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Defense leaders meet amid dissent over tanks for Ukraine
Defense leaders are gathering at Ramstein Air Base in Germany Friday to hammer out future military aid to Ukraine, amid ongoing dissent over who will provide the battle tanks that Ukrainian leaders say they desperately need to recapture territory from Russia.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are expected to discuss the latest massive package of aid the U.S. is sending — which totals $2.5 billion and includes Stryker armored vehicles for the first time.
But broader hesitation over sending tanks to Ukraine has roiled the coalition, as Germany facees mounting pressure to supply Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv, or at least clear the way for others — such as Poland — to deliver German-made Leopards from their own stock.
The U.S. has also declined, at least so far, to provide M1 Abrams tanks, citing the extensive and complex maintenance and logistical challenges with the high-tech vehicle. The U.S. believes it would be more productive to send Leopards since many allies have them and Ukrainian troops would only have to get trained on that one, versus needing far more training on the more difficult Abrams.
The United Kingdom announced last week that it will send Challenger 2 tanks, and has said it's a natural progression of military aid to Ukraine.
At a Pentagon briefing Thursday, spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said the Leopard and Challenger aren’t comparable to the Abrams because the Abrams is much harder to maintain and wouldn’t be a good fit.
“It’s more of a sustainment issue. I mean, this is a tank that requires jet fuel, whereas the Leopard and the Challenger, it’s a different engine.” The Leopard and Challenger are “a little bit easier to maintain,” Singh said. “They can maneuver across large portions of territory before they need to refuel. The maintenance and the high cost that it would take to maintain an Abrams — it just doesn’t make sense to provide that to the Ukrainians at this moment.”
Read more: NATO vows to aid Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’
The package of aid being sent by the U.S. includes eight Avenger air defense systems, 350 Humvees, 53 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, more than 100,000 rounds of artillery ammunition and rockets, and missiles for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. It was announced Thursday by the Pentagon.
Germany’s new defense minister, Boris Pistorius, who took office just an hour before he met with Austin on Thursday, is among those likely to attend the Ramstein meeting. Referring to the tanks, he told ARD television he was “pretty sure we will get a decision on this in the coming days, but I can’t yet tell you today how it will look.”
It wasn't clear if the tank issue came up during his initial session with Austin. During brief comments before the meeting began, Austin said, "we’ll renew our united commitment to support Ukraine’s self-defense for the long haul,” but didn’t mention any specific new equipment.
Nearly 11 months into the Russian invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed frustration about not obtaining enough weaponry from the Western allies.
Speaking by video link on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Zelenskyy offered a veiled critique of major supporters such as Germany and the U.S. that have hesitated about sending tanks.
Bemoaning a “lack of specific weaponry,” he said, through an interpreter, “There are times where we shouldn’t hesitate or we shouldn’t compare when someone says, ‘I will give tanks if someone else will also share his tanks.’”
German officials have conveyed their hesitancy to allow allies to give Leopards unless the U.S. also sends Ukraine the Abrams, according to a U.S. official who wasn’t authorized to comment and spoke on condition of anonymity. But there have been no signs that the U.S. decision to not send Abrams is shifting.
Read more: Deadly missile strike adds to Ukraine war fears in Poland
Milley told reporters traveling with him this week that complex new U.S. training of Ukrainian troops, combined with an array of new weapons, artillery, armored vehicles heading to Ukraine, will be key to helping the country’s forces take back territory that has been captured by Russia in the nearly 11-month-old war.
The goal, he said, is to deliver needed weapons and equipment to Ukraine so the newly trained forces will be able to use it “sometime before the spring rains show up. That would be ideal.”
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl also said this week that a new phase of the war is shaping up as Russia gets more deeply entrenched, and that Ukraine will need mechanized infantry to break through those lines.
The influx of new weapons, tanks and armored carriers comes as Ukraine faces intense combat in eastern Ukraine around the city of Bakhmut and the nearby salt mining town of Soledar. The battles are expected to intensify in the spring.
Prince Harry's memoir 'Spare' sells 3.2M copies in 1st week
Prince Harry's “Spare” sold more than 3.2 million copies worldwide after just one week of publication and will likely rank among the bestselling memoirs of all time.
Penguin Random House announced Thursday that Prince Harry's headline-making memoir sold 1.6 million copies in the U.S. alone. It's a number comparable to first week sales for blockbusters such as former President Barack Obama's “A Promised Land” and former first lady Michelle Obama's “Becoming," which has sold more than 17 million copies since coming out in 2018.
Read more: Memoir is about saving royals from themselves: Prince Harry
The British publisher announced last week that “Spare” sold 400,000 copies in the United Kingdom in all formats — hardback, e-book and audio — on its first day.
The total sales announced for “Spare” are for print, audio and digital editions in the major English-language markets: the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia. The book has come out in 15 other languages, and editions in 10 additional languages are expected.
“Spare” may set records for nonfiction, but no book in memory approaches the pace of the final Harry Potter novel, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which in 2007 sold more than 10 million copies in its first 24 hours.
Read more: Harry’s memoir, detailing toxic relationship between the monarchy and press, could accelerate change
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, worked on his book with American novelist J.R. Moehringer, who also helped write Andre Agassi's acclaimed “Open" and is the author of “The Tender Bar," a memoir adapted by George Clooney into a movie starring Ben Affleck.
Cyprus protests portrayal as safe haven for Russian money
Cyprus has frozen about 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in Russian-linked deposits and assets in accordance with European Union sanctions over the war in Ukraine, the island nation's finance minister said Thursday.
Constantinos Petrides also told a press conference that Russian deposits in Cypriot banks have fallen from a stunning 40% of the total before the 2013 financial crisis — when big depositors were forced to take a cut on their money under a so-called "bail-in" deal — to 3.8%.
Read more: Death toll from Russian strike reaches 45, including 6 children
He was responding to a report this week in the CBS 60 Minutes show, which suggested Cyprus still hosts a maze of shell companies concealing assets of sanctioned Russians, and that such assets Cyprus has frozen are a fraction of the total.
“We don’t live in an unsupervised environment, especially a European Union member country with such a sinful past,” Petrides said. He was referring to lax banking and financial services supervision that earned Cyprus much criticism as a money-laundering heaven.
Petrides added that much had been “corrected” following three years of strict supervision by the International Monetary Fund, and European creditors as part of a multibillion euro bailout program following the 2013 crisis.
The minister said Russian deposits in Cypriot banks are less than 1 billion euros ($1.08 billion), about a fifth of what he said the TV report claimed was deposited by Russians last year.
Read more: Rifts in Russian military command seen amid Ukraine fighting
Under EU sanctions adopted since last year's Russian invasion of Ukraine, Petrides said, Cypriot authorities have frozen 105 million euros in Russian-linked bank deposits, 720 million euros in funds managed by Cyprus-registered investment companies and 719 million euros in assets held by administrative services.
He also said tougher vetting for money laundering in recent years has made it harder to open a bank account in Cyprus and resulted in the closure of 80,000 bank accounts, while thousands more have been prevented from being opened.
Petrides said the names of sanctioned individuals cannot be disclosed.
Kyiv helicopter crash kills 18, including Ukraine’s interior minister, his two children
A helicopter crash in a Kyiv suburb Wednesday killed 18 people, including Ukraine’s interior minister and three children, Ukrainian authorities said.
Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, his deputy Yevhen Yenin and State Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Yurii Lubkovych were among those killed, according to Ihor Klymenko, chief of Ukraine’s National Police. Monastyrskyi is the most senior Ukrainian official to have died since the start of the war with Russia almost 11 months ago.
Nine of those killed were aboard the emergency services helicopter that crashed in Brovary, an eastern suburb of the Ukrainian capital, Klymenko said.
Kyiv Regional Governor Oleksii Kuleba said three children were also killed. Earlier, officials and media reports said the helicopter crashed near a kindergarten.
Read more: Death toll from Russian strike reaches 45, including 6 children
There was no immediate word on whether the crash was an accident or a result of the war with Russia. No fighting has been reported recently in the Kyiv area.
A total of 29 people were injured, including 15 children, the regional governor said.
Ukraine first lady Olena Zelenska daubed teary eyes and pinched her nose in emotion minutes before attending a World Economic Forum session in Davos, Switzerland.
Forum President Borge Brende requested 15 seconds of silence after opening the session to honor the Ukrainian officials killed in the crash.
Death toll from Russian strike reaches 45, including 6 children
The death toll from the Ukraine war’s deadliest attack on civilians at one location since last spring reached 45 at an apartment building a Russian missile blasted in the southeastern city of Dnipro, officials said Tuesday.
Those killed in the Saturday afternoon strike included six children, with 79 people injured, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram messaging app. The toll included two dozen people initially listed as missing at the multistory building, which housed about 1,700, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office.
Emergency crews cleared some 9 metric tons (9.9 tons) of rubble during a non-stop search and rescue operation, the Dnipro City Council said. About 400 people lost their homes, with 72 apartments completely ruined and another 236 damaged beyond repair, it added.
People converged at the site Tuesday to lay flowers, light candles and bring plush toys. For a third day in a row, Dnipro resident Oleksandr Pohorielov came to mourn.
Read more: Death toll in Russian strike on Ukrainian building up to 35
“It’s like coming to the cemetery to your family. It’s a memory, to say a proper goodbye. To remain a human after all,” he explained as an intense reek of burning emanated from the building’s ruins.
Volunteers helped Nadiia Yaroshenko’s son escape from their third floor apartment on a makeshift ladder but their white cat Beliash refused to leave. He remains in his favorite place at a window that is now blown out, Yaroshenko said, desperately trying to see him from the courtyard with a flashlight.
“We cannot reach the apartment even with rescuers because the apartment is in an emergency and dangerous condition. Walls could collapse there every minute,” she said.
The latest deadly Russian strike on a civilian target in the almost 11-month wa r triggered outrage. It also prompted the surprise resignation on Tuesday of a Ukrainian presidential adviser who had said the Russian missile exploded and fell after the Ukrainian air defense system shot it down, a version that would take some of the blame off the Kremlin's forces.
Oleksii Arestovych's comments in a Saturday interview caused an outcry. He said as he quit that his remarks were “a fundamental mistake.” Ukraine’s air force had stressed that the country's military did not have a system that could down Russia's Kh-22 supersonic missiles, the type that hit the apartment building.
Zelenskyy vowed “to ensure that all Russian murderers, everyone who gives and executes orders on missile terror against our people, face legal sentences. And to ensure that they serve their punishment.”
The British Defense Ministry said Tuesday that the weekend barrage of long-range missiles, the first of its kind in two weeks, targeted Ukraine’s power grid.
The Kh-22 was designed during Soviet times to strike enemy ships. It can also be used against ground targets, but with much less precision. Observers have said that Russia has increasingly used older weapons, including those intended for other purposes, to attack targets in Ukraine in what could be a sign of the depletion of Russian stockpiles of modern precision weapons. The U.K. ministry noted that the Kh-22 “is notoriously inaccurate when used against ground targets as its radar guidance system is poor at differentiating targets in urban areas,” suggesting that might have been a factor in the deaths in the Dnipro.
Similar missiles were used in other incidents that caused high civilian casualties, it said, including a strike on a shopping mall in Ukraine’s central city of Kremenchuk in June that officials said killed more than 20 people.
The deadliest attack involving civilians before Saturday was an April 9 strike on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk that left at least 52 people dead, according to The Associated Press-Frontline War Crimes Watch project.
In Moscow, a makeshift memorial to the Dnipro attack’s victims appeared in front of an apartment building, an unusual act in Russia, where even a hint of criticism of the government’s “special military operation” in Ukraine is often suppressed. Amid snow, flowers and toy stuffed animals were laid at the monument of prominent Ukrainian writer Lesya Ukrainka, along with a photo of the destroyed building and a sign that read in Russian: “Dnipro. 14.01.2023.”
Attacks on civilians have helped stiffen international support for Ukraine as it battles to fend off the Kremlin’s invasion. The winter has brought a slowdown in fighting, but military analysts say a new push by both sides is likely once the weather improves.
Underscoring Russia’s growing military needs, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that the country’s military would increase the number of troops from 1.15 million to 1.5 million in the coming years.
As part of the buildup, the military will form an army corps in the northwestern region of Karelia, near Finland, as well as three new motorized infantry and two airborne divisions. The military will also beef up seven motorized infantry brigades into divisions.
On the side of Ukraine, the top U.S. military officer, Army Gen. Mark Milley, traveled to the Ukraine-Poland border on Tuesday to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart for the first time. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, in southeastern Poland. On Monday, Milley visited troops from Ukraine training at a military base in Germany under U.S. commanders.
Read more: Ukraine strike deaths hit 40; Russia seen preparing long war
Aid is also on the way from the Netherlands. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Tuesday in Washington that his country plans to “join” the U.S. and Germany’s efforts to train and arm Ukraine with advanced Patriot missile defense systems.
It remains unclear if the Dutch will ultimately send Patriot systems, although Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Tuesday that the Netherlands had agreed to send Ukraine a battery of the equipment. “So, there are now three guaranteed batteries. But this is only the beginning. We are working on new solutions to strengthen our air defense,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukrainian troops are at Oklahoma’s Fort Sill Army base learning how to operate and maintain the Patriot, the most advanced surface-to-air missile system the West has pledged to provide to Ukraine to help repel Russian aerial attacks.
Ukraine’s first lady was doing her part Tuesday to help. She pressed world leaders and corporate executives at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Switzerland to exercise their influence against a Russian invasion she said is leaving children dying and the world struggling with food insecurity.
As the first anniversary of the war nears, Olena Zelenska said parents in Ukraine are in tears watching doctors trying to save their children, farmers are afraid to return to their fields filled with mines and “we cannot allow a new Chernobyl to happen,” referring to the 1986 nuclear power plant disaster.
“What you all have in common is that you are genuinely influential,” Zelenska told attendees. “But there is something that separates you, namely that not all of you use this influence, or sometimes use it in a way that separates you even more.”
Meanwhile, the head of the U.N. nuclear agency is visiting several of Ukraine’s four nuclear power plants this week to oversee the establishment of a permanent presence of inspectors at each of them to oversee operations and ensure safety.
Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tuesday the missions “will make a very real difference through supporting the Ukrainian operators and regulator in fulfilling their national responsibility of ensuring nuclear safety and security.”
Netherlands says it will send Patriot assistance to Ukraine
Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte during a meeting with President Joe Biden on Tuesday said that the Netherlands plans to "join” the U.S. and Germany's efforts to train and arm Ukraine with advanced Patriot defense systems.
Rutte in a brief appearance with Biden did not detail whether the Dutch are expected to send Patriot systems, take part in training or offer some other assistance related to deployment of Patriots. Rutte said he also spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday about the Netherland’s efforts.
“We have the intention to join what you are doing with Germany on the Patriot project," Rutte said. "I think that it’s important we join that and I discussed it also this morning with Olaf Scholz of Germany.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed that Biden and Rutte discussed ongoing efforts with Patriots, but referred questions about the Netherlands' intentions to the Dutch government, which did not immediately provide clarity.
Rutte spoke about the potential assistance as Ukrainian troops arrived at Oklahoma’s Fort Sill Army base to begin training on operating and maintaining the Patriot missile defense system. The Patriot is the most advanced surface-to-air missile system the West has provided to Ukraine to help repel Russian aerial attacks.
“Training has begun," Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said. "As we’ve talked about before, that training will last for several months, and train upwards of 90 to 100 Ukrainians on use of the Patriot missile system.”
Biden was also looking to use Tuesday's meeting with Rutte to nudge the Netherlands to further limit China’s access to advanced semiconductors with export restrictions.
Read more: Ukraine hails US military aid as cease-fire said to falter
The Biden administration has been trying to get the Netherlands on the same page since the U.S. Commerce Department announced in October new export controls aimed at China. The restrictions are intended to limit China’s ability to access advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers, and make advanced semiconductors.
“Together we’re working on how to keep a free and open Indo Pacific, and quite frankly the challenges of China," Biden said at the start of their meeting.
Administration officials have reasoned that the export restrictions are necessary because China can use semiconductors to create advanced military systems including weapons of mass destruction; commit human rights abuses; and improve the speed and accuracy of its military decision making, planning and logistics.
Slowing Beijing's access, however, will take plenty of help from allies for the U.S. export controls to have maximum impact. The Netherlands-based tech giant ASML is a major manufacturer of lithography machines that design and produce semiconductors. China is one of ASML's biggest clients.
CEO Peter Wennink played down the impact of the U.S. export control regulations soon after the administration unveiled them last fall. ASML said last year that it expected company-wide 2022 sales to be around 21 billion euros.
The U.S. has also been in talks with Japan on tougher export restrictions to limit the sale of semiconductor manufacturing technology to China. Rutte's visit comes after Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida last week for talks.
The U.S. and Japan, in a joint statement following the Oval Office meeting, said the two sides agreed to “sharpen our shared edge on economic security, including protection and promotion of critical and emerging technologies.”
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin last week called on Japan and the Netherlands to resist U.S. pressure.
“We hope the relevant countries will do the right thing and work together to uphold the multilateral trade regime and safeguard the stability of the global industrial and supply chains,” he said. “This will also serve to protect their own long-term interests.”
Rutte spoke by phone on Monday with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about Saturday's Russian missile strike on an apartment building in Dnipro — one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in the nearly 11-month-old war. Authorities said the death toll from the strike rose to 40 and that 30 people remained missing Monday.
“These are horrible pictures and I think it strengthens even more our resolve to stay with Ukraine,” Rutte told reporters at the start of his meeting with Biden.
Biden praised Netherlands as one of the United States “strongest” allies, one that's proven “very, very stalwart” in its support for Ukraine since Russia launched in its invasion in February. The Netherlands has committed about $2.7 billion (2.5 billion euros) in support for Ukraine this year. The money will be spent on military equipment, humanitarian and diplomatic efforts.
Read more: US to send $3.75B in military aid to Ukraine, its neighbors
The Netherlands providing Ukraine with Patriot assistance — whether the weapons systems, missiles or training — would be a major move for the NATO ally.
The training of Ukraine forces now underway in Oklahoma is to focus, in part, on how to maintain the battery that will be sent by the U.S. to Ukraine once training is complete. Each system has multiple components, including a phased array radar, a control station, computers and generators, and typically requires about 90 soldiers to operate and maintain, however only three soldiers are needed to actually fire it, according to the Army.
Some of the ongoing maintenance support, once the Patriot is on the battlefield, will be done remotely, Ryder said.
The Dutch prime minister, for his part, praised Biden for leading the international effort to back Ukraine.
“I am convinced history will judge in 2022 if the United States had not stepped up like you did things would have been very different,” Rutte said.
The two leaders were also to discuss plans for the Summit for Democracy, which they are co-hosting with Costa Rica, South Korea and Zambia in late March.
Biden hosted the inaugural democracy summit in December 2021, which the administration billed as the start of a global conversation about how best to halt the backsliding of democracy.
Biden is the third U.S. president visited by Rutte, the Netherlands’ longest-serving prime minister. He earlier met with Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
Child’s body found in Dnipro building, strike deaths hit 41
The death toll from a weekend Russian missile strike on an apartment building in southeastern Ukraine climbed to 41 on Tuesday after the body of a child was pulled from the rubble, officials said, in what was the deadliest attack of the war on civilians at one location since the spring.
Another 25 residents of the building city of Dnipro were still missing, according to Valentyn Reznichenko, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, whose capital is Dnipro.
Emergency crews have cleared about 90% of the rubble during a 63-hour search since the Saturday afternoon strike, he said.
Read more: Top US general visits training site for Ukrainian soldiers
There are 79 wounded people, he said, with 28 of them hospitalized and 10 in serious condition. About 1,700 people lived in the multistory building. Some people were trapped on upper floors, with some signaling for help with lights on their cellphones.
The latest deadly Russian strike on a civilian target in the almost 11-month war triggered outrage. It also prompted the surprise resignation on Tuesday of a Ukrainian presidential adviser who said the Russian missile was shot down by the Ukrainian air defense system and exploded when it fell — a version that would take some of the blame off the Kremlin's forces.
Oleksii Arestovich's comments in an interview Saturday night caused an outcry. He said as he quit that his remarks were “a fundamental mistake.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to bring those responsible for the strike to justice, saying it's “a fundamental task” for Ukraine and its Western allies.
“This strike at Dnipro, as well as other similar strikes, falls, in particular, under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court,” he said in a video address late Monday.
“And we will use all available opportunities — both national and international — to ensure that all Russian murderers, everyone who gives and executes orders on missile terror against our people, face legal sentences. And to ensure that they serve their punishment,” he said.
The U.K. Defense Ministry said Tuesday that the weekend barrage of long-range missiles, the first of its kind in two weeks, targeted Ukraine’s power grid.
But the ministry identified the missile that slammed into the Dnipro apartment building as an anti-ship missile that “is notoriously inaccurate when used against ground targets as its radar guidance system is poor at differentiating targets in urban areas.”
Similar missiles were used in other incidents that caused high civilian casualties, it said, including a strike on a shopping mall in Ukraine’s central city of Kremenchuk last June.
Such incidents have helped stiffen international support for Ukraine as it battles to fend off the Kremlin’s invasion. The winter has brought a slowdown in fighting, but military analysts say a new push by both sides is likely once the weather improves.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that the country's military would increase its readiness from the current 1.15 million to 1.5 million in coming years.
Read more: Ukraine strike deaths hit 40; Russia seen preparing long war
As part of the buildup, the military will form an army corps in the northwestern region of Karelia, near Finland, as well as three new motorized infantry and two airborne divisions. The military will also beef up seven existing motorized infantry brigades into divisions.
That announcement came a day after U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and other U.S. officials met in Kyiv with Zelenskyy. They reiterated Washington's “strong and steadfast commitment to Ukraine,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.
U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Monday visited Ukraine troops who are training at a military base in Germany under U.S. commanders.
More than 600 Ukrainian troops began the expanded training program at the camp the previous day.
“This is not a run of the mill rotation,” Milley told commanders. “This is one of those moments in time where if you want to make a difference, this is it.”
Ukraine’s first lady was also helping to cement Western support and acquire more foreign weapons, as she was scheduled to give a rare international address at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in the Swiss town of Davos.
Meanwhile, the head of the U.N. nuclear agency on Monday visited the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant and announced the organization’s permanent presence there to oversee operations and ensure safety.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, tweeted late Monday that the agency’s flag was flying over the power plant.
“We are here to stay to help ensure nuclear safety (and) security during ongoing conflict,” Grossi said, adding that “soon, IAEA will be permanently present” at all of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.
Ukraine has a total of four nuclear power plants with 16 reactors. One of them, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, was taken over by Russian forces in the first months of the war and remains under their control.
Top US general visits training site for Ukrainian soldiers
Monday was just Day Two for Ukrainian soldiers at the U.S. military’s new training program, but the message was coming through loud and clear.
These are urgent times. And the lessons they will get in the next five weeks on weapons, armored vehicles and more sophisticated combat techniques are critical as they prepare to defend their country against the Russian invasion.
“This is not a run of the mill rotation,” U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday afternoon as he met with commanders. “This is one of those moments in time where if you want to make a difference, this is it.”
Milley, who visited the sprawling Grafenwoehr training area to get his first look at the new, so-called combined arms instruction, has said it will better prepare Ukrainian troops to launch an offensive or counter any surge in Russian attacks.
Read more: Ukraine building suffers deadliest civilian attack in months
He spent a bit less than two hours at “Camp Kherson” — a section of the base named after a city in Ukraine where Ukrainian troops scored a key victory against Russia last year. More than 600 Ukrainian troops began the expanded training program at the camp just a day before Milley arrived.
For the first time since the war began nearly a year ago, reporters were given broad access to watch various portions of the training. The reporters were allowed to follow Milley and watch his interactions with Ukrainian and U.S. troops and commanders, but were not allowed to report specific conversations with the Ukraine forces or take any photos or video. The restrictions reflect ongoing U.S. concerns about escalating Russian anger over the West’s involvement in the war or triggering a wider conflict.
The U.S. has conducted training at Grafenwoehr for years, including for allied forces in Europe. But limited instruction for Ukrainian forces began last year, shortly after the Russian invasion. At the time it was focused specifically on various weapons systems that were being supplied by the U.S., such as the howitzer.
Last month, the Pentagon announced it would expand the training in an effort to hone the skills of the Ukrainian forces. The five-week course will teach them to effectively move and coordinate their company- and battalion-size units in battle, using combined artillery, armor and ground forces.
It will include classroom instruction and field work that will begin with small squads and gradually grow to involve larger units. It will culminate with a more complex combat exercise bringing an entire battalion and a headquarters unit together.
The training at Grafenwoehr is being done by the 7th Army Training Command.
Speaking to two reporters traveling with him to Europe on Sunday, Milley said the complex training — combined with an array of new weapons, artillery, tanks and other vehicles heading to Ukraine — will be key to helping the country’s forces take back territory that has been captured by Russia in the nearly 11-month-old war.
Read more: US military's expanded combat training for Ukrainian forces begins in Germany
On Monday, as he walked through the training area, Milley bantered with troops, asking them about their combat experience and talking to them about their mission.
“The urgency was clear,” said Army Col. Dave Butler, Milley's spokesman. “These soldiers are going off to defend their country in combat.”
Milley said Sunday that the goal is for incoming weapons and equipment to be delivered to Ukraine so the newly trained forces will be able to use it “sometime before the spring rains show up. That would be ideal.”
The new instruction comes as Western analysts point to signs that the Kremlin is digging in for a drawn-out war, and say the Russian military command is preparing for an expanded mobilization effort.
Across the battlefield, Ukrainian forces face fierce fighting in the eastern Donetsk province, where the Russian military has claimed it has control of the small salt-mining town of Soledar. Ukraine asserts that its troops are still fighting, but if Moscow’s troops take control of Soledar it would allow them to inch closer to the bigger city of Bakhmut, where fighting has raged for months.
Russia also launched a widespread barrage of missile strikes over the weekend, including in Kyiv, the northeastern city of Kharkiv and the southeastern city of Dnipro, where the death toll in one apartment building rose to 40.
Ukraine strike deaths hit 40; Russia seen preparing long war
Ukrainian emergency crews on Monday sifted through what was left of a Dnipro apartment building destroyed by a Russian missile, placing bodies from one of the war’s deadliest single attacks in months in black bags and gingerly carrying them across steep piles of rubble.
Authorities said the death toll from Saturday’s strike rose to 40 and that 30 people remained missing Monday. Tall cranes swung across the jagged gaps in a row of residential towers, the engines growling as residents of one of Ukraine’s largest cities watched largely in silence under a gray sky.
About 1,700 people lived in the multistory building, and search and rescue crews have worked nonstop since the missile strike to locate victims and survivors in the wreckage. The regional administration said 39 people have been rescued and at least 75 were wounded.
The reported death toll put it among the deadliest attacks on Ukrainian civilians since before the summer, according to The Associated Press-Frontline War Crimes Watch project. Residents said the apartment tower did not house any military facilities.
Oleksander Anyskevych said he was in his apartment when the missile struck.
“Boom — and that’s it. We saw that we were alive and that’s all,” Anyskevych said Monday as he went to the site to see his wrecked apartment.
He told The Associated Press that he knew people who died under the rubble. One of his son’s classmates lost her parents.
Read more: Death toll in Russian strike on Ukrainian building up to 35
Dnipro residents took flowers, candles and toys to the ruins.
“All of us could be in that place,” local resident Iryna Skrypnyk said.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, called the strike, and others like it, “inhumane aggression” because it directly targeted civilians. “There will be no impunity for these crimes,” he said in a tweet Sunday.
Asked about the strike Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian military doesn’t target residential buildings and suggested the Dnipro building was hit as a result of Ukrainian air defense actions.
The strike on the building came amid a wider barrage of Russian cruise missiles across Ukraine. The Ukrainian military said Sunday that it did not have the means to intercept the type of Russian missile that hit the residential building in Dnipro.
Fierce fighting continued to rage Monday in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, where military analysts have said both sides are likely suffering heavy troop casualties. No independent verification of developments was possible.
Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk province make up the Donbas, an expansive industrial region bordering Russia that Russian President Vladimir Putin identified as a focus from the war’s outset. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Kyiv’s forces there since 2014.
The Russian and Belarusian air forces began a joint exercise Monday in Belarus, which borders Ukraine and served as a staging ground for Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.The drills are set to run through Feb. 1, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said. Russia has sent its warplanes to Belarus for the drills.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, reported signs of the Kremlin taking steps to turn its Ukraine invasion into “a major conventional war” after months of embarrassing military reversals.
What Moscow calls “a special military operation” aimed to capture the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, within weeks and to install a Kremlin-friendly regime there, but Russian forces ultimately withdrew from around Kyiv, the think tank said. Then came a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in recent months before the onset of winter slowed military advances.
“The Kremlin is likely preparing to conduct a decisive strategic action in the next six months intended to regain the initiative and end Ukraine’s current string of operational successes,” the Institute for the Study of War said in a report late Sunday.
It noted reports indicating the Russian military command was in “serious preparations” for an expanded mobilization effort, conserving mobilized personnel for future use, while seeking to boost military industrial production and reshuffling its command structure.
That means Ukraine’s Western allies “will need to continue supporting Ukraine in the long run,” the think tank said.
Read more: Deaths from strike on Ukraine apartment building rise to 29
NATO member nations have sought in recent days to reassure Ukraine that they will stay the course. The United Kingdom has pledged tanks and the U.S. military’s new, expanded combat training of Ukrainian forces began in Germany on Sunday.
Poland’s prime minister urged the German government to supply a wide range of weapons to Kyiv and voiced hope that Berlin would soon approve a transfer of battle tanks.
Other developments on Monday:
— Russian forces shelled the city of Kherson and the Kherson region, killing three people and wounding 14 others over the last 24 hours, regional Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych said. In the city of Kherson, the shelling damaged a hospital, a children disability center, a shipyard, critical infrastructure and apartment buildings.
— Russian forces struck the city of Zaporizhzhia, damaging industrial infrastructure and wounding five people, two of them children, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office Kyrylo Tymoshenko reported.
— Russian air defenses downed 10 drones Monday over the Black Sea near the port of Sevastopol in annexed Crimea, Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed head of Sevastopol, reported.
Death toll in Russian strike on Ukrainian building up to 35
The death toll from the weekend Russian missile strike on the apartment building in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro has risen to 35, an official said Monday.
Rescuers continued searching through the rubble for more victims, regional Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said. At least 75 people were wounded and 35 others were still missing after Saturday’s strike.
About 1,700 people lived in the multi-story building, with residents saying there were no military facilities at the site. The reported death toll made it the deadliest attack in one place since a Sept. 30 strike in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, according to The Associated Press-Frontline War Crimes Watch project.
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The strike on the building on Saturday came amid a major barrage of Russian cruise missiles across Ukraine.
Russia’s renewed air attacks came as fierce fighting raged in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, where the Russian military has claimed it has control of the small salt-mining town of Soledar but Ukraine asserts that its troops are still fighting.
If the Russian forces win full control of Soledar, it would allow them to inch closer to the bigger city of Bakhmut. The battle for Bakhmut has raged for months, causing substantial casualties on both sides.
With the grinding war nearing the 11-month mark, the U.K. government announced it would deliver tanks to Ukraine, its first donation of such heavy-duty weaponry. Although the pledge of 14 Challenger 2 tanks appeared modest, Ukrainian officials expect it will encourage other Western nations to supply more tanks.
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Other developments on Monday:
— Russian forces shelled the city of Kherson and the Kherson region, killing three people and wounding 14 others over the last 24 hours, regional Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych said. In the city of Kherson, the shelling damaged a hospital, a children disability center, a shipyard, critical infrastructure and apartment buildings.
— Russian forces struck the city of Zaporizhzhia, damaging industrial infrastructure and wounding three people, two of them children, the regional administration said.
— The Russian and Belarusian air forces launched a joint exercise in Belarus that will run through Feb. 1, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said. Russia has sent its warplanes to Belarus for the drills.
— Air defenses shot down a drone over the bay of the port of Sevastopol in Crimea, Sevastopol head Mikhail Razvozhayev said.