U.S. Special Envoy Visits Kiev With Military Aid Pledge

Date: 24 July 2022 - 21:53

News ID: ۱۰۵۰۷۳

KYIV (Dispatches) -- A senior U.S. Congressional delegation met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv and promised to try to ensure continued support in the war against Russia.
The delegation - which included Representative Adam Smith, chair of the House Armed Services Committee - was the latest in a series of high-profile American visitors to Ukraine.
“The United States, along with allies and partners around the world, have stood with Ukraine by providing economic, military, and humanitarian assistance,” the delegation said in a statement.
“We will continue to seek ways to support President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people as effectively as possible as they continue their brave stand,” they added.
Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday that Washington would send four more high mobility artillery rocket systems to Ukraine, bringing the total provided so far to 16.
The statement from the delegation on Saturday made no specific reference to weapons transfers. Separately, Smith was quoted as telling the U.S.-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that Washington and its allies were ready to hand over more multiple launch rocket systems.
Russian defense ministry officials on Sunday insisted that an airstrike on the port of Odesa — less than a day after Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement on resuming grain shipments from there — had hit only military targets.
“In the seaport in the city of Odesa, on the territory of a shipyard, sea-based high-precision long-range missiles destroyed a docked Ukrainian warship and a warehouse with Harpoon anti-ship missiles supplied by the U.S. to the Kyiv regime,” ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said at a daily briefing.
Zelensky had said in his nightly televised address Saturday evening that the attack on Odesa “destroyed the very possibility” of dialogue with Russia.
The Ukrainian military said on Saturday that Moscow had attacked Odesa’s sea port with four cruise missiles, two of which had been shot down by Ukrainian air defense.
Command spokeswoman Nataliya Humenyuk said that no grain storage facilities were hit. Turkey’s defense minister, however, said he had had reports from Ukrainian authorities that one missile struck a grain silo while another landed nearby, although neither affected loading at Odesa’s docks.
It was not immediately clear how the airstrike would affect plans to resume shipping Ukrainian grain by sea in safe corridors out of three Ukrainian Black Sea ports: Odesa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny.
Russia and Ukraine on Friday signed identical agreements with the UN and Turkey in Istanbul aimed at clearing the way for the shipment of millions of tons of desperately needed Ukrainian grain, as well as the export of Russian grain and fertilizer. Senior UN officials voiced hopes that the deal would end a months-long standoff brought about by the war in Ukraine that threatened food security around the globe.
The agreement committed both

Kyiv and Moscow to refraining from strikes on the three Black Sea ports.

The UK military on Sunday morning claimed in its daily intelligence update that Russia was making “minimal progress” in its ongoing Donbas offensive, which it said remained small-scale and focused on the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

The Ukrainian General Staff confirmed in its regular update that Russia was “conducting military operations to create conditions” for an assault on Bakhmut, while firing on surrounding settlements and battling Ukrainian defenders for control of a nearby thermal plant.

A Ukrainian official said Sunday that the country’s southern region of Kherson, which fell to Russian troops early in their February operation, would be recaptured by Kyiv’s forces by September.

“We can say that the Kherson region will definitely be liberated by September, and all the occupiers’ plans will fail,” Serhiy Khlan, an aide to the head of Kherson region, said in an interview with Ukrainian television.

The Ukrainian army, emboldened by deliveries of Western-supplied long-range artillery, has tried to claw back territory in the southern Kherson region in recent weeks.

“We can say that a turning point has occurred on the battlefield. We see that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are prevailing in their most recent military operations,” Khlan said.

“We see that our armed forces are advancing openly. We can say that we are switching from defensive to counteroffensive actions,” he added.

He said that Ukrainian strikes on two key bridges in the region, as well as attacks on Russian arms depots and command posts were part of preparatory work for a ground offensive.

“Now the key issue is getting more precision artillery strikes on the frontline to knock out the orcs (Russians) from their current positions.”

He added that Russian forces had not repaired the damaged Antonivka bridge and were experiencing difficulties as a result of moving heavy weapons towards Kherson city.

Russian forces seized the region’s main city, also called Kherson, on March 3. It was the first major city to fall following the start of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine in late February.

The region, important for Ukrainian agriculture, lies next to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.