status and the launch of eligibility negotiations.
“This is a decisive moment for the European Union,” European Council President Charles Michel, the EU summit chair, said, describing the question of Ukraine’s candidacy “a geopolitical choice that we will make today.”
Members of the European Parliament endorsed Ukraine’s bid hours before the summit started, voting to pass a resolution that calls EU heads of state and government to “move without delay” and “live up to their historical responsibility.”
The EU’s 27 nations have been united in backing Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion, adopting unprecedented economic sanctions against Moscow. However, leaders were at first split on how quickly the EU should move to accept Ukraine as a member, with the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark among the most skeptical.
Read: ‘It’s just hell there’: Russia still pounds eastern Ukraine
But Ukraine’s application got a boost last week when the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, gave its seal of approval based on the country’s answers to a questionnaire received in April and early May.
Ukraine received another shot in the arm when the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and Romania visited the country and vowed to back its candidacy.
In another indication of how important EU candidacy is for Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he spoke with 11 EU leaders on Wednesday, following calls with nine the day before. He said the meeting in Brussels will be an “historic session of the European Council.”
EU candidate status doesn’t give an automatic right to join the bloc, though, and doesn’t provide any security guarantees.
It’s unlikely that membership talks could start before next year, with the prospect of the war dragging on for a very long time adding to the uncertainty.
The beginning of the accession discussions depends on Ukraine meeting essential political and economic conditions.
To be admitted, potential newcomers need to demonstrate that they meet standards on democratic principles and absorb a gigantic corpus of rules. To help countries with candidate status, the bloc can provide technical and financial assistance throughout negotiations, but can also decide to revoke the status if the required reforms aren’t implemented.
European officials have said that Ukraine has already implemented about 70% of the EU rules, norms and standards, but they also have pointed to corruption and the need for deep political and economic reforms in the country.
Read: 100 days of Russia-Ukraine conflict – no quick end in sight
“Considerable efforts will be needed, especially in the fight against corruption and the establishment of an effective rule of law,” Belgian Prime minister Alexander De Croo said. “But I am convinced that it is precisely the (post-war) reconstruction of Ukraine that will provide opportunities to take important steps forward.”
Leaders will also debate Thursday a recommendation for the European Commission to grant Moldova — a tiny, non-NATO country that borders Ukraine — EU candidate status. A stalled process for moving Western Balkans countries on the membership path is also on the summit agenda.
EXPLAINER: What’s next after Russia reduced gas to Europe?
It’s not a summer heat wave that’s making European leaders and businesses sweat. It’s fear that Russia’s manipulation of natural gas supplies will lead to an economic and political crisis next winter. Or, in the worst case, even sooner.
Here are key things to know about the energy pressure game over the war in Ukraine:
WHAT’S HAPPENED?
Russia last week reduced gas supplies to five European Union countries, including Germany, the 27-country bloc’s biggest economy that heavily depends on Moscow’s gas to generate electricity and power industry.
Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom has cut supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline running under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany — Europe’s major natural gas pipeline — by 60%. Italy is seeing its supply cut by half. Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia also have seen reductions.
This comes on top of gas shutoffs to Poland, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France and the Netherlands in recent weeks. Those shutoffs were initially seen as less of a problem because Poland, for instance, was already phasing out Russian gas by year’s end, while others had alternative supplies.
Read: Russia, Ukraine reach agreement on gas transit to Europe
The latest cutbacks, however, hit countries that are major economies and use lots of Russian natural gas. Germany relies on Russia for 35% of its gas imports; Italy for 40%. Right now, gas supplies are enough for current needs.
WHY ARE THE REDUCTIONS A CONCERN?
Europe is scrambling to fill its underground gas storage ahead of the winter. Gas utilities operate on a regular rhythm, filling reserves over the summer — when, hopefully, they can buy gas cheaper — and then drawing it down over the winter as heating demand rises. The reductions will make refilling storage more expensive and difficult to accomplish.
The move also has brought closer the specter of a complete Russian gas shutoff that would make it impossible for Europe to get all the fuel it needs for the winter. Natural gas is used by several energy-intensive industries, such as glassmakers and steel manufacturers, that are already facing higher costs and dialing back use, helping to slow the European economy.
For electricity production, gas is the “swing” energy source that kicks in when renewables like wind and sun generate less power due to unpredictable weather and when electricity use spikes during cold or hot weather, like the heat wave last weekend that spurred record highs in Europe.
Right now, Europe’s underground storage caverns are 57% full. The European Commission’s latest proposal is for each country to reach 80% by Nov. 1, while Germany has set goals of 80% by Oct. 1 and 90% by Nov. 1.
Analysts at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels warn that “Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania will not meet the EU 80% target if they continue at the current speed,” while “Germany, Austria and Slovakia will find it very difficult to fill their storage facilities if gas flows from Russia are stopped.”
Read: European leaders blast cutoff of Russian gas as ‘blackmail’
WHAT’S BEING DONE?
The EU, which before the war got some 40% of its gas from Russia, has outlined plans to cut imports by two-thirds by year’s end and phase out Russian gas entirely by 2027. The bloc has already said it will block Russian coal starting in August and most Russian oil in six months.
The goal is to reduce the $850 million per day Russia has been reaping from oil and gas sales to Europe to prevent funding its war in Ukraine.
European governments and utilities have bought expensive liquefied natural gas, or LNG, from the United States that is delivered by ship, as opposed to gas that comes by pipeline from Russia and is typically cheaper. But the war has spiked energy prices, which are fueling record inflation in Europe and helping keep revenue high for Russia.
There are efforts to get more pipeline gas from Norway and Azerbaijan, while the accelerated rollout of renewable energy and conservation are expected to play smaller roles. Germany, which has no LNG import terminals, is bringing in four floating terminals, two of which should be operating this year.
Despite a focus on renewable energy, the crisis is pushing countries back to fossil fuels. Germany is rushing through legislation to restart coal-fired power plants as a temporary patch despite plans to exit coal entirely by 2030.
Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said it was “bitter” to turn to coal but that “in this situation, it is sheer necessity.” The government plans measures to incentivize industry and utilities to use less natural gas. Habeck also urged Germans to conserve energy.
“Gas use must be further reduced, so that more gas can go into storage, otherwise in winter it’s going to be tight,” he said.
The Dutch government says it will allow coal-fired power stations to operate at full capacity again to conserve natural gas that would otherwise be burned to produce electricity.
Europe’s gas security is fragile despite all those measures. Liquefied gas export terminals in energy-producing countries like the U.S. and Qatar are running at full speed, meaning Europe is bidding against Asia for finite supplies.
Plus, an explosion and fire at an export terminal in Freeport, Texas, took a fifth of U.S. export capacity offline for months sending another shudder through the gas market. Most of the terminal’s exports were going to Europe, Rystad Energy said.
“The situation on the European natural gas market is escalating further,” commodities analyst Carsten Fritsch at Commerzbank Research said, pointing to the explosion and a scheduled maintenance shutdown of Nord Stream 1 that will mean no gas flowing through the pipeline July 11-21. “The urgently needed buildup of gas stocks for the winter months could therefore falter” and prices will likely go even higher.
WHAT’S RUSSIA’S GAME?
Gazprom says it had to cut back the flows to Europe through Nord Stream 1 because Western sanctions stranded a key piece of equipment in Canada, where it had been taken for maintenance. European governments aren’t buying it and call the gas reductions political.
Gazprom’s steps have sent natural gas prices sharply higher after they had fallen in the wake of the winter heating season. That increases revenue for Russia at a time when it’s under pressure from Western economic sanctions and adds to stress on Europe as it gives Ukraine political and military support.
Gazprom’s moves also can be seen as pushback against Western sanctions and as a deterrent to imposing further penalties. And bigger gas users have been put on notice that, just like smaller ones, they are not exempt from a possible cutoff.
Germany and Italy saw their supplies cut around the time their leaders joined French President Emmanuel Macron in Kyiv to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and back EU candidate status for Ukraine.
“Cutting Nord Stream 1 flows to Europe seems clearly an effort by Putin to stall Europe’s efforts to build gas stocks through the summer, ready presumably for another installment in the European energy wars this winter,” said Tim Ash, senior emerging markets sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management.
Read: Russia confirms halt of gas supply to Finland
WILL EUROPEANS SEE THE LIGHTS GO OUT OR FREEZE THIS WINTER?
That is unlikely because EU law mandates that governments ration gas supplies to industry so that homes, schools and hospitals are spared. Countries that run short of gas also can ask for help from others that may be in better shape, though that depends on adequate pipeline connections.
The downside of rationing would be industrial cutbacks and shutdowns that could cost jobs and growth in an economy already squeezed by high inflation and fears of a global slowdown as central banks raise interest rates.
Meanwhile, a complete cutoff could send gas prices soaring toward their record of 206 euros ($217) per megawatt hour from March 7, further fueling inflation. At the start of 2021, before Russia massed troops on the border with Ukraine, spot gas cost about 19 euros per megawatt hour.
EU Commission proposes cutting pesticides by half by 2030
The European Union’s executive arm on Wednesday proposed setting legally binding targets to reduce the use of chemical pesticides by 50% by 2030 and a ban on all pesticide use in areas such public parks, playgrounds and schools.
The European Commission said the current rules limiting the use of pesticides were too weak and have not been applied consistently across the EU.
A study by the group Pesticide Action Network Europe last month said the contamination of fruit and vegetables produced in the European Union with the most toxic pesticides has substantially increased over the past decade.
To facilitate the transition from chemical pesticides to alternative methods, farmers would be able to use EU funds to cover the cost of the new requirements for five years, the European Commission said.
The commission also wants to introduce a law aimed at repairing environmental damage by 2050.
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“The aim is to cover at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030 with nature restoration measures, and eventually extend these to all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050,” the commission said.
The proposed measure includes plans to stop the decline of pollinators by 2030 and then increase their populations. In recent years, there’s been an alarming drop in bee populations, which has stoked fears of an ensuing impact on crop production.
According to recent figures released by the European Parliament, about 84% of crop species and 78% of wildflowers across the EU depend to some extent on pollination, and almost 15 billion euros ($16.5 billion) of the bloc’s annual agricultural output “is directly attributed to insect pollinators.”
The commission’s proposals need to be endorsed by EU lawmakers and member countries.
“When we restore nature, we allow it to continue providing clean air, water, and food, and we enable it to shield us from the worst of the climate crisis,” said commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, who oversees the European Green Deal. “Reducing pesticide use likewise helps nature recover, and protects the humans who work with these chemicals.”
‘It’s just hell there’: Russia still pounds eastern Ukraine
Russia’s military machine persevered in its ferocious effort to grind down Ukraine’s defenses Monday, as the war’s consequences for food and fuel supplies increasingly weighed on minds around the globe after warnings that the fighting could go on for years.
Read: 100 days of Russia-Ukraine conflict – no quick end in sight
In Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, which in recent weeks has become the focal point of Moscow’s attempt to impose its will on its neighbor, battles raged for the control of multiple villages, the local governor said.
The villages are around Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, two cities in the Luhansk region yet to be captured by the Russians, according to Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai.
Russian shelling and airstrikes on the industrial outskirts of Sievierodonetsk have intensified, he said.
Haidai told The Associated Press on Monday that the situation in Sievierodonetsk was “very difficult,” with the Ukrainian forces maintaining control over just one area — the Azot chemical plant, where a number of Ukrainian fighters, along with about 500 civilians, are taking shelter.
The Russians keep deploying additional troops and equipment in the area, he said.
“It’s just hell there. Everything is engulfed in fire, the shelling doesn’t stop even for an hour,” Haidai said in written comments.
Only a fraction of 100,000 people who used to live in Sievierodonetsk before the war remain in the city, with no electricity, communications, food or medicine.
Even so, Haidai said, the staunch Ukrainian resistance is preventing Moscow from deploying its resources to other parts of the country.
The British defense ministry noted that the war is not going all Russia’s way, despite its superior military assets.
Russian ground troops are “exhausted,” the defense ministry said in an intelligence report Monday. It blamed poor air support for Russia’s difficulty in making swifter progress on the ground.
Read: Russia takes small cities, aims to widen east Ukraine battle
Across the world, drivers are rethinking their habits and personal finances amid surging prices for gasoline and diesel, fueled by Russia’s war in Ukraine as well as the global rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic. Energy prices are a key driver of inflation that is rising worldwide and making the cost of living more expensive.
The European Union’s top diplomats gathered in Luxembourg on Monday for talks focused on Ukraine and food security.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called on Russia to lift its blockades of Ukrainian ports to help deliver the millions of tons of grain waiting to be exported.
“I hope — more than hope, I am sure — that the United Nations will at the end reach an agreement,” Borrell said. “It is unconceivable, one cannot imagine that millions of tons of wheat remain blocked in Ukraine while in the rest of the world, people are suffering (from) hunger. This is a real war crime ... You cannot use the hunger of people as a weapon of war.”
Financial help for children displaced by the war in Ukraine was due to come from an unlikely quarter later Monday, when Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov looked to auction off his Nobel Peace Prize medal in New York.
Muratov was awarded the gold medal in October 2021. He helped found the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and was the publication’s editor-in-chief when it shut down in March amid the Kremlin’s clampdown on journalists and public dissent in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Muratov had already announced he was donating to charity the $500,000 cash award that came with the prize. The proceeds will go directly to UNICEF in its efforts to help children displaced by the war in Ukraine.
In other developments Monday:
— A Russian governor said Ukrainian shelling of a Russian village near the border with Ukraine wounded one person. A power station was hit, leaving parts of the village without electricity, according to Alexander Bogomaz, governor of the Bryansk region.
— The Russian military said it hit an airfield in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region with a missile, destroying two Bayraktar drones and a drone control station. Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konahsenkov said a high-precision Oniks missile hit an Artsyz airfield on the Odesa region. Earlier on Monday, the Ukrainian military said its air defense system deterred two airstrikes on the Odesa region, destroying the incoming missiles. The contradicting reports couldn’t be immediately reconciled.