RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
‘No way in hell’ Russia will lose Ukraine conflict – Musk
There is “no way in hell” that Russia will suffer defeat in its conflict with Ukraine, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said.
Musk, one of the world’s richest men, made the comment on Monday during a discussion about a Senate bill aimed at providing additional US aid to Kiev on X Spaces – part of his social media platform, X (formerly Twitter).
He was joined by a number of other people opposed to further funding for Ukraine, including Republican lawmakers Ron Johnson, JD Vance and Mike Lee, former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and entrepreneur David Sacks.
”This spending doesn’t help Ukraine. Prolonging the war doesn’t help Ukraine,” the Tesla and SpaceX chief said, as quoted by Bloomberg.
He urged Americans to contact their elected representatives about the $95 billion emergency spending proposal, which includes $60 billion for Ukraine, as well as funding for Israel and Taiwan.
The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday, but it’s expected to have a hard time in the House of Representatives, where opposition to further funding for Kiev is much stronger among Republicans. They are demanding increased spending on security at the US-Mexico border.
Musk has been calling for a peaceful settlement of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and has criticized US military assistance to Kiev on many occasions during the two years of the fighting. He said that accusing him of being an apologist for Russian President Vladimir Putin over those statements was “absurd.”
His companies “have probably done more to undermine Russia than anything,” the entrepreneur claimed, noting that SpaceX had provided its Starlink internet service to Ukraine.
Musk said what he really desires is for deaths to stop on both the Ukrainian and Russian sides.
He also addressed some Western politicians who “want regime change in Russia,” saying “they should think about who is the person that could take out Putin, and is that person likely to be a peacenik? Probably not.” That person would likely be “even more hardcore than Putin,” he added.
The Russian leader spoke about Musk in his interview with independent US journalist Tucker Carlson last week, calling the entrepreneur “a smart person.”
“I think there’s no stopping Elon Musk, he will do as he sees fit,” Putin said, adding that his activities still need to be “formalized and subjected to certain rules.”
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine defence minister, new armed forces chief inform Western generals of Kyiv's plans
Ukraine Defence Minister Rustem Umerov and newly appointed armed forces commander Oleksandr Syrskyi discussed Kyiv's military plans for 2024 with the supreme commander of the NATO Armed Forces in Europe and the commander of the Security Assistance Group Ukraine, Umerov said on Facebook on Tuesday.
Colonel-General Syrskyi, who has led Ukraine's ground forces since 2019, was promoted to commander of the armed forces last week as the war with Russia nears its third year. He replaced Valeriy Zaluzhnyi.
Umerov in his Facebook posting said he and Syrskyi had "a clear and substantive conversation" with General Christopher Cavoli and Lieutenant General Antonio Aguto.
"We discussed our military plans for 2024," Umerov said. "The Commander-in-Chief announced the priorities. Among them are the optimization of the structure of the Armed Forces, improvement of the quality of training of our military, additional staffing of existing brigades and creation of new ones, supplying of regular needs in weapons and equipment."
The parties also discussed Ukraine's need for more electronic warfare equipment to combat Russian drones and the importance of rotating the fighters on the front lines, Umerov said without providing any details.
** Russia's airstrikes hit hospital, injuring several in east Ukraine, governor says
Russia launched several missile attacks on the town of Selydove in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, damaging a hospital, destroying a dozen residential flats and injuring several people, Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin said on Wednesday.
"Reportedly, three people, including a child, are under the rubble (of the hospital)," Filashkin said on the Telegram messaging app, adding that 100 patients were evacuated to hospitals in nearby towns.
The 1 a.m. Wednesday strike (2300 GMT Tuesday) damaged a wing of the hospital, Filashkin said. He posted a video of windows blown out, walls torn and rubble inside what it seemed like a medical facility, with patients sitting or lying in beds.
The attack followed a strike on Selydove late on Tuesday that destroyed 12 apartments in a five-storey residential building and injured at least four people, including two children, Filashkin said.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports. There was no immediate response from Russia's defence ministry to a request for comment.
Both Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians in strikes on each other's territories. Both sides say their air attacks, often away from the front line, have a goal to destroy critical energy, military and transport infrastructure.
The town of Selydove, which had a pre-war population of around 24,000, has come under increased Russian airstrikes in recent weeks, Ukrainian officials have said.
The Donetsk region, 57% of which is now occupied by Russia, has been at the forefront of war since 2014, when Russian-backed proxies seized the region's capital city, also called Donetsk, as well as many other large towns.
RT/Reuters
