RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

US to divert shells for Ukraine to Israel – Axios

The US will give Israel tens of thousands of 155mm artillery shells that were originally set aside for Ukraine, Axios reported on Thursday. The Israeli military reportedly told the Pentagon that it needed the shells to prepare for a ground invasion of Gaza.

The US maintains a stockpile of ammunition at a facility in Israel, which only US forces have access to. Earlier this year, the US began taking shells from this facility and another stockpile in South Korea in order to meet Ukraine’s massive demand for ammo.

Israeli officials told the news site that the US will now be refilling this stockpile with ammunition from its own stocks that had been earmarked for Ukraine, at the direct request of the Israeli government. The officials said that the shells will arrive in Israel in the coming weeks.

The report comes a day after US President Joe Biden visited Israel. After Biden met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, the latter said that the US president had promised him a “massive, unprecedented” package of military aid. 

It is unclear from his statement whether the Israeli PM was referring to the artillery shells.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas erupted at a crucial time for Ukraine. With its summer counteroffensive over having achieved only minimal gains at an enormous human cost, Kiev is currently lobbying European nations that can’t manufacture the arms it needs, while American officials are reportedly preoccupied with rushing weapons to Israel.

“We need some support from the leaders,” Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said during an impromptu visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels last week. “It’s important there are long-distance missiles, or long-distance weapons ... The problem: How to get it?”

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has insisted that Washington can afford to fight two foreign wars. However, funds allocated to Ukraine by Congress are drying up, and President Joe Biden is now reportedly trying to convince an increasingly Ukraine-skeptic Republican Party to okay $60 billion in military and economic aid for Kiev by tying it to a $10 billion package for Israel, which the GOP would traditionally be more amenable to supporting.

Israel has not yet made heavy use of artillery in its war against Hamas, opting instead to pound Gaza with airstrikes while artillery and tanks engage in sporadic exchanges of fire with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and the Golan Heights. However, Israeli troops are currently massed along the Gaza border in preparation for a ground operation, which Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday would take place “soon.”

Artillery would be “urgently” needed for such an offensive, Israeli officials told Axios.

** Putin visits command post of Russian armed forces in Rostov-on-Don

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the command post of the Russian armed forces in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, where he was briefed about the special military operation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

"While returning from Perm, President Putin made a detour to Rostov-on-Don, where he visited the command post of the Russian armed forces," he said.

Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov briefed the Russian president about the current situation in the special operation zone.

"Conversations with other high-ranking military commanders were held as well," Peskov added.

Later, Gerasimov reported to Putin that Russian troops kept fulfilling their objectives in accordance with the plan of the special military operation.

"The combined group of forces is fulfilling objectives in accordance with the operation’s plan," Gerasimov reported.

Putin regularly visits the command post of the Russian special military operation in Rostov-on-Don. In particular, he held a meeting here and heard the military’s reports on August 19. He also made a stop in Rostov-on-Don in mid-March, at the time when he visited Mariupol. Putin also was at the building on December 31, 2022, when he addressed the country on New Year’s Eve.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian troops face new Russian assault on eastern town of Avdiivka

Ukrainian troops are facing a new Russian onslaught in the largely destroyed eastern city of Avdiivka, while making some progress on their counteroffensive in the southern theatre, senior military officials said on Thursday.

General Valery Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine's commander-in-chief, posted a video on Telegram in which he appeared to be conferring with officers in Avdiivka and in Kupiansk, a town further north where Russian forces have intensified attacks in recent weeks.

"The enemy is not relenting in attempts to break through our defences and surround (Avdiivka)," Zaluzhniy wrote in a commentary attached to the video.

"The enemy is actively bringing in assault units and large amounts of armoured equipment and using aircraft and artillery."

Oleksandr Shtupun, spokesperson for the southern group of Ukrainian forces, told national television there was constant pressure on Avdiivka, about 20 km (12 miles) west of the Russian-held city of Donetsk.

"They regrouped and launched new assaults there," he said.

Russian forces subjected Avdiivka to fierce attacks last week, but the shelling had tapered off in the last few days.

Avdiivka has become a watchword for Ukrainian resistance. The town, known for its large coking plant, held out in 2014 against Russian-backed separatists who secured swathes of eastern Ukraine and it.

And like Bakhmut to the northeast, captured by Russian forces in May, it has endured months of attacks since Russia's full-scale February 2022 invasion. Officials say some 1,600 residents remain from a pre-war population of 32,000.

Kupiansk was recaptured by Ukrainian troops late last year in a lighting advance through the country's northeast, but Russian forces have stepped up attacks in a bid to retake it.

Zaluzhniy said Ukrainian forces around Kupiansk were "maintaining their defence in the most difficult of conditions".

Russia's accounts of the fighting said its forces had destroyed a command point near Avdiivka and repelled 11 Ukrainian attacks near Kupiansk.

Spokesperson Shtupun said Ukrainian troops engaged in the country's four-month-old counteroffensive had made a degree of headway in the southern theatre, where they are trying to advance to the Sea of Azov to sever a land bridge linking Russian positions in the east and south.

He said troops had advanced 400 metres (a quarter mile) to the southwest of the village of Verbove in Zaporizhzhia region.

Verbove is a few kilometres east of Robotyne, a village recaptured by Ukraine last month in the southward drive.

The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank and non-profit research group, said Ukrainian forces appeared to have broken through on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in the southern Kherson region. Kyiv did not comment on the report.

When Ukrainian troops retook parts of Kherson region last year, Russian forces abandoned its biggest city, also called Kherson. They now shell the city from the opposite bank.

RT/Tass/Reuters