Latest news with #UKRAINE-WEAPONS
Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Russia Launches Heavy Strikes Despite Trump Arms Pledge to Ukraine
EDITORS NOTE: EDS: REPEATING to RECODE as a Page 1 refer and to UPDATE list of related stories.); (With: UKRAINE-WEAPONS, HEGSETH-UKRAINE, RUSSIAN-CONDUCTOR-CANCEL); Liubov Sholudko and Kim Barker contributed reporting. KYIV, Ukraine -- An explosion damaged the entrance to a Kyiv subway station where people were sheltering from an air attack. A missile or a drone set an empty kindergarten on fire in the Ukrainian capital, officials said. And a city in western Ukraine endured its heaviest barrage of the war. Russia overnight Monday fired the latest in a series of missile and exploding drone assaults at Ukraine that have steadily escalated in recent months even as ceasefire talks began in the spring. At least two people were killed and 15 others injured, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said. The recent strikes have caught the attention of President Donald Trump, who cited the Russian bombing campaign when he announced a plan last week to provide new military aid for Ukraine. The attacks early Monday were the first large volleys since that announcement, when Trump said "we are very unhappy" with Russia. Trump said the United States would sell Patriot air defense systems to allies who quickly provide their own systems to Ukraine, bolstering defenses. But the attack Monday highlighted a rising menace the American missiles cannot counter: vast assaults of slow-flying, exploding drones, fired nearly nightly. In Kyiv, the engines of Russian drones flying over the city were heard nearly continuously from after midnight until first light, interspersed with dozens of explosions. One explosion hit the entryway to the Lukianivska subway station while dozens of people sheltered inside, sending clouds of dust and smoke billowing down escalators and through tunnels. Men, women and children awoke coughing in clouds of smoke, said Diane Mailat, 23, a hairdresser who was sheltering in the station with her husband and cat. They had believed they would be safe on the platform, more than 200 feet underground. "People started to panic," she said. Some clambered with children and pets into the train tunnels to escape the smoke. Only after about an hour did the dust settle. The mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk, a city in western Ukraine that had been a haven from the violence and rarely targeted, reported the most intensive strikes of the war early Monday. The escalation of the air war comes as Russia has successfully stepped up its industrial-scale manufacturing of exploding drones and decoys, which are small drones fired into Ukraine mostly to distract air defense teams. Moscow's rate of fire with cruise and ballistic missiles has remained steady, according to the Ukrainian military. To protect against missiles, Ukraine is expecting a first delivery of Patriots from Germany under the agreement Trump announced last week. The Patriots are not cost-effective against the cheap, mass-produced exploding drones that now pose the gravest risks for Ukraine from sheer volume. Russia uses a model, Shahed, originally designed in Iran. Now more Shaheds hit targets in Ukraine than missiles, the Ukrainian military says. Russia launched 728 drones and decoys overnight into July 9, according to the Ukrainian air force. That is more than Russia fired in the whole month of July last year. On Monday, the air force said it had shot down or electronically jammed 403 out of 426 drones in the volley. By fall, Ukrainian officials say they expect Russia to routinely launch 1,000 drones per volley. The officer overseeing a Ukraine task force in Germany's military, Maj. Gen. Christian Freuding, estimated last week that Russia planned to eventually launch 2,000 drones at a time. The Russian strategy is akin to shooting a shotgun, as firing drones in vast numbers ensures some reach a target even as many miss or are shot down. In another setback for Ukraine, Russia's rate of breaching air defenses with Shahed drones is also rising: Last year, 7% hit their targets. So far this year, 11% have, according to air force figures. Ukrainian and Western engineers are experimenting with methods like lasers, robotic gun turrets and interceptor drones to bolster interception rates. Ukraine currently uses machine guns mounted on trucks, helicopters, fighter jets and domestically made interceptor drones. Beyond the damage from direct hits, the drones have a psychological effect in depriving civilians and soldiers of sleep during overnight attacks. They also signal to the Ukrainian population that all locations in Ukraine are at risk of frequent attacks. The recent attacks by Moscow have shown no sign of relenting even as the Trump administration seeks to end the war with ceasefire talks. Trump has recently shifted from a policy of blaming Ukraine for causing the invasion to one aimed at helping the country to defend itself more effectively. At the same time, Ukraine has also been conducting long-range drone strikes into Russia, including a barrage overnight Saturday into Sunday. Russia's military said it had shot down more than 230 drones in the attacks, which delayed flights at Russian airports but did not appear to have caused any casualties. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Copyright 2025
Miami Herald
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Trump's U-Turn on Weapons Leaves Ukrainians Hopeful but Cautious
EDITORS NOTE: EDS: SUBS starting 3rd graf to UPDATE and ADD reporting, PICKUP at "The increasing intensity ..."; UPDATES related stories list. NOTE language in graf starting "On Tuesday, during ...".); (ART ADV: With photo.); (With: U.S.-UKRAINE-WEAPONS, EUROPE-LAND-MINES, TRUMP-PUTIN KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukrainians on Tuesday welcomed President Donald Trump's announcement that he would send additional weapons to fend off Russian attacks, even if it was the latest in a series of flip-flops on his approach to the war. Lawmakers and analysts in Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, said they were not expecting a full turnaround on military assistance, given Trump's skepticism of U.S. spending on Ukraine and his fickleness on continuing military aid already funded by Congress. When Trump's administration last week decided to pause some already approved arms transfers to Ukraine, officials said that the reason was to review weapons levels in American stockpiles. But Monday, Trump said that Moscow's recent attacks on Ukrainian cities had left him no choice but to send more weapons. "We have to," Trump said. "They have to be able to defend themselves." He added that he had become unhappy with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who has been foot-dragging in ceasefire talks that began in February. On Tuesday, during a televised Cabinet meeting in Washington, Trump again suggested Putin was not bargaining in good faith. "We get a lot of (obscenity) thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth," Trump said. "He's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless." Iryna Gerashchenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament for the opposition European Solidarity Party, wrote on social media Monday that the announcement was "a signal of political change." "The increasing intensity of Russian attacks and growing pressure from allies in Europe, particularly Germany and France, are forcing the White House to change," she added. A former Ukrainian prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, posted, "Thank you, Mr. President!" Others aired skepticism that arms supplies would continue, given Trump's earlier zigzags on weapons shipments and his wobbly backing for sanctions on Russia. Under the Trump administration, Ukraine can no longer count on U.S.-donated weapons as American policy focuses on the Middle East and Pacific region, said Maksym Skrypchenko, president of the Transatlantic Dialogue Center, a research group in Kyiv. "It's not the ideal strategy we would like to see," Skrypchenko said. "But we need to adapt to it, and we should find a place for Ukraine in that strategy." Trump's about-face came after a grim week for Ukrainians that included Russia launching its largest aerial bombardment of the war as well as the pause in weapons shipments. The pause was the second this year by the Trump administration, after a brief suspension of military and intelligence cooperation in March. That came after Trump publicly upbraided Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an Oval Office meeting. The Trump administration has given other conflicting signals about how fully it supports Ukraine. The administration has voted with Russia at the United Nations, imposed tariffs on Ukraine but not Russia, resisted enacting new sanctions on Russia and revived diplomatic relations with Moscow even as ceasefire talks stalled. At the same time, Trump has voiced disapproval of Putin and this year called him "crazy" for bombing Kyiv. The latest turnaround raises hopes that Ukrainian air defenses will obtain sufficient Patriot interceptors to counter ballistic missile attacks and that front-line soldiers will receive ammunition to hold the line. Longer term, Zelenskyy has not asked for a resumption of arms donations but for approval to purchase U.S. weapons directly from American companies with financing from Europe. In another positive signal for Ukraine, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a social media post Monday that he expected a sanctions bill to progress in the Senate. The bill could impose what Graham has called "bone-crushing" secondary sanctions on countries trading with Russia to use as leverage in ceasefire talks. "It's time to end this bloodbath," Graham wrote. After Zelenskyy met with U.S. businesses operating in Ukraine, including Boeing and Baker Hughes, to seek support in lobbying the Trump administration, the American Chamber of Commerce in Kyiv issued a statement Friday appealing for more U.S. military aid. The statement asked Trump to "protect American businesses in Ukraine by urgently providing the defense equipment needed to stop these attacks." More than half of the about 600 members of the chamber, the statement said, have suffered damage to offices, factories or other assets from the Russian invasion. Members of parliament in Kyiv have for weeks been saying that the Trump administration's ceasefire talks have failed and that more pressure must be brought to bear on Moscow. Halyna Yanchenko, an independent lawmaker who caucuses with Zelenskyy's political party, said in an interview that Ukraine had succeeded in demonstrating to the Trump administration that Moscow, not Kyiv, was to blame for stalled talks. Russia's strategy has been to deplete Ukraine's air defense ammunition while trying to win ground in the east, Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian parliament, said in an interview. Kyiv has so far maintained Trump's engagement despite his administration's focus on the Middle East and China, and even with little apparent hope of a swift solution in Ukraine. "He now realizes he cannot expect Putin to negotiate seriously," Merezhko said of Trump. "There will be no quick ceasefire." This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Copyright 2025
