$250 million arms aid to Kyiv/Austin: Putin’s grudge runs deep.
According to Reuters, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the meeting of the “Ukraine Defense Contact Group” that the security assistance package worth $250 million will be provided to Ukraine.
In this meeting, Austin said, referring to the Ukrainian army’s attack on the Kursk region: “Currently, the Kremlin’s army is in its territory in a defensive shell.”
However, his comments seem to focus more on the broader Western effort to continue Kyiv’s defensive process to drive Russian forces out of Ukraine. Among these efforts, one can mention Washington’s new $250 million security aid package for Kyiv.
Austin claimed: (Vladimir Putin’s) grudge is deep. Moscow continues its attacks in eastern Ukraine, especially in the Pokrovsk axis. Putin has repositioned his forces in Kursk, and the Kremlin continues to bomb Ukrainian cities and target civilians.
According to Austin, more than 350,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the current war, and Ukrainian forces have sunk, destroyed, or destroyed 32 Moscow ships and pushed Russia’s Black Sea fleet further and further east.
In this meeting, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that 6,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded in the Ukrainian attack on Kursk. This is one of the few times that Zelenskiy personally attended the meeting to lobby for speeding up the delivery of military aid to Ukraine. This is the 24th meeting of the Defense Contact Group of Ukraine. This group, under the leadership of the United States, consists of more than 50 countries, including 32 NATO members, to coordinate the delivery of military and defense aid to Kiev.
He said: “Today, we control more than 1,300 square kilometers in the Kursk region, which includes one hundred residential areas (villages). In simple words (Russian forces) fled from these areas when our forces approached.
Zelensky’s statements and claims come at a time when Moscow has targeted many Ukrainian cities with missile and drone attacks in one of its large-scale attacks since the start of the Ukrainian war in February 2022.
In Ramstein, Zelensky asked the representatives of the present countries to stick to their promise to provide more weapons and defense systems to repel Russian air attacks. He said that the number of defense systems that have not yet been delivered to Ukraine is very high.
Earlier, the British Ministry of Defense announced the supply of “Martlet” missiles worth 213 million dollars to Ukraine, the first shipment of which will be delivered to this country later this year.