The Ukraine War in 2024
On the Ground
- June 23, 2024
Ukrainians are having to cope with widespread emergency blackouts as Russia continues to pound critical infrastructure.
In recent months, Moscow has intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid. On Friday night, energy facilities came under a “massive attack”, Ukraine’s energy ministry said. Several workers were injured as a result of shelling at one of the facilities. “The situation in the energy sector remains difficult,” the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
Volodomyr Zelenksiy said this month that Russia had damaged or destroyed more than half of Ukraine’s power generation, causing the worst rolling blackouts since the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Ukraine began implementing rolling blackouts on 15 May, disconnecting entire districts of the capital from the power grid to save energy.
- June 7, 2024
Ukrainian forces had destroyed Russian missile launchers with a strike in the Belgorod region, about 20 miles into Russia. Ukraine used the US High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS.Officials. The attack came just days after the Biden administration granted permission for Ukraine to fire American weapons into Russia. Kyiv took advantage of its new latitude, striking a military facility over the border using a U.S.-made artillery system, according to a member of Ukraine’s Parliament.
A video from a Russian Telegram channel showed burning Russian military equipment and a swirling plume of gray smoke after a strike last Sunday. The video, which was verified by The New York Times, was recorded just outside of Belgorod, and satellite imagery shows smoke rising from what appears to be destroyed vehicles. At least one of the launchers was in an elevated position at the time of the attack.
Military analysts say the Ukrainians’ new ability to strike in Russia will help slow Moscow’s attacks across the border.
“Now we can hit the Russian troops at the stage of formation, which reduces the probability of preparing new offensives” at other sites on the border, said Mykhailo Samus, director of the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, a military research organization in Kyiv.
- May 31, 2024
Recent decisions by President Biden and others give Ukrainian forces several new options. But they’re still restricted in the use of Western missiles that could strike far inside Russia.
The decision by the Biden administration to allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia with American-made weapons fulfills a long-held wish by officials in Kyiv that they claimed was essential to level the playing field.
The shift in policy followed declarations from nearly a dozen European governments and Canada that their weapons could be used to fire into Russia.
Freed from those constraints, Ukraine can strike into Russia with SCALP missiles from France and, potentially soon, the identical Storm Shadow missiles supplied by Britain. Although the British foreign minister, David Cameron, said on May 3 that Ukraine should be able to attack Russia with Western weapons, London has not yet given its full permission.
The SCALP and Storm Shadow missiles have a range of about 150 miles and are fired from Ukraine’s aging fleet of Soviet-designed fighter jets.
However, in disclosing the new policy, U.S. officials said their policy would not permit the use of ATACMS or long-range missiles that can strike deep into Russia. Germany also has so far refused to donate its Taurus missile, with a range of 310 miles, in part out of concern that it would be fired deep into Russia and escalate the war. It is now even less likely to do so, Rafael Loss, a weapons expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview on Thursday.
- May 16, 2024
Russia’s attack across the border north and north-west of Kharkiv was telegraphed by Moscow, predicted by western intelligence and anticipated by Ukraine. The fact that Russian forces have been able to advance about 4 miles at multiple points in five days raises serious questions about Kyiv’s ability to defend itself.
An intention to create “a sanitary zone” along the border inside Ukraine was signalled by Vladimir Putin in March. A month later Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, highlighted that Kharkiv had an “important role” in such a strategy as the region was reeling from bombing that had knocked out two power stations on 22 March.
At the same time, Moscow’s military had been building up its new Northern Group of forces, estimated by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) at 30,000 strong, in Russia’s Belgorod region. Last week, two days before the dawn assault, Kharkiv’s regional governor said a massing of forces had been spotted.
A warning was also passed, one source added, from UK defence intelligence to Ukraine’s leadership. So when on 5am last Friday, somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 Russian soldiers crossed the border at two key points, it might have been expected that the attack would be swiftly repulsed.
In fact, Ukraine’s defensive lines were thin to absent. At Vovchansk, less than 40 miles north-west of Kharkiv, “the first line of fortifications and mines just didn’t exist”, wrote Ukrainian commander Denys Yaroslavsky on Sunday, while a Ukrainian veteran with contacts in region said “units were simply not prepared to fight” and defences “not properly positioned”.
By the middle of the week fighting had reached Vovchansk and villages north of Lyptsi, about 20 miles away from Ukraine’s second city, home to 1.3 million people.
- May 13, 2024
Military experts say the Russian advance has put Ukraine in a very dangerous spot
In the past three days, Russian troops, backed by fighter jets, artillery and lethal drones, have poured across Ukraine’s northeastern border and seized at least nine villages and settlements, and more square miles per day than at almost any other point in the war, save the very beginning.
In some places, Ukrainian troops are retreating, and Ukrainian commanders are blaming each other for the defeats.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are fleeing to Kharkiv, the nearest big city. A reception center that hummed with a sense of order and calm on Saturday had transformed into a totally different scene on Sunday, as exhausted people shouted at each other and families with no place to go spilled out onto the grass.
As the sense of panic spreads, especially in Kharkiv, some hard questions loom:
- How far will this go?
- Is it just a momentary setback for the underdog Ukrainians? Or a turning point?
In the meantime, Ukraine says it is pushing back against assaults and battling for control of territory as fierce fighting has continued for a second day on the fringes of the Kharkiv region in north-east Ukraine. Moscow said it had captured five villages, while Kyiv said it was pushing back against the attacks and battling for control of the territory.
Russia launched the armoured incursion early on Friday, in an attack that may presage a broader push into the Kharkiv region, or aim to draw away overstretched Ukrainian forces in the east where Moscow’s offensive is focused.
Kyiv has been on the back foot for months as Russian troops have slowly advanced, mainly in the Donetsk region to the south, taking advantage of Ukraine’s shortages of troops and artillery shells.
- May 6, 2024
Russia nuclear drills over the West’s deepening role in Ukraine
Russia on Monday threatened to strike British military facilities and said it would hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons amid sharply rising tensions over comments by senior Western officials about possibly deeper involvement in the war in Ukraine.
After summoning the British ambassador to the Foreign Ministry, Moscow warned that Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with U.K.-supplied weapons could bring retaliatory strikes on British military facilities and equipment on Ukrainian soil or elsewhere.
It was the first time Russia has publicly announced drills involving tactical nuclear weapons, although its strategic nuclear forces regularly hold exercises. Tactical nuclear weapons include air bombs, warheads for short-range missiles and artillery munitions and are meant for use on a battlefield. They are less powerful than the strategic weapons — massive warheads that arm intercontinental ballistic missiles and are intended to obliterate entire cities.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric expressed concern that various parties have been talking about issues regarding nuclear weapons more and more recently.
“Current nuclear risks are at an alarmingly high level,” Dujarric said. “All actions that could lead to miscalculation, escalation with catastrophic consequences, must be avoided.”
French President Emmanuel Macron repeated last week that he doesn’t exclude sending troops to Ukraine, and U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Kyiv’s forces will be able to use British long-range weapons to strike targets inside Russia.
Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said the nuclear exercises “contribute to increasing instability.”
“In the current security situation, Russia’s actions may be considered particularly irresponsible and reckless,” Billström told Swedish news agency TT.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council that’s chaired by Putin, said in his typically hawkish fashion that the comments by Macron and Cameron risked pushing the nuclear-armed world toward a “global catastrophe.”
- April 29, 2024
Ukraine pulls back from three villages in east, Zelenskiy pleads for weapons
Ukraine’s top commander said Kyiv’s outnumbered troops had fallen back to new positions west of three villages on the eastern front where Russia has concentrated significant forces in several locations.
Military communications restored
- April 27, 2024
Washington says Kyiv must address critical manpower shortages, shore up its defenses to enable
A long-awaited influx of U.S. weapons will help Ukraine to blunt Russia’s advance in the coming months, Biden administration officials said after Congress passed a major aid package, but an acute troop shortage and Moscow’s firepower advantage mean that Kyiv won’t likely regain major offensive momentum until 2025 at the earliest.
- April 24, 2024
The New Long Reach of Ukrainian Missiles
Atacms long-ranges missiles capable of hitting targets 300km away had already arrived in Ukraine this month at the president’s direction, before the US security package was passed by Congress on Wednesday, the state department has said. Vedant Patel, a state department spokesperson, explained that the weapons were part of a March aid package for Ukraine – not the one just approved by Congress and signed by Joe Biden. “We did not announce this at the onset in order to maintain operational security for Ukraine at their request.”
Ukraine has begun using the long-range Atacms, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area in recent days, two US officials have told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. One of them said the Biden administration previously warned Russia that if it used long-range ballistic missiles in Ukraine, Washington would provide the same capability to the Ukrainians. Russia has since done so.
Separately, Adm Christopher Grady, vice-chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, told the Associated Press that long-range weapons would help Ukraine take out Russian logistics and troop concentrations behind the frontlines. He explained how the decision to supply them was considered carefully and at length. “I think the time is right, and the boss [President Biden] made the decision the time is right to provide these based on where the fight is right now.”
- April 20, 2024
Breaking News: House Passes $60 Billion Ukraine Aid package
The House on Saturday passed a multi-country aid bill in the sum of $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson put his job on the line, with full democratic party support, to advance the long-stalled Ukraine aid package and in defiance of far-right hard-liners within his own party who up until today have successfully delayed and obstructed Ukraine aid designed to rescue the Country’s flagging war effort. Other Country funding for the past four months including passage of strategic and aid-essential three-country funding package are also are part of the funding packages. The bills now go back to Senate for a final vote and approval.
U.S. Military Aid for Ukraine is set to begin re-supplying Ukraine with essential military supplies and amendments, including Patriot air defense missiles, already in Europe awaiting the go-ahead to begin resupply operations. What would $60 billion buy? Lots of air-defense missiles and artillery ammunition, according to the Pentagon.
The $95 billion package for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific region, the bill package includes a provision to transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, and sanctions against Hamas and Iran.
The Ukraine aid package, announced on March 12, included Stinger antiaircraft missiles, guided rockets for HIMARS launch vehicles, small anti-tank rockets and 155-mm artillery ammunition that included cluster munition rounds.
U.S. General Ryder was asked about a nonbinding measure in the House legislation to send Kyiv weapons called ATACMS, which have been the Pentagon’s longest-range ground-launched guided missiles since the late 1980s. The Biden administration agreed to provide a small number of those missiles last year, and Ukrainian forces used them to strike two air bases in Russian-occupied territory in October. Ukraine’s special operations forces said the attack damaged runways and destroyed nine Russian helicopters among other targets.
- April 19, 2024
On Friday, the rule for considering the bill — historically a straight party-line vote — passed with more Democratic than Republican support, but it also won a majority of G.O.P. votes, making it clear that despite a pocket of deep resistance from far-right Republicans, there is broad bipartisan backing for the $95.3 billion package. One of the four funding bills provides $60 billion for Ukraine. Most of the money goes to U.S. weapons manufacturers to build back depleted U.S. weapons supplies, and about 20 percent of that goes directly to the country in the form of a loan. The president can cancel Ukraine’s debt, however, after Nov. 15.
But it came only after Speaker Mike Johnson put his job on the line by turning to Democrats in a significant breach of custom in the House, further imperiling his position even as he paved the way for the legislation to be voted on and approved.
On the House floor, Democrats held back their votes until it was clear there was not enough Republican support for the measure to pass without their backing, and then their “yes” votes began pouring in. Ultimately, 165 Democrats voted for the measure, more than the 151 Republicans who supported it. Despite threats to Johnson’s job, the speaker decided to rely on Democrats to muscle through his aid package.
Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) made the call late Thursday night to “do what is necessary” to provide the votes to advance the legislation. It was a significant decision considering that Johnson has slow-walked the aid package and remained noncommittal about a path forward until just this week.
- April 18, 2024
Calls to support Ukraine’s defence against Russian air strikes have grown after at least 17 people died when three missiles hit the centre of Chernihiv, a city in northern Ukraine near the border with Russia.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on Wednesday urged his fellow EU leaders to follow Germany’s lead and send Ukraine more Patriot air defence systems. Germany on Saturday announced it was sending an additional Patriot battery. “This is immediately useful, we want to encourage others to do the same,” said Scholz as he arrived for an EU summit in Brussels. “Now it is about doing it quickly and not at some point in the future.”
Nato’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, told member countries that they should further strain their stockpiles to help support Ukraine. “If allies face a choice between meeting Nato capability targets and providing more aid to Ukraine, my message is clear: send more to Ukraine,” he said on Wednesday.
The Republican House Speaker, Mike Johnson, is pushing ahead with his plan to hold votes on four separate foreign aid bills this week, despite two radical right Republicans threat to oust him if he advances a Ukraine funding proposal.
Shortly after noon on Wednesday, the rules committee posted text for three bills that would provide funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The separation of the Senate-passed combined funding package, Johnson created three discreet country funding proposals. Passed in the Republican controlled House, the surviving bills would be forced to return to Senate (once again) for a confirmation vote. This newly added process extra step will add time and political risk in the process to pass an overdue and sorely needed Ukraine military funding package for 2024.
- April 16, 2024
Ukraine’s Big Vulnerabilities: Ammunition, Soldiers and Air Defense
The shortages add up to a dire situation for Ukraine in the third year of the war, presenting commanders with near impossible choices on how to deploy limited resources.
Ukraine’s top military commander has issued a bleak assessment of the army’s positions on the eastern front, saying they have “worsened significantly in recent days.”
Russian forces were pushing hard to exploit their growing advantage in manpower and ammunition to break through Ukrainian lines, the commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, said in a statement over the weekend.
“Despite significant losses, the enemy is increasing his efforts by using new units on armored vehicles, thanks to which he periodically achieves tactical gains,” the general said.
At the same time, Ukraine’s energy ministry told millions of civilians to charge their power banks, get their generators out of storage and “be ready for any scenario” as Ukrainian power plants are damaged or destroyed in devastating Russian airstrikes.
House Republicans continue to hold Ukraine rescue funding and military support hostage for an incoherent political agenda.
- April 12, 2024
Russia’s missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy system, the bombardment of its second-largest city and advances along the front are stoking worries that Kyiv’s military effort is nearing breaking point.
A dire shortage of ammunition due to a dysfunctional Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives failing in their legislative responsibilities to pass a Ukraine funding package, passed by the bi-partian Senate last month. Hanging above it all is the stalled $60 billion US aid package, a victim of infighting among House Republicans benefiting Putin. Should US funds not come through, there is no alternative for Ukraine at its darkest moment, the officials said. An unprecedented series of foreign officials have visited Washington recently and appealed to congressional Republicans to approve more aid for Ukraine.
In the meantime, Russian forces are benefiting from a widening gap in ammunition supplies, with Moscow set to secure 6 million shells this year with ramped-up production and supplies from North Korea and Iran, according to one official.
Manpower shortages are another problem for Ukraine along a 930 mile front and and with gaps in air defenses, altogether have placed Ukraine at its most fragile moment in over two years of war, according to Western officials.
The risk is a collapse of Ukrainian defenses, an event that would give Kremlin an opening to make a major advance for the first time since the initial stages of the conflict, at least one official said.
The next few months will amount to Ukraine’s toughest test, with a public growing exhausted of war, especially in the city of Kharkiv in the country’s east, which has been particularly targeted.
Krystyna Malieieva, who fled the city after Russia invaded and then returned, said the unpredictability of the attacks have struck fear into city residents, even if most don’t believe the Kremlin can take a metropolis whose prewar population was 1.5 million.
“There is very depressive mood in Kharkiv now,” Malieieva, the owner of a family center who returned in 2023 after a year in Croatia and the UK, said in an interview. “People started to return last year, new restaurants opened — and now I see people are fleeing again.”
- April 5th, 2024
Russian forces were advancing, and pushing back against them was “difficult”, said Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s armed forces.
Syrskyi said the situation in the Bakhmut area in the partially occupied eastern Donetsk region was particularly challenging, Reuters reported.
He said Russian forces are carrying out offensive operations day and night, using assault groups with the support of armoured vehicles, as well as assaults on foot.
Fierce battles are taking place east of the town of Chasiv Yar, which Ukraine still controls and which is located near the occupied city of Bakhmut.
Russian forces are trying to break through defensive lines there, Syrskyi said on the messaging app Telegram, adding that “Chasiv Yar remains under our control, all enemy attempts to break through to the settlement have failed”.
Near Avdiivka, another city in the Donetsk region held by the Russians, the fiercest battles were occurring in Pervomaiskyi and Vodyanyi, according to the official. He also said the situation is tense on the southern and north-eastern parts of the front line.
Meantime, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned of “significant consequences” for China if its companies provide material support for Russia in its war against Ukraine. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron is expected to visit the United States next week in order to persuade Republican politicians to approve a $60bn package of aid for Ukraine that they have delayed in the US Congress for months.
Ukraine is a country clinging to independence in the face of a broad and bloody assault intent on toppling Ukraine’s democratic government and scramble the post-cold war world order. Vladimir Putin is determined to overthrow Ukraine’s government and replace it with a regime of his own.
The invasion represents Putin’s boldest effort yet to redraw the map of Europe and revive Moscow’s cold war-era influence. It has triggered an international response including an uncharacteristically unified NATO response and direct sanctions on Putin. Military and economic aid from the United States, and direct support from Ukraine’s neighboring NATO countries further threatened by Russia’s invasion are proving essential to Ukraine’s self-defense.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also abruptly transformed the world. Millions of people have already fled. Global food and grain exports have been disrupted, and a revived Iron Curtain is grinding into place. As economic warfare deepens in step with the military conflict, Ukrainian civilian casualties rise along with evidence of horrific war crimes by committed by Russian military forces.
As the war enters its third painful year (2024), Ukraine’s leadership is fighting along a 930-mile front with the Russians, fighting to win crucial supplies from allies and fighting among itself. It wants to avoid being forced to negotiate unpalatable peace terms, even though the pressure to do so is building.
The Ukraine war is far from Hawaii’s shores, but the implications of this war are global, including an embargo on importing Russian oil which Hawaiian Electric combustion power plants depend. Ukraine’s war-disrupted grain exports (the breadbasket of the world) drive up global food prices and inflation.
It’s been two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, with tens of thousands having perished in a war that’s ushered in the most geopolitically dangerous era in decades. More violence has erupted, including the disastrous conflict between Israel and Hamas. Tensions everywhere seem to be rising. The Kremlin could deploy a nuclear weapon into space as early as this year, the US told allies, just before the Biden administration unveiled a far-reaching sanctions package against Russia.
One the second anniversary of the Russian invasion Ukraine, President Joe Biden told the world:
The brave people of Ukraine fight on, unbowed in their determination to defend their freedom and future. Nato is stronger, larger, and more united than ever. And the unprecedented 50-nation global coalition in support of Ukraine, led by the United States, remains committed to providing critical assistance to Ukraine and holding Russia accountable for its aggression. The American people and people around the world understand that the stakes of this fight extend far beyond Ukraine.
Ukraine on Saturday (Feb. 24,2024) marked two years since Russia’s invasion, entering a new year of war weakened by a lack of western aid and ammunition while Russia is emboldened by fresh gains. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that decisions on arms supplies had to be “the priority”. The anniversary of the invasion on 24 February 2022 will see visits by western leaders including the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen.
At the beginning of the War, Ukraine defied expectations by repelling a much larger invading Russian army, and preventing outright defeat, but international aid and military-supply deliveries have slowed, and soldiers under heavy artillery fire are dying in the thousands, sometimes for a few miles of land.
Overall, war aid remains uncertain for Kyiv due to far-right Republicans in Congress blocking a vital $60bn aid package, compounded by arms delivery delays promised by European allies.Meantwhile, grinding Russian advances and faltering Western backing for Kyiv has been a gift to Putin (the Russian leader) who’s recent lookout on the war has shifted from depressed to confident, convinced he now has the numbers to win the war and completed his conquer of Ukraine.
Seven troops from the 3rd Assault Brigade spoke to The Post about their final days under Russian assault inside the former Ukrainian stronghold. Their accounts drive home the urgency of Ukraine’s battlefield disadvantage as soldiers — far outnumbered by Russians — wait for Western weapon deliveries and troop reinforcements.
Two years of war have remade Russia.
Isolated from the West, it is now more dependent on China. Political repression is reminiscent of the grim days of the Soviet Union.
But Russia is not the economic shambles many in the West predicted when they imposed punishing sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine. Many Russians are pulling down their highest incomes in years.
Russian society has been refashioned in ways that have devastated some and lifted others. While government critics languish in jail and young men die in trenches at the front, other Russians — especially those willing to spout the official line — are feeling more optimistic than ever.
In the early months of the war, Putin’s military made grave mistakes, but it has regrouped. Russia fended off a Western-backed Ukrainian counteroffensive and has taken the initiative on the front, buoyed by frozen American aid for Ukraine. Still, Russia has sustained huge costs to get this far. It is far from controlling the four regions it claims to have annexed, let alone the rest of Ukraine, and Mr. Putin may need to carry out another draft. Putlin publically claims he would like to negotiate an end to the war, but skeptics see that as a ploy to undercut Western aid to Ukraine.
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