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‘You are talking about corruption? First, go and wash your face with Dettol’: Nirmala Sitharaman takes a dig at Congress over corruption charges – OpIndia
- ‘You are talking about corruption? First, go and wash your face with Dettol’: Nirmala Sitharaman takes a dig at Congress over corruption charges OpIndia
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- ‘Dettol Se Muh Saaf Kardo Bhaiya…’: Sitharaman Takes Dig at Congress on Corruption | WATCH News18
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Russian missile wrecks apartment block, killing 3, as EU leaders visit Kyiv
KYIV, Feb 2 (Reuters) – A Russian missile destroyed an apartment building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, killing at least three people, police said, as top European Union officials arrived in Kyiv for talks seen as key to Ukraine’s pivot towards the West.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed more anti-corruption measures as authorities continued raids ahead of Friday’s EU meeting, reflecting his determination to show that Kyiv can be a reliable steward of billions of dollars in aid.
“We are here together to show that the EU stands by Ukraine as firmly as ever. And to deepen further our support and cooperation,” the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, tweeted as she arrived in Kyiv by train on Thursday.
Ukraine sees the meeting as important to its hopes of joining the bloc, a process likely to take years.
In his evening video address, Zelenskiy also gave another bleak assessment of the battlefield situation as Russian forces continued to make incremental gains in the east of the country as the first anniversary of Moscow’s invasion looms on Feb. 24.
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In Kramatorsk, a Russian Iskander-K tactical missile struck at 9:45 p.m. (1945 GMT) on Wednesday, killing at least three people and injuring 20 others, police said.
“At least eight apartment buildings were damaged. One of them was completely destroyed,” police said in a Facebook post.
“People may remain under the rubble.”
Kramatorsk is about 55 km (34 miles) northwest of Bakhmut, currently the main focus of fighting in eastern Ukraine.
‘TOUGHER’ ON EASTERN FRONT
Russia, determined to make progress before Ukraine gets newly promised Western battle tanks and armoured vehicles, has picked up momentum on the battlefield and announced advances north and south of Bakhmut, which has suffered persistent Russian bombardment for months.
“Definite increase has been noted in the offensive operations of the occupiers on the front in the east of our country. The situation has become tougher,” Zelenskiy said in his evening video broadcast.
“The enemy is trying to achieve at least something now to show that Russia has some chances on the anniversary of the invasion,” he added.
Bakhmut and 10 towns and villages around it came under Russian fire, the Ukrainian military said late on Wednesday.
Avdiivka, another major Russian target, the nearby town of Maryinka and some neighbouring settlements were also hit, the military added.
Russian forces are pushing from both the north and south to encircle Bakhmut, using their superior troop numbers to try to cut it off from re-supply and force the Ukrainians out, Ukrainian military analyst Yevhen Dikiy said.
“This for us is the most difficult scenario,” Dikiy told Espreso TV.
“The enemy is able to use its sole resource, which it has in excess, its men,” he said, describing a landscape to the northeast of Bakhmut “literally covered with corpses”.
Ukraine and its Western allies say Moscow has taken huge losses around Bakhmut, sending in waves of poorly equipped troops, including thousands of convicts recruited from prisons as mercenaries.
A former commander of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group who fled to Norway in January told Reuters he wanted to apologise for fighting in Ukraine and was speaking out to bring perpetrators of atrocities to justice.
“First of all, repeatedly, and again, I would like to apologise,” Andrei Medvedev, 26, said.
ROCKETS
Ukraine has secured pledges of weapons from the West offering new capabilities – the latest expected this week to include rockets from the United States that would nearly double the range of Ukrainian forces.
“We’re focused on providing Ukraine the capability that it needs to be effective in its upcoming anticipated counter- offensive in the spring,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a visit to the Philippines on Thursday.
The new weapons would put all of Russia’s supply lines in eastern Ukraine, as well as parts of Crimea, within range of Ukrainian forces.
Moscow says such rockets will escalate the conflict but not change its course.
“The greater the range of the weapons supplied to the Kyiv regime the more we will have to push them back from territories which are part of our country,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian state TV on Thursday. Moscow claims to have annexed four Ukrainian provinces last year, as well as Crimea which it seized in 2014.
Russian forces are probing areas of weakness in Ukraine’s defences on the western edges of Luhansk region, its governor Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian TV on Thursday.
“The amount of shelling has increased, the number of attacks in the direction of Svatove-Kreminna has increased… They are piling up our positions with bodies,” Gaidai said.
Reuters could not confirm the battlefield reports.
President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine last February in a “special military operation” to “disarm” its neighbour. He now casts the campaign as a fight to defend Russia against an aggressive West. Ukraine and the West call it an illegal war to expand Russian territory.
Reporting by Reuters bureaux
Writing by Himani Sarkar and Gareth Jones
Editing by Robert Birsel and Peter Graff
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Philippines grants U.S. greater access to bases amid China concerns
MANILA, Feb 2 (Reuters) – The Philippines has granted the United States expanded access to its military bases, their defence chiefs said on Thursday, amid mounting concern over China’s increasing assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea and tensions over self-ruled Taiwan.
Washington would be given access to four more locations under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Philippines’ Defense Secretary Carlito Galvez said in a joint news conference.
Austin, who was in the Philippines for talks as Washington seeks to extend its security options in the country as part of efforts to deter any move by China against self-ruled Taiwan, described Manila’s decision as a “big deal” as he and his counterpart reaffirmed their commitment to bolstering their countries’ alliance.
“Our alliance makes both of our democracies more secure and helps uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific,” said Austin, whose visit follows U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s trip to the Philippines in November, which included a stop at Palawan in the South China Sea.
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“We discussed concrete actions to address destabilising activities in the waters surrounding the Philippines, including the West Philippine Sea, and we remain committed to strengthening our mutual capacities to resist armed attack,” Austin said.
“That’s just part of our efforts to modernize our alliance. And these efforts are especially important as People’s Republic of China continues to advance its illegitimate claims in the West Philippine Sea,” he added.
The additional locations under the EDCA bring to nine the number of military bases the United States would have access to, and Washington had announced it was allocating more than $82 million toward infrastructure investments at the existing sites.
The EDCA allows U.S. access to Philippine military bases for joint training, pre-positioning of equipment and the building of facilities such as runways, fuel storage and military housing, but not a permanent presence.
Austin and Galvez did not say where the new locations would be. The former Philippine military chief had said the United States had requested access to bases on the northern land mass of Luzon, the closest part of the Philippines to Taiwan, and on the island of Palawan, facing the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
There was no immediate comment from the Chinese Embassy in Manila.
Outside the military headquarters, dozens of protesters opposed to the United States maintaining a military presence in the country chanted anti-U.S. slogans and called for the EDCA to be scrapped.
Before meeting his counterpart, Austin met with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr at the presidential palace on Thursday, where he assured the Southeast Asian leader, “we stand ready to help you in any way we can”.
Ties between the United States and the Philippines, a former colony, were soured by predecessor Rodrigo Duterte’s overtures towards China, his famous anti-U.S. rhetoric and threats to downgrade their military ties.
But Marcos has met with U.S. President Joe Biden twice since his landslide victory in the elections last year and reiterated he cannot see a future for his country without its longtime treaty ally.
“I have always said, it seems to me, the future of the Philippines and for that matter the Asia Pacific will always have to involve the United States,” Marcos told Austin.
Reporting by Karen Lema
Editing by Ed Davies and Gerry Doyle
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
North Korea says U.S. drills have pushed situation to ‘extreme red-line’ -KCNA
SEOUL, Feb 2 (Reuters) – North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that drills by the United States and its allies have pushed the situation to an “extreme red-line” and threaten to turn the peninsula into a “huge war arsenal and a more critical war zone.”
The statement, carried by state news agency KCNA, said Pyongyang was not interested in dialogue as long as Washington pursues hostile policies.
“The military and political situation on the Korean peninsula and in the region has reached an extreme red-line due to the reckless military confrontational maneuvers and hostile acts of the U.S. and its vassal forces,” an unnamed ministry spokesperson said in the statement.
In Washington, the White House rejected the North Korean statement and reiterated a willingness to meet with North Korean diplomats “at a time and place convenient for them.”
“We have made clear we have no hostile intent toward the DPRK and seek serious and sustained diplomacy to address the full range of issues of concern to both countries and the region,” said a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council.
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The North Korean statement cited a visit to Seoul this week by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. On Tuesday Austin and his South Korean counterpart vowed to expand military drills and deploy more “strategic assets,” such as aircraft carriers and long-range bombers, to counter North Korea’s weapons development and prevent a war.
“This is a vivid expression of the U.S. dangerous scenario which will result in turning the Korean peninsula into a huge war arsenal and a more critical war zone,” the North Korean statement said.
North Korea will respond to any military moves by the United States, and has strong counteraction strategies, including “the most overwhelming nuclear force” if necessary, the statement added.
More than 28,500 American troops are based in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
“We reject the notion that our joint exercises with partners in the region serve as any sort of provocation. These are routine exercises fully consistent with past practice,” the White House statement said.
Last year, North Korea conducted a record number of ballistic missile tests, which are banned by United Nations Security Council resolutions. It was also observed reopening its shuttered nuclear weapons test site, raising expectations of a nuclear test for the first time since 2017.
In New York, South Korea’s foreign minister, Park Jin, met with the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday and called for the U.N.’s continued attention to North Korea’s recent provocations and efforts to implement sanctions on the reclusive regime.
Guterres said any resumption of nuclear testing by North Korea would deal a devastating blow to regional and international security, and reaffirmed support to build lasting peace on the Korean peninsula, according to Park’s office.
Park is on a four-day trip to the United States, which will include a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington on Friday.
On Wednesday the United States and South Korea carried out a joint air drill with American B-1B heavy bombers and F-22 stealth fighters, as well as F-35 jets from both countries, according to South Korea’s Defense Ministry.
“The combined air drills this time show the U.S.’ will and capabilities to provide strong and credible extended deterrence against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Reporting by Josh Smith; Additional reporting by Soo-hyang Choi and Steve Holland; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Bill Berkrot and Gerry Doyle
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Nikki Haley, once Trump’s UN ambassador, to take him on in 2024
WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley will kick off her campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination this month, squaring off against her one-time boss, former President Donald Trump, two sources familiar with her plans said on Wednesday.
The move would make her just the second declared Republican candidate and could set the stage for a more combative phase of the campaign, potentially putting her in the sights of the combative former U.S. president.
Haley’s campaign sent an email to supporters on Wednesday inviting them to a Feb. 15 event in Charleston. There she will declare her candidacy, the sources said.
South Carolina is expected to host one of the first Republican nominating primaries in 2024 and will play an important role in picking the eventual candidate.
The daughter of two Indian immigrants who ran a successful clothing store in a rural part of the state, Haley has gained a reputation in the Republican Party as a solid conservative who has the ability to address issues of gender and race in a more credible fashion than many of her peers.
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She has also pitched herself as a stalwart defender of American interests abroad, having served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump from 2017 to 2018. During that time, the United States pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, which was inked under Democratic President Barack Obama and was highly unpopular among Republicans.
One Haley associate said she chose to launch her campaign this early to try to grab voters’ attention and shake up a race that had so far been dominated by Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has not yet declared whether he will run.
Many key Republican donors and elected officials in South Carolina have been looking for alternatives to Trump amid concerns about his electability, according to conservations in recent weeks with more than a dozen party officials and strategists.
Several prominent Republicans, including Haley and U.S. Senator Tim Scott opted to skip a Trump campaign appearance in Columbia on Saturday, which was intended to showcase his support in the state.
Trump told reporters on Saturday that Haley had called him to say she was considering a run and that he told her “go by your hear if you want to run,” according to multiple media reports.
[1/3] Former Trump administration U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley campaigns for Georgia Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Herschel Walker at a rally with supporters in Hiram, Georgia, U.S. November 6, 2022. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Haley received national attention in 2015 when, as governor, she signed a bill into law removing the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol, following the murder of nine black churchgoers by white supremacist Dylann Roof.
If she were to win the nomination, Haley would be the first woman at the top of the Republican presidential ticket in history, as well as the party’s first non-white nominee.
Among her major challenges will be nailing down a consistent message. Even in a field where most candidates have changed their mind about key issues multiple times, Haley is particularly chameleonic.
She has distanced herself from Trump several times, only to later soften her rhetoric, saying he has an important role to play in the Republican Party.
While she has criticized Republicans for baselessly casting doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election, she campaigned on behalf of multiple candidates who supported Trump’s false election fraud claims during the 2022 midterms.
Even as she has at times adopted a conciliatory message on racial issues, she often opts for a less measured tone. In November, she said at a campaign rally that Democratic Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, a Black man born in Savannah, should be “deported.”
Playing into Haley’s hands may be geography: South Carolina is historically the third state to host the Republican nominating contest, and it often plays an outsized role in the race. Haley, who governed the state from 2011 to 2017, is popular there, polls show.
Trump and DeSantis have both been active in the state.
While Haley comes into the race as an underdog – most national polls show her support in the single digits – she is used to running from behind, having gained a reputation in political circles for coming out on top in tough-to-win races.
A campaign spokesperson declined to comment on Wednesday.
Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Gram Slattery; Editing by Ross Colvin, Daniel Wallis and Andrew Heavens
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Ukraine raids home of billionaire in war-time anti-corruption crackdown
KYIV, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Security services searched the home of one of Ukraine’s most prominent billionaires on Wednesday, moving against a figure once seen as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s sponsor in what the authorities called a war-time anti-corruption purge.
The action, days before a summit with the European Union, appears to reflect determination by Kyiv to demonstrate that it can be a steward of billions of dollars in Western aid and shed a reputation as one of the world’s most corrupt states.
It came as Kyiv has secured huge pledges of weapons from the West in recent weeks offering new capabilities – the latest expected this week to include rockets from the United States that would nearly double the firing range of Ukrainian forces.
Photographs circulating on social media appeared to show Ihor Kolomoiskiy dressed in a sweatsuit and looking on in the presence of an SBU security service officer at his home.
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The SBU said it had uncovered the embezzlement of more than $1 billion at Ukraine’s biggest oil company, Ukrnafta, and its biggest refiner, Ukrtatnafta. Kolomoiskiy, who has long denied wrongdoing, once held stakes in both firms, which Zelenskiy ordered seized by the state in November under martial law.
Separate raids were carried out at the tax office, and the home of Arsen Avakov, who led Ukraine’s police force as interior minister from 2014-2021. The SBU said it was cracking down on “people whose actions harm the security of the state in various spheres” and promised more details in coming days.
“Every criminal who has the audacity to harm Ukraine, especially in the conditions of war, must clearly understand that we will put handcuffs on his hands,” Ukraine’s security service chief Vasyl Malyuk was quoted as saying on the SBU Telegram channel.
The prosecutor general’s office said the top management of Ukrtatnafta had been notified it was under suspicion, as were a former energy minister, a former deputy defence minister and other officials.
Kolomoiskiy, who faces a fraud case in the United States, has been at the centre of corruption allegations and court disputes for years that Western donors have said must be resolved for Kyiv to win aid.
Zelenskiy, who first came to fame as the star of a sitcom on Kolomoiskiy’s TV station, has long promised to rid Ukraine of so-called oligarchs, but had faced accusations that he was unable to move decisively against his former sponsor.
In an address overnight before the raids, he alluded to new anti-corruption measures in time for Friday’s summit, at which Ukraine is expected to seek firm steps towards joining the EU.
“We are preparing new reforms in Ukraine. Reforms that will change the social, legal and political reality in many ways, making it more human, transparent and effective,” he said, promising to reveal the details soon.
LONGER RANGE MISSILES
Ukrainian forces which recaptured swathes of territory from Russian troops in the second half of 2022 have seen their advance stall since November. Kyiv says the key to regaining the initiative is securing advanced Western weaponry.
Two U.S. officials said a new $2 billion package of military aid to be announced as soon as this week would for the first time include Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB), a new weapon designed by Boeing. (BA.N)
The cheap gliding missiles can strike targets more than 150 km (90 miles) away, a dramatic increase over the 80 km range of the rockets fired by HIMARS systems which changed the face of the war when Washington sent them last summer.
That would put all of the Russian-occupied territory on Ukraine’s mainland, as well as parts of the Crimea peninsula seized by Moscow in 2014, within range of Kyiv’s forces.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the arrival of longer range U.S. weapons would escalate the conflict.
Western countries pledged scores of advanced main battle tanks for the first time last week, a breakthrough in support aimed at giving Kyiv the capability to recapture occupied territory this year.
But the arrival of the new weapons is still months away, and in the meantime, Russia has gained momentum on the battlefield, announcing advances north and south of the city of Bakhmut, its main target for months.
Kyiv disputes many of those claims and Reuters could not independently verify the full situation, but the locations of reported fighting clearly indicate incremental Russian advances.
Troops were fighting building to building in Bakhmut for gains of barely 100 metres (yards) a night, and the city was coming under constant Russian shelling, a soldier in a Ukrainian unit of Belarusian volunteers told Reuters from inside the city.
Ukraine’s general staff said late on Tuesday its forces had come under fire in Bakhmut and the villages of Klishchiivka and Kurdyumivka on its southern approaches.
South of Bakhmut, Russia has also launched a major new offensive this week on Vuhledar, a longstanding Ukrainian-held bastion at the junction of the southern and eastern front lines. Kyiv says its forces have so far held there.
PURGE
The infusion of Western military and financial aid creates new pressure on Zelenskiy to demonstrate his government can clean up Ukraine.
Last week, he purged more than a dozen senior officials following a series of scandals and graft allegations in the biggest shakeup of Ukraine’s leadership since the invasion.
Following Wednesday’s raids, the parliamentary leader of Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party, David Arakhamia, wrote on Telegram: “The country will change during the war. If someone is not ready for change, then the state itself will come and help them change.”
Reporting by Reuters bureaux
Writing by Peter Graff
Editing by Philippa Fletcher
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
White House blasts Exxon over historical $56 bln annual profit
WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) – The White House on Tuesday expressed outrage on Tuesday at Exxon Mobil Corp’s record net profit in 2022 of $56 billion, a historical high not just for the company but for the entire Western oil industry.
Oil majors are expected to break their own annual records due to high prices and soaring demand, pushing their combined take to near $200 billion. The scale has brought renewed criticism of the oil industry and sparked calls for more countries to levy windfall profit taxes on the companies.
A White House statement said Exxon’s (XOM.N) profit margin was particularly galling as Americans paid record high prices at the pump. It criticized attempts by Republicans in the House of Representatives to push policies aimed at supporting the oil industry.
“The latest earnings reports make clear that oil companies have everything they need, including record profits and thousands of unused but approved permits, to increase production, but they’re instead choosing to plow those profits into padding the pockets of executives and shareholders while House Republicans manufacture excuse after excuse to shield them from any accountability,” the White House said.
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President Joe Biden has blasted oil companies and refiners for much of the last year for enjoying surging profits as gasoline prices soared. In June, he Biden wrote to executives of major oil refiners and complained they had cut back on production to pad profits, according to a copy of a letter seen by Reuters.
Exxon’s CFO Kathryn Mikells responded to growing criticism over the industry’s windfall profits and suggested the answer is not increased taxes.
“We look at the EU tax on the energy sector, and you know, it’s just unlawful and bad policy trying to tax something, when what you actually need is for it to increase,” Mikells said. “It has the opposite effect of what you’re trying to achieve.”
Reporting By Trevor Hunnicut and Steve Holland; additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Sabrina Valle; Editing by Franklin Paul and David Gregorio
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Austin’s Manila visit to bring deal on expanded base access – Philippines official
WASHINGTON/MANILA, Feb 1 (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s visit to the Philippines this week is expected to bring an announcement of expanded U.S. access to military bases in the country, a senior Philippines official said on Wednesday.
Washington is eager to extend its security options in the Philippines as part of efforts to deter any move by China against self-ruled Taiwan, while Manila wants to bolster defense of its territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea.
Austin arrived in Manila on Tuesday night, and will meet his Philippine counterpart and other officials on Thursday “to build on our strong bilateral relationship, discuss a range of security initiatives, and advance our shared vision of a free and open Pacific,” he said on Twitter.
On Wednesday morning, Austin visited U.S. troops stationed at a Philippine military camp in the southern city of Zamboanga, according to Roy Galido, commander of the Western Mindanao Command.
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“Our working relationship to them is very strong,” Galido told reporters, adding that U.S. troops help in counter terrorism, and humanitarian and disaster response missions.
U.S. officials have said Washington hopes for an access agreement during Austin’s visit, which began on Tuesday, and that Washington has proposed additional sites under an Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) dating back to 2014.
“There’s a push for another four or five of these EDCA sites,” the a senior Philippines official said. “We are going to have definitely an announcement of some sort. I just don’t know how many would be the final outcome of that.”
The official declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Manila and Washington have a mutual defense treaty and have been discussing U.S. access to four additional bases on the northern land mass of Luzon, the closest part of the Philippines to Taiwan, as well as another on the island of Palawan, facing the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
EDCA allows U.S. access to Philippine bases for joint training, pre-positioning of equipment and building of facilities such as runways, fuel storage and military housing, but not a permanent presence. The U.S. military already has access to five such sites.
The Philippines official said increased U.S. access needed to benefit both countries.
“We don’t want it to be directed to just for the use of the United States purely for their defense capabilities … it has to be mutually beneficial,” he said.
“And obviously, we want to make sure that no country will see … anything that we’re doing … was directed towards any conflict or anything of that sort,” he added.
Manila’s priorities in its agreements with Washington were to boost its defense capabilities and interoperability with U.S. forces and to improve its ability to cope with climate change and natural disasters, the official said.
He said that after cancelling an agreement for the purchase of heavy-lift helicopters from Russia last year, Manila had reached a deal with Washington to upgrade “a couple” of Blackhawk helicopters that could be used for disaster relief.
“The deal with Russia was very attractive because for a certain budget we were able to get something like 16 of these heavy-lift helicopters,” the official said. “Now with the United States, obviously their helicopters are more expensive, so we’re looking at how we can fit in the budget that we’ve had.”
Gregory Poling, a Southeast Asia expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said access to sites in northern Luzon would help U.S. efforts to deter any Chinese move against Taiwan by putting the waters to the south of the island within range of shore-based missiles.
He said the U.S. and Philippine marines were pursuing similar capabilities with ground-based rockets, with Manila’s particular interest being to protect its South China Sea claims.
The Philippines is among several countries at odds with China in the South China Sea and has been angered by the constant presence of vessels in its exclusive economic zone it says are manned by Chinese militia. China is also Manila’s main trading partner.
Reporting by David Brunnstrom; additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington and Neil Jerome Morales and Karen Lema in Manila; Editing by Gerry Doyle
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Western allies differ over jets for Ukraine as Russia claims gains
KYIV, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s defence minister is expected in Paris on Tuesday to meet President Emmanuel Macron amid a debate among Kyiv’s allies over whether to provide fighter jets for its war against Russia, after U.S. President Joe Biden ruled out giving F-16s.
Ukraine planned to push for Western fourth-generation fighters like F-16s after securing supplies of main battle tanks last week, an adviser to Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Friday.
Asked at the White House on Monday if the United States would provide F-16s, Biden told reporters: “No.”
But France and Poland appear to be willing to entertain any such request from Ukraine, with Macron telling reporters in The Hague on Monday that “by definition, nothing is excluded” when it comes to military assistance.
In remarks carried on French television before Biden spoke in Washington, Macron stressed any such move would depend on several factors including the need to avoid escalation and assurances that the aircraft would not “touch Russian soil.” He said Reznikov would also meet his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu in Paris on Tuesday.
In Poland on Monday, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also did not rule out a possible supply of F-16s to neighbouring Ukraine, in response to a question from a reporter before Biden spoke.
Morawiecki said in remarks posted on his website that any such transfer would take place “in complete coordination” with NATO countries.
Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukraine president’s office, noted “positive signals” from Poland and said France “does not exclude” such a move in separate posts on his Telegram channel.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was in Japan on Tuesday where he thanked Tokyo for the “planes and the cargo capabilities” it is providing Ukraine. A day earlier in South Korea he urged Seoul to increase its military support to Ukraine.
Biden’s comment came shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had begun exacting its revenge for Ukraine’s resistance to its invasion with relentless attacks in the east, where it appeared to be making incremental gains.
Zelenskiy has warned for weeks that Moscow aims to step up its assault after about two months of virtual stalemate along the front line that stretches across the south and east.
Ukraine won a huge boost last week when Germany and the United States announced plans to provide heavy tanks, ending weeks of diplomatic deadlock on the issue.
While there was no sign of a broader new Russian offensive, the administrator of Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, Denis Pushilin, said Russian troops had secured a foothold in Vuhledar, a coal-mining town whose ruins have been a Ukrainian bastion since the outset of the war.
Pushilin said that despite “huge losses” Ukrainian forces were consolidating positions in industrial facilities.
‘BATTLE FOR EVERY METER’
Pushilin said Ukrainian forces were throwing reinforcements at Bakhmut, Maryinka and Vuhledar, towns running from north to south just west of Donetsk city. The Russian state news agency TASS quoted him as saying Russian forces were making advances there, but “not clear-cut, that is, here there is a battle for literally every meter.”
Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said Ukraine still controlled Maryinka and Vuhledar, where Russian attacks were less intense on Monday.
Pushilin’s adviser, Yan Gagin, said fighters from Russian mercenary force Wagner had taken partial control of a supply road leading to Bakhmut, a city that has been Moscow’s focus for months.
A day earlier, the head of Wagner said his fighters had secured Blahodatne, a village just north of Bakhmut, although Kyiv said it had repelled assaults on Blahodatne.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports. But the locations of the reported fighting indicated clear, though gradual, Russian gains.
In central Zaporizhzhia region and in southern Kherson region, Russian forces shelled more than 40 settlements, Ukraine’s General Staff said. Targets included the city of Kherson, where there were casualties.
The Russians also launched four rocket attacks on Ochakiv in southern Mykolaiv, the army said, on the day Zelenskiy met the Danish prime minister in Mykolaiv city, to the northeast.
WESTERN DELAYS
Zelenskiy is urging the West to hasten delivery of its promised weapons so Ukraine can go on the offensive, but most of the hundreds of tanks pledged by Western countries are months away from delivery.
British Defence Minister Ben Wallace said the 14 Challenger tanks donated by Britain would be on the front line around April or May, without giving an exact timetable.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Western countries supplying arms leads “to NATO countries more and more becoming directly involved in the conflict – but it doesn’t have the potential to change the course of events and will not do so.”
The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War think-tank said “the West’s failure to provide the necessary materiel” last year was the main reason Kyiv’s advances had halted since November.
The researchers said in a report that Ukraine could still recapture territory once the promised weapons arrive.
The Belarusian defence ministry said on Tuesday that Russia and Belarus had started a week-long session of staff training in preparation for joint drills in Russia in September.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow justifies as necessary to protect itself from its neighbour’s ties with the West, has killed tens of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes.
Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Doina Chiacu and Stephen Coates; Editing by Cynthia Osterman & Simon Cameron-Moore
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