UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Washington D.C., July 10, 2024
EA on Ireland’s RTE: Joe Biden, NATO, and Ukraine
Wednesday’s Coverage: A NATO Summit to Ensure “Russian Terror Is Defeated”
Map: Institute for the Study of War
UPDATE 1014 GMT:
At the NATO summit in Washington, several countries have made commitments to the UK-led coalition fund for drone deliveries to Ukraine.
In a memorandum of understanding, the Netherlands, the UK, Latvia, New Zealand, and Sweden reiterated pledges worth €45 million ($49 million). More donations are anticipated.
The coalition seeks the supply of one million first-person view) UAVs to Kyiv. Members are also providing reconnaissance, strike, and AI-upgraded drones, as well as counter-drone capabilities.
Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen says 18 Ukrainian-made Bohdana artillery pieces, financed by Denmark, will be delivered within coming months.
When I was in Ukraine this spring to visit a number of defense industry companies in Kyiv, I became convinced of the possibilities of supporting Ukraine through acquisitions directly via the Ukrainian defense industry.
In this way, we ensure that the equipment that the Ukrainians demand at the front can be produced and delivered close by. It provides some obvious logistical advantages while helping to build the defense industry in Ukraine.
UPDATE 0757 GMT:
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says that even if Ukraine agrees to Vladimir Putin’s conditions for “peace talks” — including Moscow’s annexation of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine as well as the seizure of Crimea from 2014 — this will not constitute the “end of the Russian military operation”.
Medvedev said that even if Ukraine surrenders, Russia will need to destroy the remaining “radicals” and return “remaining lands to the bosom of the Russian land”.
UPDATE 0742 GMT:
Video is circulating of yet another Russian execution of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
The clip shows Russian troops killing two Ukrainian soldiers captured in the Zaporizhia region in southern Ukraine.
Ukraine Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin noted, “The recording clearly shows that the defenders of Ukraine laid down their arms and did not offer any resistance. The occupiers are cynically shooting unarmed people.”
We know this is not a coincidence. This is the intentional policy of the criminal regime of the Kremlin with the destruction of all Ukrainian. We will find and punish everyone involved: both those who gave this criminal order and the immediate perpetrators of this cruel crime.
UPDATE 0735 GMT:
Russian political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza is in “relatively stable” condition in a prison hospital in western Siberia, says his lawyer Vadim Prokhorov.
Attorneys and family had been blocked from seeing the journalist since they were told last Thursday that he had been transferred to the hospital.
Kara-Murza, a prominent critic of Vladimir Putin, has been condemned to 25 years in prison. He suffers from a chronic nerve disease after he was poisoned in 2015 and 2017, in suspected assassination attempts by Russia’s State security service FSB.
UPDATE 0720 GMT:
On the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden signed an agreement on security cooperation and long-term support.
Under Kyiv’s latest bilateral 10-year pact, Luxembourg will provide €80 million ($86 million) in assistance this year. The country will enhance Ukraine’s IT capabilities and support satellite technology, intelligence, and surveillance.
UPDATE 0715 GMT:
At least five civilians were killed and at least 14 injured, including a child, by Russian attacks across Ukraine on Wednesday.
In the Nikopol area in the Dnipropetrovsk region in south-central Ukraine, artillery and drone assaults killed one person and injured five, including a 13-year-old boy. Transport, communal, energy, and agricultural facilities were damaged.
In the Donetsk region in the east, two civilians were slain and one injured. In the neighboring Kharkiv region, one person was killed and five wounded. And in the Kherson region in the south, one civilian perished and two were injured amid damage to a critical infrastructure facility, an agricultural enterprise, houses, and multi-story residential buildings.
Ukraine air defenses downed all six Iran-type attack drones launched by Russia overnight.
The UAVs were intercepted over the Mykolaiv, Khmelnytskyi, Lviv, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: At a NATO summit in Washington, the 32-nation bloc has assured that Kyiv’s path to membership is “irreversible”.
As the gathering declared that Ukraine’s “future is in Nato” and its path to membership is “irreversible”, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the membership is not a “question of if, but when”.
NATO confirmed in its summit communiqué, “Allies plan to make proportional contributions totaling at least €40 billion over the next year and provide a sustainable level of security support for Ukraine’s victory.”
There is a strong message from NATO allies that we really want Ukraine to join, and we are working with Ukraine to make that happen.
The full package we have with Ukraine, the long-term pledge, the delivery of more weapons, including more F-16s, the bilateral security agreements, and the package of interoperability. All of this constitutes, as we call it, a bridge towards membership.
The declaration was one of a series of significant statements and actions maintaining support of Ukraine against Vladimir Putin’s 28-month invasion and defying Russia’s attempt to break up the bloc and seize part of its neighbor.
Dick Schoof and Mette Frederiksen, the Prime Ministers of Netherlands and Denmark, said, “Ukraine will be flying operational F-16s this summer.”
An international coalition, established last year, has committed around 85 of the warplanes and is training Ukrainian pilots in centers in Denmark, Romania, and the US.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed his gratitude and said he was hopeful of a total of 130 of the fighter jets: “F-16s will also be used to bolster Ukraine’s air defence. I am confident that they will assist us in better protecting Ukrainians from brutal Russian attacks, such as this week’s strike on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv.”
Responding to Zelenskiy’s appeal for bolstered air defense against Russia’s missile and drone strikes, NATO committed four US-made Patriot systems, components for a fifth, and an Italian-French SAMP/T system.
Members such as Canada, New Zealand, and the UK made additional pledges of military and humanitarian aid. Czech President Petr Pavel, who leads the European Union’s initiative for artillery shells to Ukraine, discussed the initative with Zelenskiy. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer indicated that Kyiv may use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles for strikes inside Russia.
Starmer, in his first official mission abroad after winning the UK General Election last Friday, said the UK will maintain plans for at least £3 billion ($3.86 billion) each year in military support for Ukraine for “as long as is it takes”.
Even Slovakia, whose Prime Minister Robert Fico has suspended military assistance to Ukraine, offered its backing. Its new President Peter Pellegrini and Zelenskiy discussed joint projects for the energy sector, border infrastructure, and humanitarian cooperation.
Finishing the second intense day in Washington.
It was a very busy day with numerous meetings, working to strengthen Ukraine and the entire Euro-Atlantic community. We continue to bolster Ukraine’s air defense and Air Force to protect our people from Russian terror.
I held my… pic.twitter.com/iqsBkgBvqf
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 11, 2024
NATO members also challenged China’s aid to the Russian invasion. They said Beijing is a a “decisive enabler” in its supply of components for military equipment and chemicals for explosives.
“This increases the threat Russia poses to its neighbors and to Euro-Atlantic security,” the summit communiqué noted.
NATO head Stoltenberg amplified:
Putin’s war is fueled by those who do not share our values. Iran and North Korea provide direct military support, while China is propping up Russia’s war economy.
This is not just a temporary coalition of convenience, it is a major strategic shift. And we must remain clear-eyed as to the threat it poses.
[Editor’s Note: Again incorrect — Zelenskiy acknowledged that this will be a long conflict, given Putin’s determination to maintain the invasion and the mass killing. But he said it *is* necessary to resist, however long it takes.
And your estimate of the Ukrainian casualties is in your head (and that of Russian propagandists). No reliable source has given the figure which you put out.]
He implied that when he said it wasn’t in Ukraine’s interest to continue the war indefinitely. I think he said “years and years”. Zelenskey is well aware of the Ukrainian casualty numbers on the battlefield (said to vary between 1,500 and 2,000 daily). People in the West are not aware of the casualty counts because they are not reported in Western media.
[Editor’s Note: This is untrue. Zelenskiy never “questioned Ukraine’s ability to continue fighting”. He said Russia could participate in a second Global Peace Summit, after the first gathering established a commitment by more than 90 countries to Ukraine’s sovereignty.
The Kremlin said yesterday that it would not participate.]
Just days ago, Zelenskey questioned Ukraine’s ability to continue fighting and was considering a new summit with Russia’s participation. It seems NATO has other plans.