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Tag Archives: Grain
Kyiv accuses Poland of ‘populism’ over decision to not arm Ukraine amid grain row • FRANCE 24 – FRANCE 24 English
- Kyiv accuses Poland of ‘populism’ over decision to not arm Ukraine amid grain row • FRANCE 24 FRANCE 24 English
- Russia-Ukraine war live: Poland will no longer send weapons to Kyiv amid grain row; Russia claims it has downed 22 drones overnight The Guardian
- Russia-Ukraine war: Poland stops sending Kyiv arms ‘will see’ about future Al Jazeera English
- Ukraine: Poland stops supplying arms, Russian missiles hit Ukrainian cities, Zelenskyy meets Biden euronews
- Poland not supplying Kyiv arms now, ‘will see’ about future, says minister Reuters.com
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Ukraine War: Putin set to meet Erdogan in Black Sea grain talks as Russia attacks Ukrainian port – Euronews
- Ukraine War: Putin set to meet Erdogan in Black Sea grain talks as Russia attacks Ukrainian port Euronews
- What’s at stake when Turkey’s leader meets Putin in a bid to reestablish the Black Sea grain deal The Associated Press
- Russia-Ukraine war live: Erdoğan’s Russia visit vital for grain deal, Turkey says; Kremlin ‘exploiting foreigners in recruitment drive’ The Guardian
- What’s at stake in the upcoming Erdogan-Putin meeting? Al Jazeera English
- Erdogan’s Russia visit vital for grain deal, Turkish leader’s chief aide says Reuters
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The global food crisis is getting so bad that the EU now wants to reconnect a sanctioned Russian bank to the global financial system to keep the grain supply moving – Yahoo News
- The global food crisis is getting so bad that the EU now wants to reconnect a sanctioned Russian bank to the global financial system to keep the grain supply moving Yahoo News
- EU considers Russian bank concession to safeguard Black Sea grain deal Financial Times
- Global food crisis so grim EU mulls reconnecting sanctioned Russian bank South China Morning Post
- EU Weighs Russian Bank Concession to Save Ukraine Grain Deal Bloomberg
- EU Mulls Banking Concession To Russia To Preserve Black Sea Grain Deal Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
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EU considers Russian bank concession to safeguard Black Sea grain deal – Financial Times
- EU considers Russian bank concession to safeguard Black Sea grain deal Financial Times
- The global food crisis is getting so bad that the EU now wants to reconnect a sanctioned Russian bank to the global financial system to keep the grain supply moving Yahoo News
- How the UK could force Russia to finance Ukraine’s recovery openDemocracy
- Global food crisis so grim EU mulls reconnecting sanctioned Russian bank South China Morning Post
- EU Mulls Banking Concession To Russia To Preserve Black Sea Grain Deal Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
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Belarus offers Ukraine grain transit without conditions: UN | Russia-Ukraine war News
Belarus also asked to be allowed to export its own fertiliser products, which are currently subject to Western sanctions.
Belarus told the United Nations that it would allow, without conditions, the transit of grain from Ukraine through its territory, for export from Lithuanian ports, a UN spokesman said.
Belarusian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Yury Ambrazevich met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York on Friday to tell him there are no preconditions to the transit of Ukraine grain, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Ambrazevich also “reiterated the requests from his government to be able to export its own fertiliser products, which are currently subject to sanctions”, Dujarric said in a statement after the meeting.
Belarus, a big global potash producer, has been hit by harsh European Union sanctions since 2020 – which disrupted its exports of the fertiliser via the Baltic Sea ports – in response to the violence inflicted by authorities on peaceful protesters following disputed elections. At that time, Minsk required Russian help in quashing the wave of pro-democracy protests.
A Russian ally and part of the staging ground for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Belarus said in June that it would let Ukrainian grain shipments to transit to Baltic Sea ports if Belarus was allowed to ship its goods from those ports as well.
Ukraine did not agree to the proposal.
Since the start of the Russian invasion, Belarus has largely stayed away from direct involvement in the war in Ukraine. However, President Alexander Lukashenko has in the past ordered troops to deploy with Russian forces near the Ukrainian border, citing threats to Belarus from Kyiv and the West.
Kyiv has expressed fears that Belarus could collude with Russia and attack Ukraine from its northern border.
In July, the UN and Turkey brokered a deal with Russia and Ukraine to resume Ukraine’s Black Sea shipments of grain – stalled since the start of the war when Russia imposed a naval blockade of Ukraine’s ports.
The United Nations has said Russia’s war in Ukraine has worsened a global food crisis, pushing some 47 million people into “acute hunger”.
Ships linked to Russia’s biggest grain exporter moved stolen Ukrainian cargo
Rebekah Koffler, who fled the Soviet Union 30 years ago, weighs in on the Russia-Ukraine conflict on ‘Varney & Co.”
Vessels linked to Russia’s largest grain trader shipped thousands of tons of stolen Ukrainian grain to global buyers, using a sophisticated system of feeder vessels and floating cranes, according to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal.
The ships are linked either through their management or ownership to companies controlled by Russian businessman Peter Khodykin, who in turn owns RIF Trading House LLC, the country’s largest grain exporter and a big player in global grain markets, according to corporate and legal documents reviewed by the Journal.
The Journal has previously reported widespread theft of grain and land in Russian-occupied Ukraine, including detailing an intricate system by which smugglers clandestinely trucked out large amounts of stolen grain from newly occupied farms in eastern Ukraine to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
The Eaubonne bulk carrier ship docks in the port of Mombasa, Kenya Saturday, Nov. 26, 2022. The vessel arrived with 53,300 tons of wheat for commercial use in Kenya and procured under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal to ease the export of Ukrai (AP Newsroom)
The next step in the smuggling process: moving that stolen Ukrainian grain from Crimea to global buyers. A fleet of small vessels ferry smuggled grain, typically from the Crimean port of Sevastopol, to larger cargo ships waiting at sea, where they transfer their cargo with the help of crane-equipped vessels, according to the Journal’s investigation. Those larger ships then set sail for far-flung ports.
Such at-sea transfers can hide the true provenance of the ships’ cargoes, which buyers might shun if they suspected the grain came from Russia-occupied eastern Ukraine. The transfers allow big container ships, which can be easily recognized in port or from satellite imagery, to avoid calling at Sevastopol. Sometimes the stolen Ukrainian grain is mixed with Russian grain, to further disguise the cargo’s origins.
“It’s wheat laundering,” said Yoruk Isik, head of the Istanbul-based Bosphorus Observer, an independent ship-tracking consulting firm. “They made it really hard to track.”
Grain is offloaded from the Eaubonne bulk carrier ship after it docked in the port of Mombasa, Kenya Saturday, Nov. 26, 2022. The vessel arrived with 53,300 tons of wheat for commercial use in Kenya and procured under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, (AP Newsroom)
June 5: Ship-tracking data show the Emmakris II, a large bulk carrier, arriving in the Black Sea, having sailed from Saudi Arabia. The M. Andreev, a small feeder ship, meanwhile, had been operating in the days before around the Kerch Strait.
June 11: A few days later, Petra II, a crane ship, is captured by satellite imagery sandwiched between the Emmakris II and a different feeder ship. Ukrainian intelligence and maritime experts say it was loading grain at sea.
June 14: Ship-tracking data and satellite imagery show the M. Andreev, the Emmakris II and the Petra II operating in the vicinity of the Kerch Strait. Ukraine intelligence say the M. Andreev was loaded with barley from Sevastopol.
TURKEY, RUSSIA REACH FRAMEWORK ON SHIPPING UKRAINIAN WHEAT THIS MONTH: EXCLUSIVE
June 15: Ship-tracking data showed the three ships alongside each other for seven hours. Here, the barley was loaded from the M. Andreev, according to maritime experts and Ukrainian intelligence. Satellite imagery then picks up the M. Andreev breaking off.
Sept. 4: The Emmakris II lists its intended port of destination in Iraq, after sailing from the Kerch Strait through the Bosporus and Suez Canal. It never recorded a port call.
Ukrainian authorities and maritime and grain-market analysts have identified Sevastopol as a key entrepôt for stolen grain brought in by truck or rail from eastern Ukraine. Sevastopol shipped about 848,400 tons of grains, such as wheat and barley, from the beginning of March through October, nearly 15 times as much as the same period last year, according to Geneva-based researcher AgFlow.
Left to right; Prime Minister of the Republic of Lithuania Ingrida Simonyte, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Hungarian President Katalin Novak and Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki attend a (AP Newsroom)
In one such at-sea transfer of cargo coming from the port this summer, a crane ship managed and owned by companies linked to Mr. Khodykin loaded a large cargo ship—also managed and owned by the same companies—with grain near the Kerch Strait, a narrow waterway connecting the Black Sea and the Azov Sea, according to Ukrainian intelligence reports, satellite imagery, shipping data and maritime analysts.
Mr. Isik’s Bosphorus Observer helped identify some of the ships involved in Kerch Strait smuggling by matching verified photos and video with satellite imagery, using characteristics such as the placement of cranes and hatches on the ships. The Initiative for the Study of Russian Piracy, a Washington-based group of researchers and former U.S. officials funded by a Ukrainian industrial group, also provided ship-tracking data and corporate documentation. The data and documents were corroborated by the Journal.
Mr. Khodykin couldn’t be reached for comment. RIF said it has nothing to do with Ukrainian grain theft. “We value our reputation and comply with the legislation of the Russian Federation and all international rules,” the company said via email. RIF said that it carefully checks the origin of all its cargoes. Russian officials have also denied the theft of Ukrainian grain.
RIF, based in the city of Rostov-on-Don on the Azov Sea, is Russia’s largest exporter of grain, according to the country’s main grain trade body. According to Russian corporate documents dated as recently as April this year, Mr. Khodykin is RIF’s owner.
From April to September, Sevastopol shipped 662,000 tons of grain, compared with 36,000 tons the year before, according to AgFlow. Companies controlled by or benefiting Mr. Khodykin were involved in about a third of this year’s excess exports, according to ISRP researchers. That estimate took into account ISRP-tracked bulk carriers, tugboats, cranes and other auxiliary ships owned or managed by companies linked to Mr. Khodykin that either delivered grain or assisted in transshipments.
For instance, on June 14, the Russian-flagged M. Andreev, a small feeder ship, arrived in the vicinity of the Kerch Strait, loaded with barley from Sevastopol, according to a Ukrainian intelligence document. Near the strait, it came alongside the Panama-flagged Emmakris II, which had arrived earlier in the month, according to ship-tracking data from Spire Global.
The Emmakris II has been managed since 2020 by Dubai-based MCF Shipping DMCC, according to Equasis, a shipping database. It is listed as owned by an affiliate of MCF Shipping. MCF Shipping, in turn, shares a corporate website registrant and administrator with GTCS Trading DMCC, another Dubai company that a 2019 Moscow arbitration court document identified as being beneficially owned by RIF’s Mr. Khodykin. The company also goes by GTCS Trading JLT.
MCF Shipping is located in a Dubai office building next to GTCS Trading. Employees of the two companies say on their LinkedIn profiles that they work for both companies. One employee of GTCS reached by phone by the Journal said the two companies were the same. GTCS was also the majority owner of RIF until April this year, when ownership changed to Mr. Khodykin, according to a database that aggregates information about Russian companies.
On June 15, both ships, the Emmakris II and the M. Andreev, appeared on ship-tracking sites next to each other, along with another ship with a mounted crane. The three ships were nestled together for more than seven hours, according to ship-tracking data and a Ukrainian intelligence document, which said the M. Andreev offloaded its grain at this point.
The crane ship, Petra II, is also managed by MCF Shipping, the Dubai-based company linked to Mr. Khodykin, according to the Equasis shipping database. It is owned by an affiliate of MCF Shipping.
The flotilla was joined by two more feeder ships, this time arriving from Russia. They moored alongside the Emmakris II, according to satellite images from Planet Labs PBC that were reviewed by the Journal. Ukrainian officials say Russia mixes Russian grain with stolen Ukrainian grain to make it harder to track.
Emmakris II then got under way, moving first into the Black Sea and then through the Bosporus on July 10, according to ship-tracking data from Spire Global.
The ship then sailed to the Persian Gulf, where its tracking transponder stopped transmitting, making it invisible to ship trackers. When the ship reappeared on Sept. 4, it listed its destination as Umm Qasr, Iraq. The ship never recorded a port call in Iraq, however, according to ship-tracking data. Its final destination on that voyage couldn’t be determined.
Since September, the Emmakris II has made two more trips through the Black Sea to the Kerch Strait, according to ship-tracking data. The ship returned to the Persian Gulf on the first of those trips. The ship left the Black Sea again earlier in November and transited the Suez Canal on its way to the Red Sea.
Zelenskiy labels Putin U-turn on Ukraine grain deal a ‘failure of Russian aggression’ | Ukraine
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has hailed Russia’s turnaround in rejoining the UN-backed grain export deal, just days after the Kremlin threatened to pull out, as a “significant diplomatic outcome” for Ukraine and the “whole world”.
“Implementation of the grain export initiative will continue,” Zelenskiy said in his Wednesday evening address.
Russia initially said it would abandon the brokered deal that allowed exports of grain from Ukraine through the Black Sea, following a dramatic drone attack on its warships in the port of Sevastopol. Russia’s defence ministry said it was satisfied it had received “sufficient” guarantees from Kyiv that it would not use the maritime corridor to carry out attacks.
“We demanded assurances and guarantees from the Ukrainian side that nothing like this would happen again, that the humanitarian corridors would not be used militarily,” Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said during a video meeting with his coordination council on Wednesday.
However, Zelenskiy said the Kremlin’s call for guarantees showed “the failure of the Russian aggression”, noting: “Russian blackmail has led nowhere”.
After eight months of war “the Kremlin is saying that they demanded security guarantees from Ukraine”, he said. “Two hundred and fifty two days ago Russia demanded security guarantees from the United States of America.
“These are really striking changes. This shows both the failure of Russian aggression and how strong you and I are when we remain united.”
Russia’s decision to rejoin the UN grain corridor has been seen as a humiliating U-turn by Ukraine and its western allies.
“Putin was once again humiliated … the Kremlin blackmailer once again made himself a laughing stock before the whole world and retreated,” Anton Gerashchenko, a senior presidential adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, wrote over Telegram on Wednesday night.
Mykhalio Podolyak, another of Zelenskiy’s senior advisers, described Russia as “a gambler in a casino who has been lucky several times” but “went all-in … and lost”.
British foreign secretary James Cleverley said Vladimir Putin realised he “shot himself in the foot” by stopping ships from entering Ukrainian ports.
“Putin must stop using food as a weapon,” he said. “The grain initiative must now be extended beyond November without further Russian impediments.”
Putin must stop using food as a weapon.
He has realised he shot himself in the foot by stopping ships from entering Ukrainian ports to load up grain to feed the world.
The Grain Initiative must now be extended beyond November without further Russian impediments.
— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) November 2, 2022
n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/JamesCleverly/status/1587809126138224640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1587809126138224640%7Ctwgr%5Ef8a0a268d715e27cdef2847342bb1930a3dd487d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.sky.com%2Fstory%2Fukraine-war-latest-putin-launches-military-satellite-into-space-as-russia-is-accused-of-covert-mobilisation-12541713″,”id”:”1587809126138224640″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”0eda5eda-1008-4938-9af3-173a5098aca0″}}”>
Putin must stop using food as a weapon.
He has realised he shot himself in the foot by stopping ships from entering Ukrainian ports to load up grain to feed the world.
The Grain Initiative must now be extended beyond November without further Russian impediments.
— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) November 2, 2022
Andrey Sizov, head of the Russia-focused Sovecon agriculture consultancy, said Moscow’s decision was “quite an unexpected turnaround” but the deal remained shaky given uncertainty about whether it would be extended past its 19 November expiry.
The United States, however, welcomed the restoration of the deal and urged Russia to renew it later this month.
State department spokesperson Ned Price praised UN and Turkish mediators but said it was important that the deal is “not only set back in motion, but it’s renewed later this month.”
Secretary of state Antony Blinken thanked Turkey for its efforts and reminded Moscow of the “importance of continued adherence to UN-brokered agreements and its commitments to support global food security,” a statement said.
Reuters contributed to this report
UN, Nato, EU and US call on Russia to resume Ukrainian grain deal | Ukraine
The United Nations, Nato, European Union and US have all urged Russia to reverse its decision to pull out of a deal that allowed Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea, amid fears of a global food crisis.
Moscow announced it was suspending the UN-brokered arrangement in response to a dramatic attack in the early hours of Saturday by Ukrainian airborne and underwater drones on its naval base of Sevastopol in Crimea.
It had allowed Ukraine to transport more than 9m tonnes of grain and oilseed commodities, while Russia was allowed to export food and fertiliser, helping to bring down food prices by 15% from their March peak after the war made the route treacherous.
Wheat futures are now forecast to leap when markets open on Monday. “The start of the week is very likely to see prices climb, simply because less grain is going to come out of Ukraine,” Arthur Portier of consultancy Agritel said.
Kyiv’s infrastructure ministry said on Sunday that 218 vessels were now “effectively blocked” in its ports – 22 loaded and stuck at ports, 95 loaded and departed from ports, and 101 awaiting inspections.
Nato accused Vladimir Putin of “weaponising food” and urged him to do a U-turn. “We call on Russia to reconsider its decision and renew the deal urgently, enabling food to reach those who need it most,” spokesperson Oana Lungescu said.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said he was “deeply concerned” by Russia’s suspension of the deal for an “indefinite term” and had delayed his departure to attend the Arab League summit in Algiers for a day to try to revive it. Russia requested a meeting on Monday of the UN’s security council to discuss the issue.
The EU also urged Moscow to reverse course. Its foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, tweeted that Russia’s decision “puts at risk the main export route of much needed grain and fertilisers to address the global food crisis caused by its war against Ukraine”.
Turkey said its minister of defence, Hulusi Akar, was in talks with Russian and Ukrainian counterparts to resolve the impasse and had asked parties to avoid any “provocation”.
On Saturday Joe Biden called the move “purely outrageous” saying it would increase starvation, while his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the suspension was regrettable and urged “all parties to keep this essential, life-saving initiative functioning”.
Russia’s ambassador to Washington, hit back on Sunday saying the US response was itself “outrageous” and made false assertions about Moscow’s move.
Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine attacked its fleet near Sevastopol with 16 drones early on Saturday, claiming British navy “specialists” had helped coordinate what it called a terrorist attack. The UK denied the accusation.
Russia’s Black Sea flagship vessel, the Admiral Makarov, was damaged and possibly disabled in the attack.
The Kremlin claimed the ships targeted were involved in policing the grain corridor, but Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Moscow used the explosions 137 miles away from the corridor as a “false pretext” for a long-intended move.
“Russia took the decision to resume its hunger games long ago and now tries to justify it,” Kuleba tweeted.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called for a strong response from the UN and G20 group of leading economies. “This is a completely transparent attempt by Russia to return to the threat of large-scale famine for Africa, for Asia,” Zelenskiy said in a video address on Saturday, adding that Russia should be kicked out of the G20.
The grain deal had been due to expire on 19 November and Russia had already repeatedly said that there were serious problems with it. Ukraine had accused Moscow of blocking almost 200 ships from picking up grain cargoes.
When the agreement was signed ensuring safe passage out of three Ukrainian ports, the UN World Food Programme said about 47 million people were suffering “acute hunger” amid global food shortages and high prices caused in part by the war.
In the absence of the grain corridor, some traders and analysts said Russia does not have extra logistics capacity to fill the gap. This raises the risk of persistently high prices, which could be pushed up further if upcoming harvests in the southern hemisphere are poor after drought in Argentina and torrential rain in eastern Australia.
Russia Resumes Blockade of Ukraine’s Grain Exports, Reigniting Concerns Over Food Crisis
Ukraine’s military says Russia is massing troops on the right bank of the Dnieper River as both sides appear poised for what could be a key battle for Kherson in Ukraine’s south, while Russian officials claim all civilians were evacuated from the city.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on October 28 that Moscow has sent in up to 1,000 recently mobilized soldiers to make up for personnel losses suffered at the hands of an ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson region.
Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine
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“The command of the Russian occupying forces, in order to avoid panic among the personnel, is trying by all means to hide the real losses of servicemen…. There is a strengthening of the enemy group on the right bank of the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region with mobilized servicemen numbering up to 1,000 people,” the General Staff said in a statement.
Ukraine has pushed ahead with an offensive to reclaim the Kherson region and its capital of the same name, which Russian forces captured during the first days of the war.
Ukrainian forces were surrounding Kherson from the west and attacking Russia’s foothold on the right bank of the Dnieper River.
However, tough terrain and bad weather held up the Ukrainian Army’s main advance in Kherson, officials said.
Kherson, one of four partially occupied provinces that Russia proclaimed to have seized last month, controls the only land route to the Crimean Peninsula that Russia illegally annexed in 2014 and the mouth of the Dnieper that bisects Ukraine.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-installed governor of Crimea, said on October 28 that President Vladimir Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko, has visited Kherson.
Kiriyenko, one of the most powerful officials in the Kremlin, visited the ferry port that is evacuating people from the right bank of the Dnieper ahead of the expected Ukrainian offensive, Aksyonov said.
“The work on organizing the departure of residents has been completed,” he said.
Aksyonov’s statement came a day after Russia-appointed officials in Kherson said that more than 70,000 people had left the city, including members of the Moscow-installed regional administration.
The Ukrainian military said on October 28 that forces had killed 44 Russian soldiers in the past 24 hours, adding that its forces had destroyed an ammunition depot and a hangar with equipment.
The claim could not be independently verified.
However, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said 23 of his soldiers were killed and another 58 wounded in a Ukrainian artillery attack this week in Kherson. The comments were unusual as pro-Moscow forces have rarely admitted to major battlefield losses.
WATCH: A local official told Russian conscripts “You are not cannon fodder” in a video published online recently. The men responded by angrily shouting that, actually, that’s exactly what they are. The incident, in the Ardatovsky district some 360 kilometers east of Moscow, followed a stream of videos in which Russian conscripts complain of old equipment and poor training.
In the eastern region of Donetsk, Russian shelling killed four local residents, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the region’s military administration, said on October 28.
Russian air strikes, drone attacks, and shelling of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure were forcing electricity cuts in the capital, Kyiv, and other places, officials said.
Air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told a briefing on October 28 that Ukraine has shot down more than 300 Iranian Shahed-136 “kamikaze” drones so far. The drones have become a key weapon in Russia’s attacks on crucial Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Iran has denied Ukrainian and Western accusations that it is supplying drones to Russia.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainians will not be cowed by such tactics.
“Shelling will not break us — to hear the enemy’s anthem on our land is scarier than the enemy’s rockets in our sky,” Zelenskiy said in his regular video address on October 27 as he stood outside in the dark next to the wreckage of a downed drone.
WATCH: Ukrainian troops are targeting Russian-launched drones, fighter planes, and helicopters, using Soviet-era antiaircraft systems with limited radar capabilities. They also use Western-supplied, shoulder-launched missiles like the Stinger, but factors such as the weather can have a major impact on their effectiveness.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials quoted by Reuters and the Associated Press said the United States is preparing a new $275 million package of military assistance for Ukraine to bolster its counteroffensive against Russian forces.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there are no major new weapons in the U.S. package, which is expected to be announced as early as October 28.
Instead, the U.S. aid is largely aimed at restocking thousands of rounds of ammunition for weapons systems already there, including for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS, which Ukraine has been successfully using in its counteroffensive against Russia.
White House national-security spokesperson John Kirby declined to confirm details of the package in a CNN interview, saying only that a new tranche of weaponry for Ukraine would be announced “very, very soon.”