The United States will send Ukraine $1.7 billion in military aid, officials said Monday, including an array of weapons for air defense systems, artillery, mortars and anti-tank and anti-ship missiles.The Associated Press reports that the package includes $1.5 billion in funding for long-term contracts through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and $200 million in immediate military aid to be taken from the Pentagon’s stockpile. But the Pentagon did not say which systems would be sent to Ukraine immediately and which systems would be funded through contracts and not delivered to the battlefield for months or years.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday he had inspected the frontline area of Vovchansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region, close to the Russian border, where Moscow’s forces have been attempting a breakthrough.Reuters reported that Russian forces opened a new front in the north of the region in May, rapidly advancing up to 10 kilometers (6 miles). Ukrainian forces later called off the offensive. “Kharkov front. Forward headquarters of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Vovchansk region,” Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Zelenskiy later said in a video clip posted online that authorities had already begun strengthening air defenses in the Kharkiv region and that there had recently been some easing of Russian air attacks there.“In terms of security, without going into too many details, we have already started strengthening the airspace around Kharkiv,” Zelenskiy told businesspeople in the neighboring Poltava region.Supplies of Western anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine have begun accelerating after a months-long halt in U.S. supplies due to disagreements in the U.S. Congress.
Russian forces have seized two frontline villages in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, a Ukrainian army sergeant said on Monday.The attack comes after the Kremlin launched relentless attacks as part of a summer offensive to overwhelm the area’s battlefield defenses, according to the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian General Staff said in a statement that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had carried out an attack in Russia’s Kursk region, hitting several electricity substations and causing a power outage.The claim of responsibility came after Russia said it had thwarted a nighttime Ukrainian drone attack. “The Russians continued their attacks without rest to capture the villages of Vovche and Proles,” Sergeant Major Oleh Chaus of Ukraine’s 47th Independent Mechanized Brigade told Radio Svoboda. “They sent in a huge amount of forces that they had not used before.” The Russian Defense Ministry recently claimed to have captured the villages, but the Ukrainian General Staff has not made any official comment.
Ukrainian military intelligence claimed responsibility for an ambush that killed a fighter from Russia’s Wagner group in Mali, West Africa, thousands of miles from the Ukrainian front line. A Telegram channel linked to Wagner’s leadership acknowledged on Monday that the group suffered heavy losses in fighting in Mali last week. Ukrainian forces are also believed to be operating in Sudan, another place where Wagner’s forces have been heavily involved in fighting, in a further sign that the battle between Kiev and Moscow is spreading on a global scale, The Guardian reported. Reported by Sean Walker.
French President Emmanuel Macron issued the warning to Iran’s new President, Massoud Pezechkian, in a phone call on Monday. In a statement, the Elysee Palace said it opposed Iran’s continued support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Olha Harlan won Ukraine’s first Olympic medal at the Paris Olympics. After beating South Korea’s Choi Se Bin in a sudden-death match to win the bronze medal in the women’s sabre, Karlan collapsed to the ground and burst into tears: “This is a message to the whole world that Ukraine will never give up.”
