WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
The United States was finalising plans to send its sophisticated Patriot air defence system to Ukraine in a potentially pivotal move while allies pledged just over 1 billion euros ($1.05 billion) to help Ukrainians survive the freezing winter.
Washington could announce a decision as soon as Thursday on providing the Patriot, two officials told Reuters on Tuesday. The Patriot is considered one of the most advanced U.S. air defence systems and is usually in short supply, with allies around the world vying for it.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has warned NATO against equipping Kyiv with Patriot missile defences, and it is likely the Kremlin will view the move as an escalation.
With the war in its 10th month, the Patriot system would help Ukraine defend against waves of Russian missile and drone attacks that have pounded the country's energy infrastructure.
Millions of civilians who are enduring Europe's biggest conflict since World War Two have had to contend with cuts to electricity, heat and water as harsh winter conditions take hold.
Gaining Patriot air defence capability would be "very, very significant" for the Kyiv government, said Alexander Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and onetime leader of Ukraine policy at the White House.
"These are going to be quite capable of dealing with a lot of different challenges the Ukrainians have, especially if the Russians bring in short-range ballistic missiles" from Iran.
The Pentagon declined comment. There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials.
Kyiv held high-level military talks on Tuesday with Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office said. The United States has given Ukraine $19.3 billion in military assistance since Russia's invasion on Feb. 24.
One of the U.S. officials said Ukrainian forces would likely be trained in Germany before the Patriot equipment was delivered. Vindman said the training could take several months.
The Pentagon says Russia's recent surge in missile strikes is partly designed to exhaust Ukraine's supplies of air defences so it can dominate the skies above the country.
For that reason, the United States and its allies have been delivering more air defences to Kyiv, everything from Soviet-era systems to more modern, Western ones. Washington has provided NASAMS air defence systems that the Pentagon says have flawlessly intercepted Russian missiles in Ukraine.
$1.05 BILLION AID FOR UKRAINE
In Paris, about 70 countries and institutions pledged just over 1 billion euros ($1.05 billion) to help maintain Ukraine's water, food, energy, health and transport in face of Russia's attacks, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said.
In a nightly video address, Zelenskiy hailed the pledges as good news. "Every day, we are gaining new strength for Ukraine to get us through this winter," he said.
Sergey Kovalenko, the head of the YASNO power company, said on Facebook that repairs continued on the electric grid but that the capital Kyiv still only had two-thirds of the power it needed.
In the east, Russia and Ukraine pounded each other's forces in heavy fighting around the small city of Bakhmut on Tuesday.
Invading Russian forces have fought to seize Bakhmut for months as part of a grinding battle for control of the Donetsk region, one of the four territories the Kremlin claims to have annexed in votes rejected by most countries as illegal.
There are no peace talks under way to end the conflict, which Moscow describes as a "special military operation" against security threats posed by its neighbour. Ukraine and its Western allies call it an unprovoked, imperialist land grab.
Russia on Tuesday dismissed a peace proposal from Zelenskiy that would involve a pullout of Russian troops and demanded that his government accept Russia's annexations.
** The United States on Tuesday unsealed a 16-count indictment charging five Russian nationals and two U.S. nationals with conspiracy related to a global procurement and money-laundering scheme on behalf of the Russian government.
Among those indicted is a suspected Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer, a Justice Department statement said.
It said the defendants conspired to obtain military-grade and dual-use technologies from U.S. companies for Russia’s defense sector, and to smuggle sniper rifle ammunition in violation of new U.S. sanctions imposed earlier this year.
Among those charged were Yevgeniy Grinin, 44, Aleksey Ippolitov, 57, and Svetlana Skvortsova, 41, all of Moscow; Boris Livshits, 52, and Vadim Konoshchenok, 48, both of St. Petersburg; and Americans Alexey Brayman, 35, from New Hampshire; and Vadim Yermolenko, 41, from New Jersey.
Brayman and Yermolenko have been arrested while Konoshchenok, a suspected FSB officer, was arrested in Estonia on Dec. 6 and will undergo extradition proceedings to the United States, the Justice Department statement said. Grinin, Ippolitov, Livshits and Skvortsova remain at large, it said.
The indictment alleges the defendants unlawfully purchased and exported highly sensitive and heavily regulated electronic components, some of which can be used in the development of nuclear and hypersonic weapons, quantum computing and other military applications.
Konoshchenok would ship or physically smuggle U.S.-origin items from Estonia to Russia, including dual-use electronics, military-grade tactical ammunition and other export-controlled items, the Justice Department said.
It added that the defendants were affiliated with Serniya Engineering and Sertal LLC, Moscow-based companies that operate under the direction of Russian intelligence services.
Earlier on Tuesday, the U.S. Commerce Department said Washington has temporarily suspended export privileges for three people and two companies following unauthorized exports of "sensitive items" to Russia.
The United States and its allies have imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on Moscow since Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
British Royal Marines conducted high-risk operations in Ukraine in April, Lieutenant General Robert Magowan wrote in the force’s official journal. Before Magowan’s admission, Russia’s claims that NATO troops were active in Ukraine had been dismissed by Western analysts and media.
Members of 45 Commando Group of the Royal Marines left Ukraine in January after evacuating the British embassy in Kiev to Poland. However, some 300 members of the elite unit were sent back into the country in April to reestablish the British mission in Kiev, before going on to conduct “other discreet operations,”Magowan wrote in the force’s magazine, according to a report by The Times on Tuesday.
These operations took place “in a hugely sensitive environment and with a high level of political and military risk,” Magowan, who formerly served as commandant general of the Royal Marines and is now deputy chief of Defense Staff at the Ministry of Defense, stated.
While Magowan did not elaborate on what kind of missions the commandos carried out, his statement marks the first time that the UK has admitted its troops conducted special operations in Ukraine. The Ministry of Defense refused to confirm earlier accounts of British special forces training Ukrainian troops in Kiev in April.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the conflict in Ukraine as one between Russia and the “entire Western military machine,” and claimed in September that there are entire military units in Ukraine "under the de-facto command of Western advisers.”
Putin’s words were rejected by Western media outlets. "There is no evidence of NATO ground forces participating in Ukraine," Edward Arnold of the Royal United Services Institute think tank told the BBC at the time. "Nor of NATO commanders directing Ukrainian units on the battlefield. There is also a very low likelihood of this happening in the future as Nato seeks to mitigate escalation risks."
Magowan’s admission proves Arnold incorrect, but the UK is not the only NATO country to acknowledge the presence of its forces in Ukraine. An unnamed Pentagon official told reporters in October that an unspecified number of US troops were inspecting American arms shipments somewhere within Ukraine.
** Almost all NATO countries face depleted weapons and ammunition stockpiles due to the amount of armoury they’ve sent to Ukraine, US ambassador to the bloc Julianne Smith admitted on Tuesday. The US, NATO and the EU are all working on urging the Western military industry to ramp up production to deal with the shortfall.
Speaking at an event hosted by the CSIS think-tank, Smith used the example of Estonia, which has given a massive quantity of aid to Ukraine and is now facing “some very real shortfalls.”
“They are not alone. We see that across the alliance writ large,” the US permanent representative to NATO said.
While the “contact group” for Ukraine is focused on organizing deliveries to Kiev, NATO has tasked the Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD) to deal with the problem of “declining stockpiles across the alliance,” said Smith. Meanwhile, the EU has launched a separate initiative aimed at the military industry.
“Lots of flowers are blooming here,” Smith told CSIS, adding that the key is to find “connective tissue” so the EU, NATO, and the US work together and not at odds. From what Smith explained, all of these efforts are aimed at persuading the military industry in the West to expand production.
The US and its allies have been funneling military aid to Ukraine since 2014, but ramped up deliveries of ammunition, small arms and heavy weapons – including tanks and artillery – in February, when the conflict with Russia escalated. Since then, Moscow has on multiple occasions warned Western nations against arming Kiev, arguing it can only prolong the ongoing conflict.
Initially the shipments were just surplus, but very soon Western governments began raiding their own military stockpiles, already “hollowed out” by years of focusing on expeditionary wars and counter-insurgency. In August, EU foreign policy commissar Josep Borrell described most Western European forces as “bonsai armies,” the “miniature versions” of the real ones.
By September, however, it was apparent that the Western cupboards were emptying. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called for more production, as numerous experts pointed out that even the Pentagon stockpiles were not infinite.
Meanwhile, Russia has ramped up its own defense production, especially of tanks, missiles and artillery ammunition. “Don’t hold your breath” for Moscow to run out of weapons, deputy National Security Council chair Dmitry Medvedev told the West in October.
Reuters/RT
