Victims of a Russian strike on the Kupyansk area in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, October 5, 2023

Wednesday’s Coverage: Will Chaos in Congress Affect US Aid to Kyiv?

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1355 GMT:

Ukrainian officials have raised the toll to 51 slain from the Russian strike on Hroza in northeast Ukraine.

Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said residents of the village, population about 330, were holding a memorial service in the cafe for a soldier who was being reburied: “From every family, from every household, there were people present at this commemoration. This is a terrible tragedy.”

Seven victims are in hospital.

UPDATE 1330 GMT:

Russia has killed at least 48 civilians, including a child, in a food shop and cafe in the village of Hroza in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy broke the news as he was visiting Spain for the European Political Community summit. He reported 47 dead.

[This is] a demonstrably brutal Russian crime — a rocket attack on an ordinary grocery store, a completely deliberate terrorist attack.

Russian terror must be stopped. Anyone who helps Russia circumvent sanctions is a criminal. Everyone who still supports Russia is supporting evil. Russia needs this and similar terrorist attacks for one thing only: to make its genocidal aggression the new normal for the whole world.

Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv region military administration, and Presidential Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak soon updated the toll:

UPDATE 1320 GMT:

Ukrainian officials say that more than 26,000 people are still missing since the launch of Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

“Of these, 11,000 are civilians and about 15,000 are military personnel,” Deputy Interior Minister Leonid Tymchenko said on State TV.

With Russia occupying almost 1/5 of Ukraine, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Mariana Reva emphasized that the number is only of people whose data has been officially verified: “Figures could grow”.

UPDATE 1303 GMT:

Facing shortages and high fuel prices, Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russia government to provide state funding and to introduce regulated prices for fuel oil for household heating in some regions.

On September 21, Russia introduced a ban on fuel exports. The Kremlin said on Thursday that there is no deadline for lifting the restrictions, which will be in place for as long as necessary.

UPDATE 1254 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has told the European Political Community in Granada, Spain:

Until there is a fully effective air defense system, children cannot attend school….

Let only Putin’s ambitions be a ruin, not our countries, not our cities. Children of every country deserve to be safe. Everywhere in the country, not just in the subway, not just in underground shelters, but everywhere. We must make it possible. We must ensure that Ukraine wins.

UPDATE 1245 GMT:

The Ukraine Air Force says air defenses intercepted 24 out of 29 Iranian-made drones launched by Russia on Thursday.

The attacks were on the Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kirovohrad regions in southern Ukraine.

UPDATE 1111 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Spain for a meeting of the European Political Community, has responded to the threat of a group of Republican extremists and Trumpists to US aid to Ukraine.

Asked if he was worried, Zelenskiy responded, “I think it’s too late to worry. We have to work on it.”

The President said that, during his trip to Washington earlier this year, he was given “100%” support by US President Joe Biden and bipartisan endorsement among legislators.

Zelensky said the US is experiencing a “difficult election period” with many “different” and competing voices, noting that the situation will be discussed by European leaders during Thursday’s meeting in Grenada.

UPDATE 0933 GMT:

The US Pentagon plans to almost quadruple production of 155mm artillery shells to 100,000 rounds per month.

The US is currently manufacturing 28,000 shells per month, and 14,000 at the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022.

Of $3.4 billion contracted for industrial expansion, $2.5 billion is devoted to the 155 mm artillery rounds, said Douglas Bush, the US Army’s acquisitions chief.

Bush said the goal is to reach 80,000 shells a month in early 2025 and 100,000 by the end of the year.

UPDATE 0921 GMT:

Turkey is planning an international meeting at the end of October over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but is not inviting Moscow, according to “informed sources”.

National security advisors will discuss “ideas for achieving lasting peace”, including the Ukraine Peace Formula of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and will try to persuade India and Latin American countries to support Kyiv.

Ankara is reportedly planning to invite China, but it has not been established if Beijing will send a representative.

Russia has been increasingly isolated from international fora over its invasion. In late August, Saudi Arabia hosted a meeting of more than 40 countries, including China, without the Russians. Facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over the mass deportations of Ukrainian children, Vladimir Putin was unable to attend in prison either the BRICS gathering in South Africa or the G20 summit in India last month.

UPDATE 0910 GMT:

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has declined to comment on reports that, amid damage from Ukrainian attacks, Russia has moved at least 10 warships from occupied Crimea to Russian territory (see Original Entry).

Peskov also offered no response to the claim that Russia had signed a deal for a permanent naval base on the Black Sea coast of the breakaway Abkhazia region in Georgia.

Aslan Bzhania, the Russian proxy “president” of Abkhazia said on Thursday, a day after meeting president Vladimir Putin, “We have signed an agreement, and in the near future there will be a permanent base of the Russian Navy in the Ochamchira district.”

UPDATE 0844 GMT:

Russian shelling on Thursday has killed two people in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine.

Presidential Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak said a utility worker who trimmed trees was one of the two victims.

UPDATE 0827 GMT:

The Zelenskiy Government has appointed another three Deputy Defense Ministers, completing the reshuffle after the resignation of Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov in early September.

Reznikov’s successor Rustem Umerov named Ivan Havryliuk, Stanislav Haider, and Dmytro Klimenkov to lead military-technical policy, institutional development, and procurement, respectively.

Six Deputy Defense Ministers were dismissed when Umerov was named. On September 27, three of the posts were fill by Yurii Dzhyhyr, Natalia Kalmykova, and Ekaterina Chernohorenko.

UPDATE 0804 GMT:

Two people were injured in Wednesday’s Russian attacks on the Kherson region in southern Ukraine.

The Russians fired 445 shells and two cruise missiles in 78 attacks with mortars, artillery, unmanned aerial vehicles, tanks, aircraft, and Grad multiple launch rocket systems.

In the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, two women were injured amid 189 attacks on 23 settlements.

Overnight, an infrastructure facility in the Kropyvnytskyi region was damaged amid Russia’s launches of nine Iranian attack drones.

A “kamikaze” drone also struck a facility in the Kirovohrad region. A fire was contained and there were no reports of casualties.

UPDATE 0751 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is in Spain to meet European leaders.

Zelenskiy posted generally about European security and specifically about shipping through the Black Sea to “strengthen global food security” and about air defense to blunt Russia’s anticipated attacks against energy infrastructure during the winter.

UPDATE 0734 GMT:

Russia and Iran may have inadvertently highlighted Tehran’s supply of missiles to Yemen’s Houthi insurgents.

The Iranian leadership has always denied providing military support to the Houthis, who occupied the Yemeni capital Sana’a and much of the country from August 2014.

But during last month’s visit by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu to Tehran, the Iranians showed off the 351 land-attack cruise missile — used by the Houthis since 2019 — and the 358 loitering surface-to-air missile.

The UK military notes that when it seized similar weapons in the Arabian Sea last year, Iran denied being the source of the missiles.

UPDATE 0723 GMT:

The UK military assesses that Russia is planning to attack civilian tankers loaded with Ukrainian grain in the Black Sea.

Citing declassified intelligence, the analysts says Russian naval forces could plant sea mines on the approaches to the country’s Black Sea ports.,p>

Moscow would then blame Ukraine for the attacks.

The UK Defence Ministry said it was publicizing the assessment to deter Russia from carrying out the attacks.

UPDATE 0454 GMT:

The US has confirmed the transfer to Ukraine of more than a million rounds of Iranian ammunition confiscated in the Persian Gulf in late 2022.

The transfer was authorized after the Justice Department won a civil forfeiture case for ownership of the ammunition, saying it was being smuggled to Yemen’s Houthi insurgents in violation of a UN arms embargo.

The Biden Administration has considered the transfer of Iranian ammunition and weapons for months, but has faced the UN’s requirement that any seized munitions be destroyed or stored.

The Justice Department is also claiming Iran’s forfeiture of 9,000 assault rifles, 284 machine guns, about 194 rocket launchers, and more than 70 anti-tank guided missiles.

UPDATE 0442 GMT:

US President Joe Biden has expressed concern that turmoil in Congress, caused by Republican extremists and Trumpists in the House, could threaten American aid to Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

The extremists forced the removal of $24 billion in assistance to Kyiv from a Government funding measure last week. On Tuesday, they ousted their Republican colleague House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the first time that the leader of the lower chamber has been toppled in US history.

See also EA on CGTN Europe: The Trumpists and GOP Extremists Who Would Bring the System Down

Biden told reporters on Wednesday, “It does worry me,” calling on Republicans to stop their infighting and back the “critically important” aid: “I know there are a majority of members of the House and Senate of both parties who have said that they support funding Ukraine.”

He said he will soon give a speech on the ongoing need to back the resistance of Ukrainians.

The President said there is “another means by which we may be able to find funding” without Congressional approval, but gave no details.

The US has authorized more than $43 billion in military assistance to Ukraine during Vladimir Putin’s 19 1/2-month invasion. Congress has approved a total of $113 billion of financial, economic, humanitarian, and military aid.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky told an Italian TV channel on Wednesday, “The United States is one of the leaders in helping and supporting Ukraine, in protecting democracy. I feel that there is support in the United States,” including “100% support from the White House” and “great support in the Congress”.

The United States did not let us down in a very difficult time. Although there were different voices. You know that there were different voices among the representatives of the Republican Party. But for the most part, both Democrats and Republicans supported Ukraine.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukrainian drone attacks reportedly knocked out another Russian air defense system on Wednesday, adding to the heavy toll on Moscow’s military hardware since the summer.

The Russian Defense Ministry made its regular claim early Wednesday that 31 drones had been downed. However, accounts on social media, including Ukraine government advisor Anton Gereschenko, posted that a Russian S-400 Triumf air defense system was destroyed in Russia’s Bryansk region near the border.

Geraschenko put the destruction in the context of Ukraine’s campaign since the summer to degrade Russian capabilities, amid Kyiv’s efforts to liberate the east and south of the country and to break Moscow’s grip on the Black Sea.

In early August, the landing ship Olenegorsky Gornyak was severely damaged by a sea drone at the Novorossiysk port inside Russia. The landing ship Minsk was crippled on September 13 in a strike on a shipyard in Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea.

Two other S-400 systems have been destroyed. Bridges, including Vladimir Putin’s prized Kerch Bridge between Russia’s Krasnadar region and Crimea, have been damaged and put out of service. Oil and ammunition depots have been blown up. And the attacks on the occupied peninsula culminated in a strike on Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol on September 22, killing Russian officers.

Geraschenko claimed on Wednesday that Russia has relocated much of its Black Sea force from Crimea, placing it inside Russian territory.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War, citing satellite imagery, assesses that at least 10 warships were moved from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk. They include the Admiral Makarov and Admiral Essen frigates, three diesel submarines, five landing ships, and several small missile ships.

The ISW said four Russian landing ships and one Kilo-class submarine remaining in Sevastopol.