Russia-Ukraine updates: US to send further $725 million in weapons | News | DW
Washington has announced that it will send more arms and munitions to help Ukraine fend off the Russian invasion.
The package worth a total of $725 million (€745 million) will include HIMARS mobile rocket launch systems — the long-range artillery weapons that played a key role in the Ukrainian counteroffensive in September.
It will also include more munitions, armored vehicles and medical supplies, the White House said. The aim of the package is to restock Ukrainian supplies rather than provide any new types of weapons.
“We will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom and independence with extraordinary courage and boundless determination,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
“The capabilities we are delivering are carefully calibrated to make the most difference on the battlefield for Ukraine.”
This new package comes after an agreement among NATO members to increase procurement of air defense systems following Russia’s bombardment of Ukrainian cities in response to the destruction of the Kerch bridge connecting occupied Crimea to mainland Russia.
US military assistance to Ukraine under President Joe Biden has reached $18.3 billion.
Here are the other main headlines from the war in Ukraine on October 15.
German cardinal condemns Russian Patriarch Kyrill’s “holy war”
Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich has criticized the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kyrill I for his support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Marx said Kyrill represented the concept of the “holy war,” something he had thought was “behind us,” in comments made in an interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag and reported by the Catholic news agency KNA.
Marx also talked about differing opinions on German weapons deliveries to Ukraine.
“I find it bad that pacifists are being denigrated as idiots,” he said, referring to people who have argued against sending weapons.
“Weapons deliveries may currently be the lesser evil that one has to agree to — I’m personally not a pacifist and I can’t see a better way,” the cardinal said.
Russian reservists likely buying own body armor, UK says
Logistics problems continue to plague Russian forces, according to the UK Ministry of Defence’s daily intelligence update.
“Many reservists are likely required to purchase their own body armour,” the update said, saying that those who had been called up were “almost certainly” even worse equipped than the troops that were initially deployed to Ukraine.
The “modern 6B45 vest” was selling online for 40,000 rubles (€657, $638), more than triple its price since April, according to the ministry.
“Endemic corruption and poor logistics remain one of the underlying causes of Russia’s poor performance in Ukraine,” the intelligence update concluded.
Iran denies sending weapons to Russia
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell that Iran is not sending weapons to either side in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“We have defense cooperation with Russia, but our policy on the Ukraine war is against sending weapons to the conflicting sides and support an end to the war and the people’s displacement,” he said in a phone call with Borrell, according to a statement from the ministry published on Saturday.
Kyiv has downgraded Tehran’s diplomatic presence in Ukraine after it said Iranian-made Shahid drones had been used by Russian forces.
Catch up on DW’s coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Germany had made a “mistake” in standing with NATO while also claiming that Russia was “doing everything right” in its war of aggression against Ukraine.
DW reports on Putin’s full speech from Kazakhstan.
There have been several varying claims about the cause of the explosion that destroyed the Kerch bridge which connects mainland Russia with the illegally occupied Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
DW checks the facts behind the claims.
ab/dj (Reuters, dpa, AP, AFP, KNA)