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The United States has allocated a new defense aid package to Ukraine totaling $400 million. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced this during a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. This package will include ammunition, military equipment, and weaponry. The Secretary assured that support under the security agreement between the United States and Ukraine will continue. Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed gratitude for the military assistance package and for all the support the U.S. has provided since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Although modern technology, including drones and electronic warfare, has shaped the Russia-Ukraine war, the outcome will likely depend on which side can sustain its artillery usage. Both countries rely heavily on Soviet doctrine that emphasizes artillery, with Russia firing around 10,000 rounds daily and Ukraine about 2,000. Initially, Ukraine relied on its Soviet-era stockpiles of 152mm artillery and ammunition, supplemented by NATO-provided 155mm systems and shells. Moving forward, Ukraine is in an increasingly stronger position, now having the capability to produce both 155mm howitzers and the corresponding artillery shells. Since the start of the war, Ukraine has invested in developing...

Ukraine is pushing for permission from its Western partners to use the long-range missiles they have provided to strike targets deep inside Russia, as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold back Russian advances in eastern Ukraine. Russia has warned that it would consider allowing such long-range strikes an act of war, and Ukraine's Western allies are wary of antagonizing the country with the world's largest nuclear arsenal. The issue is likely to weigh heavily on White House meetings Friday between President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, as well as with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later this month.

Iran is expected to skip a retaliatory strike on Israel if a Gaza ceasefire deal is reached, US President Joe Biden told reporters in New Orleans on Tuesday, stressing “That’s my expectation.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant left nothing to chance, stating in northern Israel that the IDF is prepared for defensive and offensive actions against Hezbollah and Iran, even as the United States pinned its hope for averting a regional war on Thursday’s hostage talks in Doha. A hostage and Gaza ceasefire agreement would more “broadly, create conditions for diplomacy to get the region out of this cycle of violence,”...

Volodymyr Zelensky has piled pressure on Britain to allow missile strikes deep inside Russia as he claimed his army’s cross-border attack could oust Vladimir Putin.By Monday evening, Ukrainian forces were in control of around 1,000 square kilometres of Kursk, a border region in southern Russia, according to Kyiv’s top general.The stunning cross-border attack marks the first foreign invasion of Russian soil since the Second World War.Mr Zelensky said that the “Kursk disaster” 24 years ago, in which 118 Russian sailors died in a submarine accident, marked the start of Putin’s rule.“And now it is clear this is the end for...

On July 25, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a damning report revealing an additional $2 billion in accounting errors related to the Pentagon’s aid to Ukraine.This discovery compounds the $6.2 billion overestimation previously disclosed, bringing the total to an alarming $8.2 billion in misallocated funds. The discrepancies arose from the Pentagon’s use of “replacement value” instead of “depreciated value” in calculating the aid provided under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA). The PDA, authorized by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, allows the President to direct the transfer of defense articles and services from U.S. stocks to address foreign...

Law enforcement officers have uncovered a major embezzlement scheme involving Hr 138 million ($3.3 million) allocated from the state budget for the needs of Ukraine's Armed Forces, the Prosecutor General's Office announced on July 19. The investigation identified 30 suspected officials, including employees of housing and maintenance departments and representatives of commercial structures across Ukraine. According to prosecutors, 15 of these individuals were members of organized criminal groups. The charges include embezzlement and misappropriation of funds related to the procurement of fuel wood, electricity, natural gas, furniture, and construction work on military infrastructure at inflated prices. Some suspects are also...

Ukraine is on its way to being able to “stand on its own feet” militarily, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday, noting that more than 20 other countries have pledged to maintain their own military and financial aid to the country even if the U.S. were to withdraw its support under a different president. Blinken for the first time directly addressed the possibility that former President Donald Trump could win the November election and back away from commitments to Ukraine. Trump’s public comments have varied between criticizing U.S. backing for Ukraine’s defense and supporting it, while his running mate,...

Ukraine is on an “irreversible” path to NATO membership, the 32 members of the alliance affirmed in a joint communique released Wednesday on the second day of the summit being held in Washington. Allies had negotiated for months over what language would be published in the joint communique, but discussions on specific words — including “irreversible” — had continued in D.C. throughout the first days of the summit.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday that the U.S. will soon announce an additional $2.3 billion in security assistance for Ukraine, to include anti-tank weapons, interceptors and munitions for Patriot and other air defense systems. Austin’s remarks came as Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov met with him at the Pentagon. And they mark a strong response to pleas from Kyiv for help in battling Russian forces in the Donetsk region. Austin said the aid will come through presidential drawdown authority, which allows the Pentagon to take the weapons from its stocks and send them more quickly to Ukraine.

Trump says that the war in Ukraine started because of NATO expansion.

Los Angeles-based affiliates of the Sinaloa cartel, the organization once helmed by infamous drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, have partnered with underground banks in China to launder more than $50 million, authorities say.

President Joe Biden’s campaign aired an ad on Monday that capitalized on the weaponization of government against his political opponent, former President Donald Trump. The Biden campaign has mostly shied away from campaigning on Trump’s criminal conviction — until now. In a $50 million ad buy through the end of June, Biden will cast Trump as a criminal and himself as a protector of family values. The Associated Press described the ad: Besides Trump’s criminal conviction, the ad, titled “Character Matters,” notes the former president also was found liable for sexual assault and financial fraud in separate proceedings. Trump also...

“The investments that Russia had have matured. So Russia’s funds are sitting in cash, but they’re generating income for the institution which Russia has no claim on,” she concluded. The G7 agreed on the American proposal Thursday during a summit in Italy. The move allows the world leaders to tap into the interest being accumulated at European banking institutions from the frozen assets to the tune of $50 billion. Yellen added that the G7 has made it clear to Moscow that the actual assets will remain frozen until Russia agrees to pay for the damages Ukraine has sustained over the...

President Joe Biden publicly apologized to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday for a congressional holdup over $61 billion in military aid.Observers have said that the delay allowed Russia to make advances in Ukraine.Biden met Zelenskyy in Paris when the apology was made.“I apologize for those weeks of not knowing what’s going to happen in terms of funding,” Biden said, describing the roughly 6 months of debate in Congress over a $61 billion military aid package for Ukraine. “We’re still in. Completely. Thoroughly."Zelenskyy emphasized the importance of unity between the U.S. and Ukraine.“It’s very important that in this unity, United...

The commander stepped over boxes stacked full of plastic drones and opened the lid on a new delivery. Inside lay the light-gray fins of a mini plane, the latest addition to his arsenal of crewless aerial vehicles for fighting the Russian army. The 33-year-old leader of what an internal report declared Ukrainian army’s best-performing drone unit, Senior Lt. Yuriy Fedorenko — popularly known by his call sign, Achilles — has been the main constraint on the Russian attempt to seize the strategic town of Chasiv Yar on Ukraine’s teetering eastern front. For months, his drone teams, part of the 92nd...

Denys Yaroslavskyi is angry. ... “There was no first line of defence. We saw it. The Russians just walked in. They just walked in, without any mined fields” he says. He shows me video from a drone feed taken a few days ago of small columns of Russian troops simply walking across the border, unopposed. He says officials had claimed that defences were being built at huge cost, but in his view, those defences simply weren’t there. “Either it was an act of negligence, or corruption. It wasn’t a failure. It was a betrayal”. Everyone knew that this incursion was...

Volodymyr Zelensky recently released a statement revealing that his regime and the government of Washington D.C. were in continued contact, “working on a bilateral security agreement” that would see “monetary aid” sent to Ukraine for an agreed-upon time of ten years.###Despite an individual’s personal feelings on the Russia-Ukraine war, the facts of the matter are that Ukraine is not a NATO country—and at this point, the cost-benefit analysis of being a member of the NATO pact is definitely not worth it for the American people—and Zelensky is not a good guy. This isn’t to say that Vladimir Putin is…but between...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US has seen evidence of Chinese attempts to “influence and arguably interfere” with the upcoming US elections, despite an earlier commitment from leader Xi Jinping not to do so. Blinken made the comments to CNN’s Kylie Atwood in an interview Friday at the close of a three-day to trip to China, where the top American diplomat spent hours meeting with top Chinese officials including Xi, as the two countries navigated a raft of contentious issues from US tech controls to Beijing’s support for Moscow. Blinken said he repeated a message President Joe...

President Biden argued that it never occurred to former President Trump to take a competitive stance against China, while rolling out a slew of actions Wednesday intended to protect the U.S. steel industry from Chinese exports. Biden was in Pittsburgh at the United Steelworkers headquarters touting the new actions, which involves him calling on the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to consider tripling the existing 7.5 percent tariff rate on Chinese steel and aluminum imports. The president also said to boost competition with China, he has revitalized partnerships in the Pacific with countries like India, Australia, South Korea, the...