Ukraine’s war on the front line: American troops vs. Ukrainian forces in the recent Ukrainian-Russian air-bomb attacks
While waiting for Congress to pass a budget, the U.S. will be looking for allies to help bridge the gap.
Ukraine’s allies have recently sought to reassure the country that they are committed to its long-term defense amid concerns that Western support could be flagging. The British Prime Minister and the new France’s foreign minister traveled to Kyiv in the new year.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Monday was the latest foreign leader to visit Ukraine and announce a new aid package that includes a loan to buy larger weapons and a commitment to find ways to manufacture them together.
In the last several months, the region has been under attack by the Ukrainian army, including a rocket attack in December that killed more than two dozen people.
The Russian diplomat claimed that Ukrainian forces are incapable of defeating Russia and that they have failed on the battlefield.
There wasn’t a good chance of an end to the war soon. At the U.N meeting, Russia’s foreign minister refused to accept any peace plan they supported.
The front line of the war has barely budged while the attackers kept Ukrainians on edge. Both sides’ inability to deliver a knockout punch on the battlefield has pushed the fighting toward trench and artillery warfare. Analysts say the Kremlin’s forces stockpiled missiles at the end of last year to press a winter campaign of aerial bombardment.
Lying about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the border with Russia, Kharkiv has often felt the brunt of Russia’s winter campaign of long-range strikes that commonly hit civilian areas.
In Kharkiv, in northeast Ukraine, the onslaught injured 42 people as the missiles damaged around 30 residential buildings and shattered nearly a thousand apartment windows in icy weather, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.
Most of the 74 people on a military transport plane which was shot down by Ukrainian forces were Ukrainian POWs, according to Russia.
The plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners to an exchange crashed in the Belgorod region near the border with Russia at 11:00 a.m. local time Wednesday, according to the Defense Ministry.
Some Ukrainian authorities, including Dmytro Lubinets, the ombudsman for human rights, who is involved in prisoner exchanges, suggested the Russian reports were propaganda aimed at destabilizing Ukrainian society.
The editor- in-chief of the Russian state news service later published a list of the Ukrainian prisoners she claimed had been killed in the crash. The authenticity of the list could not be verified.
An exchange of prisoners is not taking place at the moment, according to a representative of the Ukrainian intelligence department.
The Ukrainska Pravda media outlet in Ukraine initially reported that Ukrainian military sources confirmed downing a Russian military transport using Soviet-era S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. The newspaper later updated the story to say the shoot-down had not been confirmed by other sources.
Video posted to a pro-Kremlin social media channel appeared to capture the aircraft’s final moments — descending at a sharp incline toward the earth before exploding in a massive fireball.
“By committing this terrorist act, the Ukrainian leadership has shown its true face — and disregarded the lives of its own citizens,” the ministry said.
The ministry said that the Ukrainian leadership knew that they would be transported to the airfield by military transport aircraft for an exchange.