According to the Ukraine, Russia is preparing for a lot of war

Violations of Russian Security Ruler Order in Ukraine: Implications for the State of Emergency Aviation and for Ukraine’s Future Strategic Plans

Biden announced the US would provide a missile system to Ukraine during Zelensky’s visit to the White House last month. It was the first system of its kind pledged to Ukraine.

Biden, the statement said, “also underscored his ongoing engagement with allies and partners to continue imposing costs on Russia, holding Russia accountable for its war crimes and atrocities, and providing Ukraine with security, economic, and humanitarian assistance.”

Allies of Ukraine understand the need. Ahead of a meeting in Brussels Wednesday of Ukraine’s supporters, General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “after Russia attacked the Ukrainian civilian population, we will be looking for air defense options that will help the Ukrainians.”

As of a Department of Defense briefing in late September, the US had yet to deliver NASAMS to Ukraine. At the time, Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said two systems were expected to be delivered in the next two months, with the remaining six to arrive at an undetermined date.

Zelensky said in a video message Tuesday that 20 of 28 missiles fired at Ukraine that morning had been shot down. Ukrainian officials have told CNN that more than half the Russian cruise missiles fired on Monday and Tuesday were brought down: 65 out of 112.

Putin described the strikes as a response to terrorism by the Ukrainians. He blamed the explosion on Saturday on “Ukrainian special services” and a list of other alleged crimes.

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine is striking more boldly at targets deep in Russian territory because Kyiv has assessed that Moscow’s military is fighting at the limits of its conventional capabilities, former military officials and analysts say.

The deputy head of Russia’s Security Council said he thinks Moscow should aim for a complete dismantlement of Zelensky’s regime.

John Kirby, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said Monday that there will likely be additional support packages for Ukraine announced “in the very near future.”

Kirby told Kate that it was evident that he was feeling the pressure both at home and overseas.

Despite Russia’s threats, there has been no detected change in the country’s nuclear posture.

A percentage of the projectiles that get through are bound to be in Moscow’s favor.

Some of that inventory was dispatched this week. Although Russia doesn’t use anti-ship missiles anymore, it still has a lot of them, because of the older and less precise KH-22 missiles. Weighing 5.5 tons, they are designed to take out aircraft carriers. A KH-22 was responsible for the dozens of casualties at a shopping mall in Kremenchuk in June.

He said that the onslaught of missile strikes would be an occasional feature reserved for shows of extreme outrage because the Russians don’t have the stock of precision weapons to sustain such a high-tempo missile assault into the future.

The S-300 air defense missile has been modified by the Russians to be an offensive weapon. They are very fast and are difficult to intercept in Zaporizhzhia, as well as in other places. But they are hardly accurate.

The Role of Air Defense in the War-Worn Ukraine, as Revealed by Ukrainian Defense Minister Yurii Ihnat

But Ukraine’s energy operators are getting used to repairing electricity substations, pylons and thermal power plants. Zelensky said Tuesday: “Most of the towns and villages, which terrorists wanted to leave without electricity and communication, already have electricity and communication back.”

He told CNN’s Richard Quest that this was the “first time from the beginning of the war” that Russia has “dramatically targeted” energy infrastructure.

Over the past nine months, the Ukrainians have also had plenty of practice in using their limited air defenses, mainly BUK and S-300 systems. But Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Force Command, said Tuesday said of these systems: “This equipment does not last forever, there may be losses in combat operations.”

One video on Zelensky’s website shows a soldier using a shoulder-held missile to bring down a Russian projectile, supposedly a cruise missile.

Estimating the percentage of Shahed drones that are eliminated is more difficult, because so many are being used. Zelensky said he received a message about Iran’s use of Shaheds every 10 minutes. He said a lot of them were being shot down.

Ukraine’s wish-list – circulated at Wednesday’s meeting – included missiles for their existing systems and a “transition to Western-origin layered air defense system” as well as “early warning capabilities.”

The system is widely thought to be one of the most capable weapons to defend airspace against missiles as well as aircraft. Because of its long-range and high-altitude capability, it can potentially shoot down Russian missiles and aircraft far from their intended targets inside Ukraine.

The systems of the western world are starting to trickle in. The arrival of the first IRIS-T from Germany will be the start of a new era of air defense, said Oleksii Reznikov, the Ukrainian Defense Minister.

The Defense Minister of Ukraine says that his country is about to get advanced fighter jets from the West, and that his forces are about to start training on newly committed battle tanks.

But these are hardly off-the-shelf-items. The IRIS-T had to be manufactured for Ukraine. Governments in Western countries have limited inventories of such systems. And Ukraine is a very large country under missile attack from three directions.

The Russians are playing for the whistle – a critical look at the Ukrainian offensive in Kherson, Donetsk and Kharkiv

Ukraine’s senior military commander, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, tweeted Tuesday his thanks to Poland as “brothers in arms” for training an air defense battalion that had destroyed nine of 11 Shaheeds.

He stated that Poland had provided Ukrainians with tools to destroy the drones. Last month there were reports that the Polish government had bought advanced Israeli equipment (Israel has a policy of not selling “advanced defensive technology” to Kyiv) and was then transferring it to Ukraine.

The sound of air raid sirens and Russian attacks shattered the calm in Ukrainian cities far away from the country’s battlefronts.

The next few weeks of fighting are expected to be crucial, with experts saying that another spike in intensity looms over Ukraine, as each side seeks to strike another blow.

Not for the first time, the war is teetering towards an unpredictable new phase. Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia programme, said that the war was the third, fourth, or fifth war they had been observing.

“What seemed a distant prospect for anything that could be convincingly described as a Ukraine victory is now very much more plausible,” Giles said. Russia’s response is likely to escalate further.

Oleksii Hromov, a senior Ukrainian military official, said last week that Kyiv’s forces have recaptured some 120 settlements since late September as they advance in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson regions. On Wednesday, Ukraine said it had liberated more five settlements in its slow but steady push in Kherson.

Russia will help the residents of Kherson to other areas as the Ukraine offensive continues to make gains in the region. The announcement came shortly after the head of the Moscow-backed administration in Kherson appealed to the Kremlin for help moving residents out of harm’s way, in the latest indication that Russian forces were struggling in the face of Ukrainian advances.

These counter-offensives have shifted the momentum of the war and disproved a suggestion, built up in the West and in Russia during the summer, that while Ukraine could stoutly defend territory, it lacked the ability to seize ground.

“The Russians are playing for the whistle – (hoping to) avoid a collapse in their frontline before the winter sets in,” Samir Puri, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the author of “Russia’s Road to War with Ukraine,” told CNN.

“If they can get to Christmas with the frontline looking roughly as it is, that’s a huge success for the Russians given how botched this has been since February.”

Faced with growing setbacks, the Kremlin appointed a new overall commander of Russia’s invasion. But there is little sign that Gen. Sergey Surovikin can lead his forces back onto the front foot before the end of the year, given the pace and cost of the Ukrainian counter-offensives.

The Institute for the Study of War (I SW) says that the Ukrainian military is focused on pushing Russia eastward, with Moscow likely preparing to defend the city of Starobilsk and the Luhansk region.

Landing a major blow in Donbas would send another powerful signal, and Ukraine will be eager to improve on its gains before temperatures plummet on the battlefield, and the full impact of rising energy prices is felt around Europe.

Giles said there are many reasons why the Ukrainian government has an incentive to do things quickly. “The winter energy crisis in Europe, and energy infrastructure and power being destroyed in Ukraine itself, is always going to be a test of resilience for Ukraine and its Western backers.”

NATO leaders agreed at their summit in March of last year to equip, arm and train Ukraine. The message to Moscow was that in the coming years, Ukraine would look and fight like it was in NATO.

Ukraine’s national electricity company, Ukrenergo, says it has stabilized the power supply to Kyiv and central regions of Ukraine after much of the country’s electricity supply was disrupted by Russian missile attacks on Monday and Tuesday. But Ukrainian Prime Minister has warned that “there is a lot of work to do” to fix damaged equipment, and asked Ukrainians to reduce their energy usage during peak hours.

Jeremy Fleming, the UK’s spy chief, said in a speech on Tuesday that Russian commanders on the ground knew their supplies were running out.

Russia may be limited in its ability to disrupt the counter-offensives of the Ukrainians because of its limited supply of precision weapons.

Justin Bronk, a military expert with the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), agreed with that assessment, telling CNN that, “Ukrainian interception success rates against Russian cruise missiles have risen significantly since the start of the invasion in February.”

Some help for Putin may be on the way, however. Fears of deepened military cooperation between close allies were raised after President Lukashenko said that there would be a joint regional group of troops. It could be that the alleged threats of Ukrainian involvement in the security of Belarus is a step toward some level of involvement.

“The reopening of a northern front would be another new challenge for Ukraine,” Giles said. It would allow Russia to take a new route into the region which was wrested away by Ukranian forces, according to him.

Russia, meanwhile, has accused the West of taking a more direct role in the war by sending more sophisticated weapons to Ukraine. That’s caused tension within NATO and the European Union. Croatia’s President Zoran Milanovic told reporters that supplying arms to Kyiv will only prolong the war and that it’s “mad” to expect Russia’s defeat. The Prime Minister of Hungary had said that the Ukraine’s Western backers had “drifted into war”.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that Ukraine needed “more” systems to better halt missile attacks, ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.

“There are many things Russia can do to make the war personal, not just for people of Ukraine but around Europe, to try to force pressure on governments to remove their support for Ukraine,” Giles said.

Fast-forward two years, and reading that transatlantic dynamic post-Angela Merkel, and particularly post-Russian President Vladimir Putin’s failing invasion of Ukraine, has become one of the most pressing political questions vexing the Kremlin.

Sources told CNN that the US did not indicate that it would object to other countries sending their fighter jets to Ukraine. But many US officials believe that for the US to send its own would be an expensive and complicated undertaking that US officials don’t believe is worth it in the short term when compared to Ukraine’s more immediate needs of artillery, rockets, and air defense systems.

The Defense Secretary could approve a directive to transfer a Patriot battery to Ukranian by this week, according to officials speaking on the condition of anonymity. President Biden would have final approval.

White House, Pentagon and State Department officials declined to comment on details of the transfer of a Patriot battery, which, if approved, would amount to one of the most sophisticated weapons the U.S. has provided Ukraine.

There are many questions about the potential transfer, including how long it will take to train the Ukrainian soldiers on the system in Germany, and where they will be deployed.

The United States should stop sending Patriot missiles to Ukraine, as requested by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a statement at the Group of Seven Nations

In a speech on Monday to the Group of 7 Nations, Mr. Zelensky listed financing for weapons as one of his requests.

As Russia launches missiles and drones at Ukraine, thePatriots system will help the nation defend itself, she said. Russia should cease sending missiles into eastern Ukraine if they don’t want them shot down.

“Earlier, many experts, including those overseas, questioned the rationality of such a step which would lead to an escalation of the conflict and increase the risk of directly dragging the US army into combat,” Zakharova said at a briefing in Moscow.

The system is expensive and complicated but could help the country guard against Russian attacks that have left millions without power.

It’s interesting that officials from a country that brutalized its neighbor in an illegal and unprovoked invasion would use provocative words to describe a defensive system meant to save lives and protect civilians.

The United States and other nations are increasing the range of the weapons they give to Ukraine, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peschuck. “This does not contribute to a speedy settlement of the situation, on the contrary.”

Commander Alexander Khodakovsky, who was in charge of the Russian militia in the DONETSK region, appeared this week on Russian state TV and said Russia could not defeat the NATO alliance in a conventional war.

It requires a relatively large number of personnel to be trained, according to CNN’s Barbara Starr and Oren Liebermann, who were first to report the US is close to sending the system to Ukraine.

Unlike smaller air defense systems, Patriot missile batteries need much larger crews, requiring dozens of personnel to properly operate them. The training for Patriot missile batteries normally takes multiple months, a process the United States will now carry out under the pressure of near-daily aerial attacks from Russia.

The War Between Ukraine and the United States: Why Russia is Wanna Win, and How Do We Don’t Want It to Happen Again? Vladimir Zelensky and NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg

Zelensky said in an interview that he didn’t agree with the idea that the US Secretary of State was suggesting, that there was only one way for Ukraine to regain control over land seized by Russia.

NATO still has two main objectives; first, to provide aid to Ukraine, and second, to make sure that NATO doesn’t get involved in the war, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Old ammo. CNN’s Ellie Kaufman and Liebermann reported earlier this week on a US military official who says Russian forces have had to resort to 40-year-old artillery ammunition as their supplies of new ammo are “rapidly dwindling.”

“You load the ammunition and you cross your fingers and hope it’s gonna fire or when it lands that it’s gonna explode,” said the official, speaking to reporters.

The effect of months of military aid. It’s not a completely different scale but the US is running low on some weapons systems and munitions it gives to Ukranian. Look for that storyline to become part of the US aid debate after Republicans take control of the House of Representatives next month and promise more scrutiny of US aid for Ukraine.

The trenches. CNN’s Will Ripley filed a video report from trenches and fortifications being built along Ukraine’s border with Belarus, where there is growing concern about Russia once again assembling troops. Ripley talked to the sewing machine repairman.

Fighter jets and long-range missiles that can hit targets up to 300 km away, are the type of weapons that our partners are aware of, he said. “These are not weapons of escalation, but rather weapons of defense and deterrence against the aggressor. We are talking aboutunlocking the solutions. I have instructed all our diplomats in key capitals to make this a priority.”

More precise weapons make sure that Ukraine hit its targets and not any civilians remaining nearby. And it means Ukraine does not go through the hundreds or thousands of shells Russia appears to burn through as it blanket bombards areas it wants to capture.

It’s among the biggest packages of military equipment sent from the Pentagon to the country since the war began. It comes as Ukraine prepares for intensive fighting in the spring as the weather warms.

The Russian-Russia War in Ukraine arose after Volodymyr Zelenskyy Returned from Washington, D.C.

But Moscow is struggling to equip and rally its conventional forces, and, with the exception of its nuclear forces, appears to be running out of new cards to play. Since China and India joined the west in opposing nuclear force, that option is less likely.

Western analysts have noticed that Russia has been unhappy with these deliveries, but has been surprisingly quiet in its reaction to what could have been considered red lines.

This is trickier. Congress’s likely new Speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy, has warned the Biden administration cannot expect a “blank cheque” from the new GOP-led House of Representatives.

The remnants of the America First party have doubted the worth of US aid to the edges of eastern Europe.

Washington gets a relatively small bill for the long battle with Russia, given its massive defense budget.

He is an inspiring rhetorician, and – as a former reality TV star turned unexpected president – the embodiment of how Putin’s war of choice has turned ordinary Ukrainians into wartime heroes.

Moscow said the war in Ukraine will lead to a long confrontation with Russia due to the visit of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Russia’s foreign ministry condemned what it called the “monstrous crimes” of the “regime in Kyiv,” after US President Joe Biden promised more military support to Ukraine during Zelensky’s summit at the White House on Wednesday.

Maria Zakharova said that the West will achieve nothing, no matter how much they give to the Ukrainian government.

Zakharova said that the tasks set within the special military operation will be fulfilled, taking into account the situation on the ground and the realities.

Zelensky gave a historic speech from the US Capitol, thanking American aid in fighting Russian aggression and asking for more.

Peskov added that “there were no real calls for peace.” But during his address to the US Congress on Wednesday, Zelensky did stress that “we need peace,” reiterating the 10-point plan devised by Ukraine.

Peskov told journalists, however, that Wednesday’s meeting showed the US is waging a proxy war of “indirect fighting” against Russia down “to the last Ukrainian.”

As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy returned from Washington, D.C. — having secured billions of dollars in U.S. aid and multiple standing ovations in Congress — the Kremlin was quick to criticize the trip.

In the 301st day after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, the spokesman for the Kremlin told reporters that the new equipment won’t bring the conflict to a close or prevent Russia from achieving its goals.

The Kremlin has also been selling that line to the Russian public, who is largely buying it, says Sergey Radchenko, a Russian history professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

The U.S. has been helping the country defend itself against Russian aggression, since ZelenskyY andUkraine have made clear that they want a “just peace,” according to Sloat.

Fighting in the sky: Ukraine unleashes air raids, missiles, fuel tanks and ammunition depots during the Thursday morning attack on Kyiv

The missiles can be launched from the airfields hit in the attacks, but they could be destroyed on the ground before they can be deployed.

“If somebody attacks you, you fight back,” Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister who now advises President Volodomyr Zelensky, said in an interview earlier this month, after the first Ukrainian long-range strike on Russian military targets hit Engels and another airfield in central Russia.

Serhiy Hrabskiy, a retired colonel and commentator on the war for Ukrainian news media, said that Ukraine’s military has not hesitated to hit airfields, fuel tanks and ammunition depots that are legitimate military targets. As war has moved closer to Russia and the occupied peninsula, more and more sites have become targets.

Russia and Ukraine are waging a fierce fight in the sky. Russia unleashes drones and missiles. Ukraine shoots them down with missiles and drones.

The most sophisticated missile in Russia’s arsenal, the Kinzhal, a hypersonic weapon that can reach targets in minutes and is all but impossible to shoot down, is in even shorter supply, Mr. Budanov said.

Russia’s onslaught on Thursday was aimed at the country’s electrical infrastructure, and knocked out power in several regions. Engineering crews were racing to restore services as the New Year’s holiday approaches this weekend.

When Anastasiia Hryn, a 34-year-old Kyiv resident, woke up to the sound of air raid sirens followed by an explosion, she and her son descended to the basement shelter beneath their building. But they were not particularly surprised, nor did they let it dampen their spirits.

When the sirens went off, Hryn said life in the capital was back to normal and she was able to meet her neighbors who were in a hurry to go see the new movie. Parents took their children to school and people went to work, while others continued with holiday plans in defiance.

Kiev is “senseless barbarism”: Moscow does not intend to negotiate with Kyiv despite the air-strike attacks on Ukraine

As the war looks set to stretch into another year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that Moscow will not negotiate with Kyiv on the basis of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s proposed 10-point peace formula, which includes Russia’s withdrawal from all Ukrainian territory, a path to nuclear safety, food security, a special tribunal for alleged Russian war crimes, and a final peace treaty with Moscow.

He said Russia was open for a solution that would end the war. Putin’s claim that he is open to negotiating was roundly dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a ruse.

The mayor said that 40% of the inhabitants of the city were without power because of security precautions taken by the power engineers during the air raid alarm. “The city is supplying heat and water in normal mode,” Klitschko said on the messaging app Telegram.

At least three people, including a 14-year-old, were injured and two people pulled from a damaged home on Thursday, Klitschko said earlier. Homes, an industrial facility and a playground in the capital were damaged in attacks on Kyiv, according to the city military administration.

Authorities in Odesa, in southern Ukraine, said that emergency power outages had been rolled out amid the missile attacks. “They are introduced due to the threat of missile attacks to avoid significant damage if the enemy manages to hit energy facilities,” DTEK, a utility company, said in a statement.

It was termed’senseless barbarism.’ Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said those were the only words that came to mind watching Moscow launch a fresh wave of attacks on Ukrainian cities ahead of the New Year, adding there could be “no neutrality” in the face of such aggression.

There were conflicting reports on the scale of the attacks. An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mykhailo Podolyak, said in an earlier post that Russia had launched more than 120 missiles in the barrage, without offering further details. He said the intent of the attack was to “destroy critical infrastructure and kill civilians en masse.”

Ukraine’s War-Fight Mission: The German-German War on the Operation in Kiev, as announced by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

The United States will supply Ukraine with Bradley fighting vehicles as part of a new security assistance package to the country as it nears the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

Biden affirmed the new commitment in a telephone call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday. Germany’s will send new fighting vehicles, along with a missile battery to protect against the Russians.

Zelensky wanted those systems because they would allow his military to target Russian missiles at a higher altitude, instead of being able to do so previously.

If Washington blocked the project, then it would show that European power was routed through the White House.

The United States didn’t want the new, high-capacity subsea supply to supplant old overland lines that transited Ukraine, providing vital revenue to the increasingly Westward-leaning leadership in Kyiv.

Germany was late to recognize the threat from Russia, and is now ramping up weapon supplies to Ukraine, in order to get control over the situation. He claimed that Germany would coordinate the supply of the Leopard 2 from Allied countries to Ukrainians, since German legislation prevented any purchaser of war-fighting hardware from giving it to a third state.

Europe has been slow to respond to the deep fissures in US politics and the uncertainty another Trumpian-style presidency could wreak on its allies. Decades of a reasonably unshakable reliance, if not complete trust, in the US, has been replaced by stubborn European pragmatism – and Germany leads the way.

Europe’s moral compass was once held by the Chancellor of Germany. Scholz has found unexpected metal in his ponderous, often stop/go/wait traffic-light governing coalition and won thunderous applause in Germany’s Bundestag on Wednesday as he flashed a rare moment of steely leadership.

Ukraine’s ongoing metamorphosis from legacy Soviet force to NATO clone hasn’t just been about the mechanics or even diplomacy of getting tanks, fighting vehicles, air defenses and artillery, it’s been about bringing NATO member states’ near-billion people along with their politicians. That’s what he said in parliament on Wednesday.

“Trust us,” he said, “we won’t put you in danger.” He spelled out how his government had already handled Russia’s aggression and how fears of a freezing winter and economic collapse were not realized. “The government dealt with the crisis,” he said, adding: “We are in a much better position.”

The applause at each step of his carefully crafted speech spoke as loudly as his words. In short, Scholz got it right for Germany, bringing with him a population typically averse to war and projecting their own power, and deeply divided over how much they should aid Ukraine in killing Russians and potentially angering the Kremlin.

The Russia-Ukraine War, the IMF, and the epoch of diplomacy following the Nov. 11 election: A joint statement from Russia and the United States

Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and deputy chairman of its national security council, has said Russia would never allow itself to be defeated and would use nuclear weapons if threatened.

CNN spoke to some people in Russia about the mixed message after the announcements by Biden and Scholz. Some said Russia would win regardless, and lumped the US and Germany together as the losers, but a significant proportion were worried about the war, dismayed at the heavy death toll and frustrated that Putin ignored their concerns.

It is not known if he is aware of Putin’s changed popularity or if he believes it is relevant, but his actions of sending tanks may ease Putin’s hold on power.

Longer debates about the next military actions for Ukraine are likely to signal to Zelensky that weapons supplies will be on a German leash as opposed to being led by Washington.

This shift in the power dynamic may not change the way the war is fought but could impact the contours of a final deal and shape a lasting peace when it comes.

Ukrainian troops are likely to train in the U.S. for about 10 weeks.

The International Monetary Fund releases its latest World Economic Outlook (Tuesday morning in Singapore, Monday night ET). The IMF has stressed that the Russia-Ukraine war is a big factor causing economic slowdown and recession in some countries.

A group of European Commission leaders is expected to visit Ukraine on Thursday and European Union leaders plan to hold a summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the following day.

The military of the country acknowledged that there was a Russian takeover of Soledar. Russian forces continued their offensive around Bakhmut and other parts of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

At a time when tensions were high between the two governments over the invasion ofUkraine, a new U.S. Ambassador arrived in Moscow. Tracy was booed by protesters while entering the Russian Foreign Ministry to present her credentials.

Estonia and Latvia told Russia’s ambassadors to leave after the Kremlin said it expelled the Estonian ambassador and downgrading relations with the Baltic NATO member state over what it called “Russophobia.”

State of Ukraine: Changing laws and bringing security to Ukraine’s defence ministry during wartime and the role of the Russians in military operations

Here you can read the past recaps. For context and more in-depth stories, you can find more of NPR’s coverage here. Also, listen and subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day.

“My understanding is that there are training courses we can do in Europe,” Reznikov says. It’s more convenient because we have to use a landscape that is similar to the one we are in.

“For the Leopard tanks, for example, [training] normally could be half a year. He says he hopes that it will happen within a month or two months.

Ukraine needs to set up supply chains for fuel and spare parts, train mechanics and maintain the new tanks to get the time it takes. But he adds that these new tanks will be a “game changer” as Ukraine tries to reclaim occupied territory, just as HIMARs (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) helped Ukrainian forces reclaim the southern city of Kherson in November.

The US and EU have told CNN that F-16 fighter jets are impractical and that because of Russia’s anti-aircraft system, Ukraine has not been using the planes in many air missions.

On January 30, US President Joe Biden reiterated that Washington would not send its F16 fighter jets to Ukraine, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has also said that he does not envisage providing warplanes to Kyiv.

He says Western allies are scrutinizing the government in Ukraine closely. Ukrainian journalists recently reported that Reznikov’s own ministry was sometimes purchasing food and other supplies for troops at inflated prices.

Most of the defense ministry expenses were public before the Russian invasion. Now most are classified for security reasons. He says transparency is a delicate issue during wartime, but he is working with parliament to change laws and make defense expenditures at least “semi-transparent.”

Do we need to be a new Ukraine, not the old Soviet Ukraine?” Ukrainian fighter jet lobbying for US-made F-16 fighter jets

“It’s not a piece of cake, but I will do it,” he says. “Because my principle is zero tolerance with corruption. We have to be a new Ukraine, with the European standard, not the old-fashioned Soviet Ukraine with a legacy of corruption.”

The Ukrainian government has in recent days intensified their lobbying campaign for US-made F-16 fighter jets to defend against Russian missiles and drones.

The fighter jets are complex and take a long while to lear how to fly, according to a British government spokesman. It isn’t practical to send those jets into Ukraine.

“I don’t think fighter jets are easier than ATACMS, but I believe we need to try to push,” the Ukrainian military official told CNN, referring to the long-range missiles they still want.

The United States believed that giving new fighter jets to Ukraine would lead to problems between NATO and Russia. Poland was prepared to move its fighter jets toUkraine if the US agreed to backfill Warsaw with F-16s. The US ultimately decided against that plan, however, deeming it too provocative.

“We are providing them what we think they are capable of operating, maintaining, and sustaining,” deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said last week. “The F-16 – this is a very complicated system.”

Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, also appeared reluctant, telling reporters on Monday that sending the planes “would really be a big next step if it comes to that.” And Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki indicated on Monday that Warsaw would only send its fighter jets “in full coordination” with its NATO partners.

Air wars in Ukraine: Russia’s top security official explains the situation in the Stimson Center and the U.S. air force

Russia is gearing up for a “maximum escalation” of the war in Ukraine, potentially as soon as the next few weeks, according to a top Ukrainian national security official.

“These will be defining months in the war,” Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told Sky News in an interview broadcast Tuesday.

Natalia Humeniuk, head of the United Center of Security and Defense Forces of the South of Ukranian, said on national television that their was more than one place in which to perform their duties.

“During the week, military representatives from the two countries will practice joint planning of the use of troops based on the prior experience of armed conflicts in recent years,” the ministry said in a statement.

The representative of the Ukrainian Defense intelligence said on national television that February and March would be very active.

Yet one thing makes this battle distinctive from all previous air wars of the past century: pilots are rare. This goes against the traditional view of air combat.

This year Top Gun is an Oscar-nominated film. We are watching an air war. And it looks very different from anything that we see in Top Gun,” said Kelly Grieco, with the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank.

“There are [piloted] aircraft that are still flying at times. But we’re talking a very small number of sorties compared to compared to past wars,” said Grieco, who keeps close tabs on the air war.

Gersten says it’s still not entirely clear why the Russian air force has fared so poorly. Russia has 1,000 advanced fighter jets with trained pilots, that are not being sent to the skies over Ukrainian territory, he said. Gersten said that some of the best pilots in the world are from Russia. “And they’re also some of the most disciplined pilots in the world.” Russian officials decided to keep these pilots and their planes away from the country. Russia is relying on missiles and drones, which are much cheaper and easier to replace.

He knows the tenets. Gersten flew combat missions as an F-16 pilot early in his career, and later commanded U.S. drone operations in the Middle East. He saw drones assume a prominent role in the U.S. air campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. But piloted U.S. war planes played a significant role in those conflicts as well, and the U.S. alone dominated the skies.

“We see budgets and thinking from all the defense forces around the world now shifting rapidly into the adoption and use of small drones,” Chell added. “Not just for war fighting, but actually for logistics and for medical and for humanitarian aid.”

An American aid group that couldn’t get their ambulances to besieged cities asked if it could use our drones, and we agreed, Chell said.

Zelensky, the First Prime Minister of Ukraine, Visits the Elysee Palace, France, in the First High-Lambda-Euclidean State

Zelensky arrived in Britain at a time when the Ukranian government called for more military support to be sent to counter Russian advances. He later traveled Paris on Wednesday evening local time, where he was greeted at the Elysee Palace by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

In only his second foreign trip since the Russian invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago, Zelensky gave a speech to the joint houses of the British parliament that deftly stroked the national ego at the same as making a direct plea for more heavy weaponry, including fighter jets.

He said that London has been with Kyiv for a long time. Since the beginning of the full-scale war. Great Britain, you extended your helping hand when the world had not yet come to understand how to react.”

Handing Speaker Hoyle the helmet, Zelensky said it belonged to “a real Ukrainian pilot” who was “one of our most successful aces. “The writing on the helmet reads, ‘We have freedom. Give us wings to protect it.’”

Zelensky’s message was directed firmly at Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and members of the Cabinet standing in front of him in the historic surroundings of Westminster Hall – the oldest part of of the Palace of Westminster, where the late Queen Elizabeth lay in state and where US President Obama stood for a similar address in 2011.

Zelensky disembarked from a UK Royal Air Force C-17 transport plane and Sunak greeted him at the airport. Sunak tweeted a picture of the pair embracing on the runway. The caption read, President ZelenskyGloryyUa, welcome to the UK.

Zelensky took to Telegram after his audience with the King to say that he wished peace and prosperity to the British people.

It is an honor for me to be the first President of Ukraine to be honored in this fashion by the British monarch with an audience.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/08/europe/zelensky-visit-uk-intl-gbr/index.html

Typhoons: What the UK can do about Russia? A joint statement to the European Commission on Aerospace and Defence (ECA 2015)

There is no way out for us. We have to stand up for ourselves. We need armored vehicles, we need tanks, we need fighter jets, and obviously, we spent a lot of time talking about this together,” said Zelensky, speaking alongside Sunak at Lulworth Camp in Dorset, England.

Zelensky said that Ukraine would intensify its diplomacy relating to the request for Eurofighter jets and suggested that the decision was not solely made by the UK.

Zelensky said he heard from the Prime Minister that fighter jets can be provided and that they can begin training pilots. The decision of Great Britain isn’t everything when it comes to typhoons.

Sunak noted that it takes three years to train a Typhoon fighter pilot from scratch, to which Zelensky responded, “I didn’t even know it takes three years to train a pilot like that. You know, come on, we will be sending you pilots who have already trained for two and a half years.”

There is no decision yet on whether the UK will supply jets to the Ukranian government.

The Russian embassy in London described the trip as a “hasty event,” “theatrical performance,” and a “fundraising event,” mocking Zelensky as an “ex-comedian in a green sweatshirt,” in a statement to CNN.

The embassy is reminding London that it will be on the United Kingdom’s hands if such a scenario occurs.

Six entities that provide military equipment including drones, as well as eight individuals that are connected to questionable financial networks that help maintain wealth and power amongst Kremlin elites, are targets of the UK package.

The UK government has imposed a lot of sanctions on Russia since the beginning of last year.