Germany pledges $1.4 billion more to help Ukraine beat back Russia
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius vowed Tuesday to keep supporting Ukraine’s efforts to win its war against Russia, pledging further military aid worth $1.4 billion.
The new support is to include additional Iris-T SLM antiaircraft missile systems as well as antitank mines and 155-millimeter artillery shells, the German news agency DPA reported.
“We are talking about 20,000 additional shells,” Pistorius said at a joint news conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, in Kyiv, according to DPA.
Pistorius’ unannounced trip to the Ukrainian capital came a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III traveled to Ukraine and pledged American support “for the long haul,” including an additional $100 million in weapons from U.S. stockpiles.
The visits appeared to be part of an international political effort to keep the war in the public mind as other issues clamor for attention, including the Israel-Hamas conflict.
European Council President Charles Michel also arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday, which is the 10th anniversary of what Ukraine calls its Revolution of Dignity. That uprising brought momentous change for Ukraine, pushing it closer to the West and bringing confrontation with Moscow.
Many of the 45,000 Ukrainians who fled to Israel after Russia invaded their country are now dealing with the terror and trauma of another war.
Pistorius paid tribute to the demonstrators who were killed during the pro-European protests 10 years ago, DPA reported.
“Courageous people of all ages took to the streets for freedom, for rapprochement with Europe, and paid for it with their lives,” Pistorius said. He placed red roses at a makeshift memorial to those killed.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in a video message, saluted the Ukrainian desire for freedom and its application to join the 27-nation European Union. “The future of Ukraine is in the European Union,” she said.
“The future that the Maidan fought for has finally just begun,” she said in a reference to central Kyiv’s Independence Square, the scene of the pro-democracy protests a decade ago.
European Union nations acknowledge that they risk failing to provide Ukraine with the ammunition they pledged to help it fight Russia’s invasion.
For Moscow, the Ukrainian revolt was fomented by Western interests, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday reaffirmed the Kremlin’s view that it was “a coup, a forceful coup financed from abroad.”
Ukraine’s current fight to push out the Kremlin’s forces has lasted almost 21 months. A recent Ukrainian counteroffensive apparently has yielded no major changes on the battlefield, and another winter of attritional warfare lies ahead.
The British Defense Ministry said Russia could target Ukraine’s power grid again, just as it did last winter when Moscow sought to wear down local resistance by denying civilians heat and running water.
“Russia has now refrained from launching its premier air-launched cruise missiles from its heavy bomber fleet for nearly two months, likely allowing it to build up a substantial stock of these weapons,” the ministry said Tuesday.
Ukraine’s marine corps says it has secured multiple bridgeheads on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in fierce fighting with Russian forces.
Germany is the second-biggest provider of military and financial support to Ukraine after the United States, and German officials said Pistorius aimed to assess the effectiveness of its aid as well as take stock of the fighting during his visit.
Pistorius said he wanted to “express our solidarity, our deep solidarity and admiration for the courageous, brave and costly fight that is being waged here.”
Meanwhile, two Russian missiles struck a hospital in the eastern Donetsk region, wounding six people and possibly leaving more buried under rubble, Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said Tuesday.
Russian forces attacked Ukraine overnight with 10 Shahed-type drones, four S-300 missiles and one Iskander-K cruise missile, Ukraine’s air force said Tuesday.
Nine Shahed drones and the Iskander-K missile were intercepted Monday night, it said. No casualties were immediately reported.
A Russian court convicted an artist and musician for replacing supermarket price tags with antiwar slogans and sentenced her to seven years in prison.
At least five Ukrainian civilians were killed and 10 others were injured in southeastern regions of the country over the previous 24 hours, the presidential office said Tuesday.
Civilians have been victims of Russia’s barrages on an almost daily basis.
In other developments, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Ukrainian efforts to cross the Dnipro River on the southern front line have failed.
Combat training programs provided by Ukraine’s allies are hitting major milestones even as global attention shifts to the war in the Middle East.
He told top Russian military brass that Moscow’s forces “are steadily holding positions along the entire line of contact and are gradually improving their positions.”
Ukraine’s military claimed last week that its troops had secured multiple bridgeheads on the river’s eastern bank in the Kherson region. That would be a small but potentially significant strategic advance amid fighting that has largely come to a standstill.
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