Biden to bolster Ukraine with heavy artillery as Donbas campaign intensifies
WASHINGTON — President Biden announced another $800 million in military assistance to Ukraine, as Russia began what could be a decisive offensive in the Donbas region. Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes the second phase of the war will be more favorable to Russia than the initial invasion, launched in late February.
“Putin has failed to achieve his grand ambitions on the battlefield,” Biden said Thursday, as he prepared to leave Washington for a trip to the Pacific Northwest. He praised the Ukrainian military for having “beat back Putin’s savagery” in the battle for Kyiv, which Russian generals told Putin they would win easily. Instead, the battle for Ukraine’s capital turned out to be what Biden called a “historic victory for the Ukrainians.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this week that Russia has begun its offensive on the plains of the Donbas, where the Kremlin hopes to consolidate territorial gains first achieved in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine eight years ago.
Biden predicted on Thursday that the fighting in the Donbas would be “more limited in terms of geography, but not in terms of brutality,” an assessment generally shared by military experts. He said the $800 million in new military aid would include 144,000 rounds of ammunition, as well as heavy artillery, howitzers and “tactical drones,” an apparent reference to the explosive Switchblade unmanned aerial systems.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-to-bolster-ukraine-with-heavy-artillery-as-donbas-campaign-intensifies-150512695.html
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