Wars 2022 02/24 Monitoring Russian and Ukraine War.

Saif · Jan 16, 2025

Blasts in Kyiv as UK PM inks ‘landmark’ 100-year accord

British prime minister Keir Starmer signed a ‘landmark’ 100-year partnership agreement with Ukraine during an unannounced visit to the war-torn country on Thursday, seeking to shore up support for Kyiv before Donald Trump returns to the White House....

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Blasts in Kyiv as UK PM inks ‘landmark’ 100-year accord
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 16 January, 2025, 23:54

British prime minister Keir Starmer signed a ‘landmark’ 100-year partnership agreement with Ukraine during an unannounced visit to the war-torn country on Thursday, seeking to shore up support for Kyiv before Donald Trump returns to the White House.

Loud blasts and air raid sirens rang out over the Ukrainian capital after Starmer’s arrival as air defence systems in central Kyiv repelled a Russian drone attack, officials and AFP journalists reported.

In Starmer’s first official visit to Kyiv since taking office last July, he pledged steadfast support for Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion, and said any deal to end the fighting must ‘guarantee’ Ukraine’s security and independence.

The visit is the latest meeting that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is holding in a flurry of talks with his country’s allies before Trump’s return next week.

The incoming Republican has stoked fears in Kyiv and Europe that he will cut Washington’s vital military aid or force Ukraine to accept a ceasefire on terms that reward Russia for its February 2022 invasion.

Starmer said he would ‘work with all of our allies’ to ensure any settlement was ‘robust enough to guarantee Ukraine’s security, guarantee any possible peace and deter any future aggression.’

Under the 100-year agreement, London and Kyiv pledged to ‘deepen defence cooperation’ and boost Ukraine’s defence industry, recognising it as a ‘future NATO ally.’

Speaking in Kyiv, Starmer hailed it as a ‘landmark agreement, the very first of its kind, a new partnership between the UK and Ukraine that reflects the huge affection that exists between our two nations.’

Zelensky said ties with Britain were ‘closer than ever’ and called the new agreement ‘truly comprehensive.’

Starmer had kicked off the visit by laying wreaths with Zelensky to commemorate killed Ukrainian soldiers and visiting a burns hospital treating wounded servicemen.

Ahead of their meeting, Zelensky said that he and Starmer would discuss the possibility of having Western troops stationed in Ukraine to oversee any ceasefire agreement, a divisive proposal initially put forward by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Starmer did not say whether Britain would be willing to deploy troops.

‘It is really important that Ukraine is put in the strongest possible position,’ he said in response to a question about whether Britain would send a military contingent to the country.

The UK has been one of Ukraine’s biggest military backers, pledging £12.8 billion ($16 billion) in military and civilian aid since Russia invaded three years ago.

London has committed £3 billion ($3.7 billion) of support every year ‘for as long as it takes’, and is also providing a £2.2 billion loan backed by profits on frozen Russian assets.

The United States remains by far Ukraine’s biggest financial backer — but that looks set to change when Trump arrives.

His nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said Wednesday that the new administration would instead seek ‘bold diplomacy’ to end the war.

‘There will have to be concessions made by the Russian Federation but also by the Ukrainians,’ he said.

Trump has previously vowed to end the war within a day, with his aides speaking of leveraging US assistance to Ukraine to force it into territorial concessions.

Zelensky, who is pushing a ‘peace through strength’ message, said Kyiv was ‘not considering security guarantees for Ukraine without the United States of America.’

As part of Ukraine’s whirlwind diplomatic programme, Italy defence minister Guido Crosetto announced on Thursday that he had also arrived in Kyiv on an official visit for a ‘series of institutional meetings’.

In Poland a day earlier, Zelensky had called for the West to buy Kyiv weapons with some $250 billion of unallocated frozen Russian assets.

The visits come at a precarious moment for Ukraine on the battlefield.

Fighting has escalated before Trump’s inauguration on Monday, as both sides seek to gain the upper hand in anticipation of potential negotiations aimed at settling the war launched by Russia in February 2022.

Zelensky conceded on Thursday that Russia had the ‘initiative’ in the east of the country, but pointed to Ukraine’s on-going hold of Russian territory in its western Kursk region as a sign of his forces’ potential.

At several key points in the northern Kharkiv and eastern Donetsk regions, Russian forces have exploited their advantages in manpower and resources to steadily advance.

Lulldapull · Jan 16, 2025

I'm afraid Russia has lost its $250 billion investment in the west accrued over the last 2 decades.

Iraq also has half a trillion and the entire GCC has multiple times that amount.

Dis da whole game gents.....lol......Not Islamukk terror or Al-Qaeda or Al-Nusra or talibunnies.

No money, no honey baby.

Iran knows dis game well, cuz it got played real bad under the Shah.

NO MORE!!!!!

Saif · Jan 21, 2025

Ukraine strikes Russian oil depot, aviation plant

Ukraine fired a wave of drones at Russia overnight, sparking a blaze at an oil depot and “explosions” at a plant producing military aircraft, its army said yesterday.

www.thedailystar.net

Ukraine strikes Russian oil depot, aviation plant

Ukraine fired a wave of drones at Russia overnight, sparking a blaze at an oil depot and "explosions" at a plant producing military aircraft, its army said yesterday.

Neither side has shown signs of deescalating since US President Donald Trump returned to office on Monday. The Republican has promised to bring a swift end to the nearly three-year war, but has not yet set out a plan for doing so.

In the western Voronezh region bordering Ukraine, Kyiv said it struck an oil depot near the town of Liski for the second time in less than a week, sparking another blaze at the facility.

"Tanks with fuel and lubricants used by the occupiers to supply Russian troops caught fire," the Ukrainian army said on Facebook.

The region's governor, Alexander Gusev, said the fire was caused by debris from a downed drone and that no-one was injured.

Ukraine also said it struck an aviation plant producing "combat aircraft" in the western Russian city of Smolensk, sparking "explosions".

The governor of the Smolensk region did not comment on the attack, saying only that falling debris from downed drones had sparked "roof fires".

In the Orenburg region bordering Kazakhstan, hundreds of kilometres from the frontline, authorities in the towns of Yasny and Komarovsky urged civilians to take cover in their nearest shelters due to the risk of a "drone attack".

Saif · Jan 23, 2025

2,00,000 int’l troops needed to secure any Ukraine peace: Zelensky

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said any peace deal agreed with Russia would require at least 200,000 European peacekeepers to oversee it, according to comments published on Wednesday...

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2,00,000 int’l troops needed to secure any Ukraine peace: Zelensky
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 23 January, 2025, 00:07

Volodymyr Zelensky. | AFP file photo.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said any peace deal agreed with Russia would require at least 200,000 European peacekeepers to oversee it, according to comments published on Wednesday.

US president Donald Trump’s return to the White House has raised the spectre of some kind of halt in the fighting after he vowed to end the war — though he has never explained how.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos a day earlier, Zelensky said any deal to end the conflict would need to be overseen by a large foreign contingent of peacekeepers.

Zelensky said that given the small size of the Ukrainian army compared to that of Russia, ‘we need contingents with a very strong number of soldiers’ to secure any peace deal.

‘From all the Europeans? Two hundred thousand. It’s a minimum. Otherwise, it’s nothing,’ he said.

He said any other arrangement would be akin to the monitoring mission led by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in eastern Ukraine that disintegrated when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

‘They had offices and that’s all,’ Zelensky said, underscoring the need from the Ukrainian perspective for an armed force to prevent further Russian attacks.

The Ukrainian leader has repeatedly said that Ukraine must be represented at any talks with international parties to end the conflict and that only robust security guarantees can dissuade Russia from attacking again.

Ukraine’s fear that Moscow would use a truce to rebuild its military stems partially from the decade that followed peace agreements between Kremlin-backed separatists and Kyiv in 2014 which failed to halt Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

In an earlier address at Davos, Zelensky called on Europe to establish a joint defence policy and said European capitals should be prepared to increase spending, while calling into question Trump’s commitment to NATO, the US-led security bloc.

Trump on Tuesday indicated he would consider imposing fresh sanctions on Russia if president Vladimir Putin refuses to negotiate a deal to end the war in Ukraine.

Saif · Jan 28, 2025

Russian captures village in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region

Russia’s army said on Tuesday its forces had captured a large village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the latest territorial gain for Moscow’s advancing troops as Kyiv warned of intense fighting in two other key frontline towns.

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Russian captures village in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region
Agence France-Presse . Moscow 29 January, 2025, 00:40

Russia’s army said on Tuesday its forces had captured a large village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the latest territorial gain for Moscow’s advancing troops as Kyiv warned of intense fighting in two other key frontline towns.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had ‘liberated’ the village of Dvorichna, which had a pre-conflict population of more than 3,000.

The village — located across the strategic Oskil river — was seized by Russian forces at the start of their full-scale military offensive in 2022, before being re-taken by Kyiv months later in a swift counter-offensive.

But Ukraine’s army has been pushed back over the past year, outgunned and outmanned by Russia’s troops across the 1,000-kilometre front line.

Kyiv’s army said Tuesday its forces were repelling fierce Russian attacks in the embattled towns of Chasiv Yar and Toretsk in the eastern Donetsk region.

‘With the support of artillery, the enemy continues to storm our positions at the Kramatorsk and Toretsk sectors,’ Ukraine’s Khortytsya troop group, tasked with holding ground at key sectors of the industrial region, said in a statement on social media.

‘Heavy fighting continues in the urban areas of Chasiv Yar and Toretsk,’ it added.

Ukrainian military bloggers, with links to the defence ministry, say Russian forces are advancing on the flanks of Chasiv Yar, a strategic hilltop town that was home to some 12,000 people before the conflict.

Toretsk is one of a string of mining towns in the Donetsk region and Russian forces have been fighting for months to capture it.

‘Almost 140 artillery shells were fired at our fortifications in Chasiv Yar, and more than 80 in Toretsk,’ Khortytsya said, without specifying over what period of time.

Eight people meanwhile were wounded in overnight Russian attacks in the southern Odesa region and the eastern Kharkiv region, local officials said.

Ukraine’s air-force said that its air defence systems had downed 65 drones over 13 regions including Kyiv, where AFP journalists heard explosions ringing out.

In Odesa, four people were wounded including a 91-year-old man and a school was damaged in the centre of the city, officials said.

An attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv meanwhile sparked a large blaze at a ‘production facility’, prosecutors said, forcing two people, including a nine-year-old girl to seek medical attention, while a drone strike on a village in the suburbs set a house on fire, wounding three people.