US President Joe Biden hosts Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House, Washington, DC, September 1, 2021 (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Sunday’s Coverage: European Union Unblocks €18 Billion in Aid to Kyiv

EA on Times Radio: An Axis of Weakness — Russia, Iran, and the Ukraine Invasion

Source: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1643 GMT:

The European Union has committed another €2 billion ($2.11 billion) for weapons to Ukraine.

An EU Foreign Ministers meeting authorized the money for the European Peace Facility, used to reimburse member states who send weapons and non-lethal military kit to Kyiv.

The EU Council of Minister said, “This decision sends a clear political signal of the EU’s enduring commitment to military support for Ukraine and other partners alike.”

EU ministers also condemned Iran for supplying Russia with drones that have been used “indiscriminately” against Ukraine’s civilian population. It warned Iran that any new deliveries of weapons to Russia, including short-range ballistic missiles, would “constitute a serious escalation”.

On Saturday, the EU Council overcame the hindrance of Hungary to authorize €18 billion ($18.87 billion) in financial aid to Kyiv.

UPDATE 1637 GMT:

Running out of missiles, Russia is using old Ukrainian munitions and has only enough stock for three to five more waves of widespread strikes, saying Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence.

Vadym Skibitsky said missiles built in a Ukrainian weapons factory, handed over to Russia in the 1990s, were recovered in the rubble left by Russian attacks in October.

Skibitsky said Russian factories had built 240 precision Kh-101 cruise missiles and about 120 sea-based Kalibr cruise missiles since the invasion began on February 24.

According to our calculations, they have missiles for another three to five waves of attacks. This is if there are 80 to 90 rockets in one wave.

UPDATE 1528 GMT:

Two of three ports in the Odesa region have resumed exports of foodstuffs after power outages caused by Russian attacks on Saturday.

The head of the Ukrainian Sea Port Authority, Oleksiy Vostrikov, said the Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi ports are operational with “alternative power sources”. He did not indicate when the Odesa city port will reopen.

UPDATE 1103 GMT:

The ongoing Russian shelling of Kherson city, liberated by Ukrainians forces five weeks ago, has killed another civilian and wounded four.

UPDATE 1020 GMT:

Russia’s latest attacks have killed at least three civilians and injured 13 others in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

Two of the slain and eight of the wounded were in Hirnyk, about 50 km (31 miles) west of occupied Donetsk city, struck by shelling from Russian multiple rocket launchers this morning.

UPDATE 1007 GMT:

A father tells the story of his son, a Russian officer, who refused to fight after serving on the frontline in Ukraine….

He said the soldiers had been given no cover; there was no intelligence gathering; no preparation. They’d been ordered to advance, but no one knew what lay ahead.

The officer put his refusal in writing. He and several others were detained.

They beat him and then they took him outside as if they were going to shoot him. They made him lie on the ground and told him to count to ten. He refused. So, they beat him over the head several ties with a pistol. He told me his face was covered in blood.

Then they took him into a room and told him: “You’re coming with us, otherwise we’ll kill you.” But then someone said they’d take my son to work in the storeroom.

UPDATE 0920 GMT:

A Ukrainian strike on a hotel in eastern Ukraine has killed a “huge number” of Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries, says the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk Province.

Serhiy Haidai said on TV that Ukrainian forces hit the hotel in Kadiivka, west of Luhansk city: “They had a little pop there, just where Wagner headquarters was located. A huge number of those who were there died.”

Haidai added, “I am sure that at least 50% of those who managed to survive will die before they get medical care. This is because even in our Luhansk region, [the Russians] have stolen equipment.”

Photos on Telegram channels showed a building largely reduced to rubble. Russian State outlet TASS acknowledged that a hotel in Stakhanov – the Russian name for Kadiivka – was destroyed by a US-made high-mobility medium-range rocket system (HIMARS) and rescue workers were clearing ruins.

A Russian military blogger, who reports on the Wagner Group, circulated images of the damaged Zhdanov Guest House: “The strike was done by HIMARS. There were members of the Wagner PMC in the building.”

Amid reports that his son Pavel had visited the hotel, Wagner Group founder and close Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin posted, “Don’t worry. Everything is fine with my son.”

On Saturday, a Ukrainian rocket struck a barracks in occupied Melitopol in southern Ukraine, reportedly killing scores of Russian troops in a mess hall.

UPDATE 0822 GMT:

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says seven senior Ukrainian clerics face punishment over links to the Russian State.

Ukraine’s Security Council have ordered the seizure of all assets of the seven, who are banned from travel and from economic and legal activities.

Ukrainian security services have been carrying out a series of raids of religious sites. They said that despite the Ukrainian branch formally breaking with the Russian Orthodox Church in May, have found cash, literature, and forged documents establishing the ongoing connections with Moscow.

Individual clerics have been arrested over their alleged support of the Russian invasion.

Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Sunday, “We are doing everything to ensure that no strings are available to be pulled by the aggressor state that could make Ukrainian society suffer.”

UPDATE 0743 GMT:

In his verbal attack on Russia’s political and military leaders, Igor Girkin — a former commander of Russian forces in Ukraine and an influential “milblogger” — says new defensive lines to stop Ukrainian advance in the east will be ineffective.

Girkin recorded the 90-minute video after a visit to the frontline in eastern Ukraine. He claimed some Russian officers are unhappy with the conduct of the invasion, openly complaining about Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu and even Vladimir Putin: the “fish’s head is completely rotten” (see Sunday’s coverage).

UPDATE 0732 GMT:

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says power has been partially restored in Odesa in southern Ukraine after Russian attacks on Saturday knocked out supply to 1.5 million people.

But the Interior Ministry’s Anton Gerashchenko tweeted:

UPDATE 0723 GMT:

UK military intelligence assesses, in light of comments by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov last week, that Russia is still trying to control all of four Ukrainian regions that Vladimir Putin has “annexed” — even though Ukraine’s counter-offensives are liberating occupied territory.

But the analysts say, “It is highly unlikely that the Russian military is currently able to generate an effective striking force capable of retaking these areas” of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south and Donetsk and Luhansk in the east.

The daily report concludes, “Russian ground forces are unlikely to make operationally significant advances within the next several months.”

Pursuing a symbolic victory to counter their losses, Russian forces have tried for months to overrun Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, even though the city no longer has significant strategic value. The Institute for the Study of War said on Sunday that the attacks have made “limited” gains near Bakhmut.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and US counterpart Joe Biden discussed Ukrainian air defenses, amid waves of Russian missile and drone strikes on energy infrastructure, in a call on Sunday.

Biden said the US is making effort to strengthen the air defenses a priority. This includes Friday’s announcement, in a military aid package of $275 million, of “systems to counter the Russian use of unmanned aerial vehicles”.

Zelenskiy said he thanked Biden for “unprecedented defense and financial assistance” which “not only contributes to success on the battlefield, but also supports the stability of the Ukrainian economy”, and for “the help that the USA is providing to restore Ukraine‘s energy system”.

Zelenskiy’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak added: