WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine, US agree: counteroffensive creeps ahead, measured in blood

Ukraine has been publicly cautious in counting gains in a counteroffensive it launched this month to reclaim territory occupied by Russian forces, and on Friday its president and a U.S. general acknowledged that progress is measured in blood.

The top U.S. military officer, Army General Mark Milley, told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington that the counteroffensive was "advancing steadily, deliberately working its way through very difficult minefields ... 500 meters a day, 1,000 meters a day, 2,000 meters a day, that kind of thing."

He said he was unsurprised progress was slower than some people and computers might have predicted.

"War on paper and real war are different. In real war, real people die. Real people are on those front lines and real people are in those vehicles. Real bodies are being shredded by high explosives."

He added, "What I had said was this is going to take six, eight, 10 weeks, it's going to be very difficult. It's going to be very long, and it's going to be very, very bloody. And no one should have any illusions about any of that."

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the counteroffensive was "slower than desired", without getting too specific. Ukraine says it has recaptured a cluster of villages in operations that liberated 130 square km (50 square miles) in the south, but this is a small percentage of the total territory held by Russia.

On Friday, Zelenskiy said his forces advanced "in all directions of our active operations," while Hanna Maliar, deputy defense minister, said the military assessed progress as "going according to plan," and that the counteroffensive should be evaluated by "a lot of different military tasks."

Reuters was unable to verify the situation on the battlefield. Russia, which began its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022 has not acknowledged the Ukrainian gains and has said Ukraine's forces are suffering heavy casualties.

SLOWING DOWN TO SAVE LIVES

Zelenskiy was quoted as saying Ukraine wanted to show results before a July 11 NATO gathering in Lithuania, at which Kyiv is hoping for an invitation to begin the process of joining the U.S.-led military alliance - but not at any cost.

"Before the summit we have to show results," Spanish national broadcaster RTVE quoted him as telling Spanish media in Kyiv, based on a translation of his remarks. "But every kilometer costs lives."

Zelenskiy acknowledged plans for the counteroffensive had slowed in recent months. "We stopped because we could not advance," he said. "Advancing meant losing people and we had no artillery."

RTVE of Spain quoted him as saying Ukraine was "very cautious in this regard" and that he would choose to take longer if it meant losing fewer people. "Between time and human beings, people are the most important," RTVE quoted him as saying.

Zelenskiy was speaking on a day when he ordered top military commanders to strengthen the northern military sector following the arrival of Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in Belarus, under a deal negotiated by President Alexander Lukashenko that ended his mercenaries' mutiny in Russia.

Prigozhin's Wagner Group could set up a new base at a vacant military base near the town of Asipovichi, about 90 km (50 miles) from the Belarusian capital, Minsk, Russian media reported.

After pushing Russian forces out of northern regions last year, Ukraine took steps to tighten the defense of its border with Belarus, a close ally of Russia.

Zelenskiy said the situation in other frontline areas, supplies of artillery and shells, and advances by Ukrainian troops against Russian forces were discussed at a meeting with military commanders on Friday.

"Ukraine is fighting for their life," Milley said in Washington. "We are giving them as much help as humanly possible. But at the end of the day, Ukrainian soldiers are assaulting through minefields and into trenches" against Russia's much larger army.

** Donetsk region school suffers direct hit, two dead, say Ukraine police

A Russian missile attack on Friday on a village school near the frontline in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region killed two women, including a teacher, and injured six, Ukrainian police said.

The 56-year-old primary school teacher and a chief accountant, 44, died in the strike on the village of Serhiivka, Ukrainian police said. Twelve employees were the building's only occupants, the prosecutor's office said. Ukrainian schools were not in session for students on Friday.

"Russian troops, in a direct hit, destroyed a school where civilians were located," Ukraine's national police said in a statement.

The Donetsk region prosecutor's office said four men aged 54 to 69 and two women aged 24 and 34 were injured and taken to hospital, and that it had launched an investigation into the attack.

Reuters was unable immediately to verify details of the attack.

Police shared a video showing a motionless, bloodied person being lifted into an ambulance, and a woman being extracted from extensive ruins.

Groups of men, some in civilian clothing, others emergency workers in helmets, and uniformed police, walked atop the ruins, searching for survivors. Two men carefully laid a piece of green army fabric over a body.

The police said paramedics helped rescue two women from the rubble and that occupying Russian forces were responsible for the attack, which was preliminarily assessed to have been caused by an Iskander missile.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Study reveals extent of Western aid to Kiev

Ukraine received more than $170 billion in military, financial, and humanitarian assistance between January 2022 and February 2023, according to a fresh study published this month by a German economic research center.

The data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) covers aid provided by Ukraine’s 41 largest donors, which mostly consist of the US and its Western allies.

Washington unsurprisingly emerged as Kiev’s largest single donor, with its total aid accounting for more than 45% of all assistance provided to Ukraine over that period. Roughly 60% of that money was spent on weapons, the data shows.

The UK’s military assistance to Kiev accounted for 67% of London’s total aid to Ukraine over that period. Most money Warsaw and Amsterdam allocated for Ukraine was also spent on arms, the research indicated.

The EU’s support, including both the aid provided by Brussels and bilateral assistance provided by the bloc’s members, amounted to almost 40% of the total aid for Ukraine over the same period.

The US was also the biggest military aid provider for Ukraine, spending a total of $47.16 billion on arms for Kiev’s troops, leaving all other nations far behind. The UK became the second largest contributor by spending $7.1 billion on weapons for the Ukrainian forces.

According to the IfW, both the US and the UK were not the most transparent assistance providers, when it comes to aiding Kiev. London and Washington took the 17th and 18th places out of 41 respectively in the list of most transparent donors compiled by the German research center. The first two places on this list were occupied by Switzerland and Germany respectively.

Some of Kiev’s Western backers shouldered additional costs due to the need to accommodate refugees coming from Ukraine, the IfW study showed. Poland, which spent 0.6% of its GDP on bilateral aid to Ukraine, had to spend another 2.2% on Ukrainian refugees, according to the data.

The accumulated costs of helping Ukraine exceeded 2% of GDP in the case of Latvia and Estonia as well.

This week, the Pentagon announced a new package of weapons for Ukraine, including 30 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. More than a dozen of the armored vehicles have reportedly been damaged or destroyed since Kiev launched its counteroffensive against Russian forces earlier this month.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Washington is also mulling sending long-range missiles to bolster Ukrainian capabilities in its ongoing campaign, which has largely stalled so far.

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh recently criticized US military aid to Kiev by calling it a “very bad investment.” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also said this week that Ukraine could not defeat Moscow on the battlefield and called for a negotiated solution to the conflict instead.

** CIA director calls Russian intel chief assuring US uninvolved in Wagner mutiny — WSJ

CIA Director William Burns called Director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergey Naryshkin this week to tell him that the US had nothing to do with the mutiny attempt by the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC), The Wall Street Journal said on Friday citing its sources.

According to them, the phone conversation between Burns and Naryshkin was the highest-level interaction between the US and Russia since the incident. The conversation, initiated by the American side, aimed to deliver a message that the US "had no involvement" in Wagner founder Evgeny Prigozhin’s actions and did not intend to exacerbate tensions in Russia, the newspaper writes, noting that the conversation took place this week.

According to the newspaper, Burns told Naryshkin that the US had no role in the mutiny and the incident was Russia’s internal affair.

On the evening of June 23, several audio recordings were posted on the Telegram channel of Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin. In particular, he claimed that his units had come under attack, blaming the Russian military. The Russian Defense Ministry slammed the Wagner boss’ allegations of a strike on the PMC’s "rear camps" as fake news. The PMC units that supported Prigozhin headed to Rostov-on-Don and toward Moscow. The Federal Security Service (FSB) opened a criminal case on calls for armed mutiny. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a televised address to the nation on June 24, described the Wagner group’s actions as armed mutiny and a betrayal.

Later on June 24, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, in coordination with Putin, held talks with Prigozhin, resulting in the PMC standing down, turning its units around, and retreating to their base camps. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Russian authorities pledged not to prosecute those Wagner PMC fighters who took part in the mutiny in light of their "frontline achievements." The criminal case on armed mutiny was dropped, the FSB said.

** Russia blocks Wagner-linked media

Russia has blocked access to several news websites linked to businessman Evgeny Prigozhin, whose private military company Wagner Group was involved in the short-lived mutiny last week. 

Public access has been “restricted” to riafan.ru and four other websites operating under the umbrella of the Patriot Media Group, according to the database run by the regulator Roskomnadzor (RKN). The group’s website has also been blacklisted.

The websites mostly focus on covering Russia’s standoff with the West and Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. 

News agency TASS cited employees of the affected outlets as saying that their parent company would be closed and all of its subsidiaries cease operation. 

Prigozhin, who initially made his fortune as a restaurateur and catering tycoon, was listed as the head of the Patriot Media Group’s board of trustees until May.

Earlier, the RKN ordered popular Russian social media platform VK to take down web pages associated with Wagner to “prevent the spread of calls to armed rebellion.” 

On June 23, Prigozhin, who accused the Defense Ministry of mishandling the operation in Ukraine, declared a “march for justice” on Moscow. His fighters halted their advance on Saturday evening and returned to their bases after a deal was struck with the authorities. The charges of leading an armed rebellion were dropped as part of the arrangement, and Wagner members were given a choice to sign contracts with the Russian military, return to civilian life, or move to Belarus.

Reuters/RT/Tass