This comes amid Kyiv’s failing counteroffensive and poses a major risk of escalation, President Volodymyr Zelensky has desired to use the long-range weapons to attack the Russian mainland.
White House Close To Providing Kiev With Cluster-Armed ATACMS
The Biden administration has been criticized in recent days over the support offered to survivors of the deadly wildfires in Maui, compared to the billions in U.S. aid sent to Ukraine.
Joe Biden’s Aid to Hawaii vs Ukraine Aid Compared: What We Know
To date, the Biden-Harris Administration has approved nearly $7 million in assistance to nearly 2,200 households, including nearly $3 million in initial rental assistance.
White House Calls for $40 Billion Supplemental
If enacted, the supplemental would provide $24.0 billion of additional aid to Ukraine – on top of the $113 billion the United States provided in 2022 alone. This includes $13.1 billion of military aid and replenishment of Pentagon weapons stocks, $8.7 billion of economic and humanitarian aid, and $2.3 billion to leverage additional aid from other donors through the World Bank.
That’s approximately $137 billion to Ukraine, $10 million, or so, for Hawaii (in soft loans and rental assistance)!
Thwarted by minefields, Ukrainian forces won’t reach the southeastern city of Melitopol, a vital Russian transit hub, according to a U.S. assessment
…
“Russians are known to be capable of fighting in cold weather,” the official said.
U.S. intelligence says Ukraine will fail to meet offensive’s key goal
Related:
‘General Frost’: How the Russian winter terrified the country’s enemies
Now it’s official. Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Patrushev said that the radioactive cloud that arose after the explosion of an ammunition depot in Khmelnitsky (where a large number of depleted uranium tank shells were destroyed) is approaching Western Europe. An increase in the radiation level has been recorded in Poland. As the British said there. You shouldn’t worry about it. Our military must be understood before the blow got acquainted with the wind rose and are now watching the consequences. The main threat from such munitions is the serious increase in cancer in the medium term, as confirmed in Yugoslavia and Iraq. Now in Ukraine and Europe
A radioactive cloud from Khmelnitsky is approaching Europe
Related:
Warsaw received its first shipment of US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), manufactured by Lockheed Martin, and announced plans to deploy the launchers near the country’s shared border with Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave.
Poland Receives First HIMARS Rocket Launchers to Deploy Near Russian Border
Are these idiots planning on invading Kaliningrad?!
An article by The Washington Post titled “Pentagon looks to restart top-secret programs in Ukraine” contains some interesting information about what US special ops forces were doing in Ukraine in the lead-up to the Russian invasion last year, and what they are slated to be doing there in the future.
Pentagon Wants To Return Special Ops Propagandists To Ukraine
Previously:
Report: Pentagon wants to revive top secret commando program in Ukraine
According to a report in the Washington Post this morning, Pentagon officials want to revive pre-Ukraine war orders that would allow them to insert commandos in the form of “control teams” to direct Ukrainian operatives to counter Russian disinformation and monitor troops movements on the ground.
Report: Pentagon wants to revive top secret commando program in Ukraine
Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Mike Turner (R-OH) appeared on ABC News’s This Week on Sunday and pledged that aid for Ukraine will continue to flow unimpeded once Republicans have a majority in the House in January.
Top House Republicans Call for Biden to Send Longer Range Weapons to Ukraine to Strike Crimea
Either this narrative about weapon stockpiles, being depleted, is part of the information war or Russia is demilitarizing NATO!?!
U.S. and NATO scramble to arm Ukraine and refill their own arsenals
In Ukraine, the kind of European war thought inconceivable is chewing up the modest stockpiles of artillery, ammunition and air defenses of what some in NATO call Europe’s “bonsai armies,” after the tiny Japanese trees. Even the mighty United States has only limited stocks of the weapons the Ukrainians want and need, and Washington is unwilling to divert key weapons from delicate regions like Taiwan and Korea, where China and North Korea are constantly testing the limits.
…
So the West is scrambling to find increasingly scarce Soviet-era equipment and ammunition that Ukraine can use now, including S-300 air defense missiles, T-72 tanks and especially Soviet-caliber artillery shells
…
There are even discussions about NATO investing in old factories in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria to restart the manufacturing of Soviet-caliber 152-mm and 122-mm shells for Ukraine’s still largely Soviet-era artillery armory.
…
The European Union has approved €3.1 billion ($3.2 billion) to repay member states for what they provide to Ukraine, but that fund, the [ironically-named] European Peace Facility, is nearly 90 percent depleted.
…
Smaller countries have exhausted their potential, another NATO official said, with 20 of its 30 members “pretty tapped out.” But the remaining 10 can still provide more, he suggested, especially larger allies. That would include France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has advised the alliance — including, pointedly, Germany — that NATO guidelines requiring members to keep stockpiles should not be a pretext to limit arms exports to Ukraine. But it is also true that Germany and France, like the United States, want to calibrate the weapons Ukraine gets, to prevent escalation and direct attacks on Russia.
…
Washington is also looking at older, cheaper alternatives like giving Ukraine anti-tank TOW missiles, which are in plentiful supply, instead of Javelins, and Hawk surface-to-air missiles instead of newer versions. But officials are increasingly pushing Ukraine to be more efficient and not, for example, fire a missile that costs $150,000 at a drone that costs $20,000.
US officials gave Ukraine public green light to bomb Kerch bridge
Completely excluded from any account in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal was the fact that senior US officials not only publicly authorized, but a former US official publicly encouraged, the attack to take place.
“Bomb Russia’s bridge to Crimea, Ukraine urged,” read the headline in the Times of London on July 7, reporting the statements of US General Philip Breedlove, NATO’s former Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
…
The next day, July 8, clearly referencing Breedlove’s comments, a reporter identified only as “Howard” asked at a Pentagon background briefing, “can you talk about any preclusions? Would the — would the Kerch Bridge be not precluded as a potential target?”*
The defense official replied, “As I said, there aren’t any preclusions that I’m aware of about the Ukrainians fighting on their sovereign territory against Russia.”
Related:
* [07-08-2022] U.S. Says Russia’s Prized Kerch Bridge Is A Fair Target For Ukrainian Forces
At a press briefing held this morning, The War Zone asked a senior U.S. official whether or not there were any preclusions about the use of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, in Ukraine against certain targets. Speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity, the official responded by saying that they couldn’t reveal any further information about specific targets, but that “Russian forces’ capabilities and logistics nodes within Ukraine are absolutely fantastic” targets. The War Zone followed up, asking if there were any hesitations about using the HIMARs against the Kerch Bridge. The official responded as follows.
“As I said, there aren’t any preclusions that I’m aware of on Ukrainians fighting on their sovereign territory against Russia.”
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
You must be logged in to post a comment.