Ukraine and Russia have sought international military agreements as their forces have largely remained in a stalemate over the past week.
Russia has been unable to advance into eastern Ukraine and has even lost ground in its most recent incursion into the northern Kharkiv region, which was designed to distract Ukrainian defenders.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian troops recaptured positions southwest of Vovchansk, the main point of the Russian incursion into Kharkiv, and reportedly recaptured the settlement of Tykhe, west of Vovchansk.
On Wednesday, Colonel Yuriy Povkh, a spokesman for the Ukrainian forces in Kharkiv, said that “dozens” of Russian soldiers were trapped in the center of Vovchansk. Other reports put the number of Russian soldiers at 200.
On June 13, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he signed 10-year security agreements with Japan and the United States at the G7 summit in Puglia, Italy. The deal with Japan would give Ukraine $4.5 billion in military, humanitarian and financial aid this year alone, he said.
The value of the defense deal with the US over the next 10 years has not been stated.
The White House said it would “support the full range of Ukraine’s current defensive needs, now and in the long term, helping Ukraine win the war.”
The US Congress this year approved $61 billion in military aid to Ukraine, and US President Joe Biden, who faces elections in November, has tried to force any future administration to maintain aid to Ukraine. The G7 agreement was made by the executive branch, is not a ratified treaty and could be revoked by a future president.
Although Ukraine has signed agreements with 15 countries and has about 15 other such agreements under negotiation, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance was considering making aid to Kiev mandatory to ensure it remained “reliable.” and on a large scale.”
The nature of this safeguard would be to protect Ukraine against government changes and control alliance outliers such as Hungary, which has refused to provide military aid to Kiev’s forces.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on May 24, said Hungary was “working intensively to figure out how to avoid participating in [a NATO-Russia] war while remaining a member of NATO,” according to Russian state news agency Tass. “Our lawyers and military are currently working on this.”
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which he said included “mutual assistance in the event of aggression.”
Putin, who visited Pyongyang to sign the agreement, said he “does not rule out the development of military-technical cooperation” with North Korea.
During his visit to Russia in September, Kim expressed interest in ballistic missile technology and wanted Russian help in launching satellites.
US national security spokesman John Kirby said Washington was alarmed by the closer cooperation between Russia and North Korea.
Other forms of assistance to Ukraine were also announced.
The G7 summit promised to break new ground in aid to Ukraine, providing $50 billion this year in the form of a US loan. The loan would be guaranteed by interest from $300 billion in Russian assets frozen in the territories of Ukraine’s allies, mainly the European Union.
Last month, the EU announced that it would send Ukraine around $3 billion a year in interest earned on Russian assets on its territory. It was not immediately clear whether this amount would now be incorporated into the US loan. Russia warned that it would reciprocate any direct seizure of its assets on Western soil.
The US also announced new sanctions against 300 individuals and entities in Russia and China, in an attempt to fill gaps around existing measures. The sanctions included Russian banks Sberbank, VTB Bank and Tochka Bank and Russian defense conglomerate Rostec.
Mikhail Zvinchuk, founder of a Kremlin-associated channel on the Telegram platform, told the new Bosnian service BanjaLuka.net that the sanctions were having an effect on Russia’s defense industry and war economy.
Ukraine’s allies and neutral countries met last weekend in Burgenstock, Switzerland, in the first international peace conference held for the war in Ukraine.
More than 80 countries agreed that the threat of using nuclear weapons and turning food into weapons – both accused by Russia – were unacceptable. Russia and China did not participate in the talks, but Moscow has previously said it rejects Zelenskyy’s peace terms, including a full Russian withdrawal from occupied territories.
Ukraine continued to attack Russian energy facilities throughout the week, a policy begun in January.
Geolocated images showed a Russian oil terminal in Azov in flames on Monday and Tuesday. Ukraine also struck an oil facility in Chushka.
Ukraine was not authorized to use US-made Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) against targets in Russia, except in areas immediately north of Kharkiv, where the new incursion was launched on May 10. Biden reaffirmed that policy last week.
The Kharkiv region is on the border with Russia and its capital, also called Kharkiv, is 30 km (20 miles) from the border.
Ukraine has been using drones of its own making and last week said it also used its own Neptune missiles on Russian soil to attack the oil installation in Chushka, east of Crimea, last week, and in neighboring Kavkaz on May 31. .
Ukraine used Neptune missiles to sink the Russian missile carrier Moskva in April 2022.
Ukraine also clarified that it damaged two Sukhoi-57 fighter jets in a strike more than 500 km (311 miles) from the front lines this month, not one as initially reported.
Ukraine’s strikes have been particularly successful against air defense systems in Crimea, where it has destroyed 15 systems, according to Ukrainian military intelligence – three of them in the past two weeks.
Kyril Budanov, head of intelligence, said Russia has now resorted to stationing an experimental S-500 system in the country.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
