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WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden announced an $800 million (RM3.38 billion) military aid package for Ukraine yesterday as international prosecutors declared the war-torn Western ally a “crime scene” amid fears of a massive revamped Russian assault.
The announcement came with the Russian military threatening to strike Ukraine’s command centres in the capital Kyiv if Ukrainian troops continue to attack Russian territory.
“We are seeing Ukrainian troops’ attempts to carry out sabotage and strike Russian territory. If such cases continue, the Russian armed forces will strike decision-making centres, including in Kyiv,” the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.
The warning sparked alarm in Ukraine’s largest city, as Moscow was believed to be refocusing its war aims – withdrawing from Kyiv after failing to capture it and shifting attention to the south and east.
Biden has accused President Vladimir Putin of genocide – a claim dismissed as “unacceptable” by the Kremlin – as Russia comes under increasing scrutiny over atrocities discovered in towns since abandoned by its forces.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau backed Biden but France and Germany declined to follow suit, drawing the ire of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who denounced French leader Emmanuel Macron’s stance as “very painful for us.”
The Pentagon says it has been looking to provide Ukraine with weapons that would “give them a little more range and distance,” with Kyiv girding for a huge escalation of violence in the eastern Donbas region.
The new US shipment will include armoured personnel carriers, helicopters and some of the heavier equipment Washington had previously refused to send to Ukraine for fear of escalating the conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.
Before announcing the aid, Biden spoke to Zelenskyy for about an hour, the White House said, pledging “to provide Ukraine with the capabilities to defend itself.”
The Hague-based International Criminal Court, which deals with rights abuses, has investigators in Ukraine and told reporters the country had become a “crime scene.”
Before the latest military aid package, the United States had supplied or promised Ukraine 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems, 5,000 Javelin anti-tank missiles, several thousand rifles with ammunition and a range of other equipment.
Reportedly using Ukraine’s own Neptune missiles, Kyiv claimed yesterday to have damaged the Russian Black Sea fleet flagship “Moskva” off the coast of the strategic port of Odessa.
But even with their own weaponry and US support, Ukrainian forces have struggled to hold the key southern port of Mariupol, where Zelensky has estimated “tens of thousands” of civilians have died.
Russia’s defence ministry said Wednesday more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered in Mariupol, as air strikes targeted the city’s huge Azovstal iron and steel works.
The plant’s maze-like complex has been a focus of resistance in Mariupol, with fighters using a tunnel system below the vast industrial site to slow Russian forces down.
But the city is part of an apparent Russian push to create an unbroken corridor from occupied Crimea to Donbas, where Russian-backed separatists control the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
Leonid Pasechnik, a separatist leader in eastern Ukraine, said up to 90% of territory of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic was now under rebel control.
He told reporters separatist troops would "liberate" the rest of the territory and then decide whether to support Russian troops in the so-called Donetsk People's Republic.
Britain said yesterday it would sanction 178 Russian separatists and the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as six more oligarchs and their families.
Russia announced its own sanctions yesterday, introducing retaliatory measures against 398 members of the US Congress and vowing more sanctions would follow. – AFP, April 14, 2022