In an effort to decrease Vladimir Putin’s ability to fund the war in Ukraine that Russia started in February 2022, the U.S. and other Western countries have imposed heavy sanctions on Russia. Since invading Ukraine, Russia has lost access to roughly half of its gold and foreign currency reserves.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon announced that it will be increasing the production of artillery ammunition by 500% over the next two years due to depleted military stockpiles caused by sending millions of shells to Ukraine.
If political leaders in Brussels and Washington were interested in democracy, they would pay attention to the desires of their own constituents. While claiming the war is about “democracy” in Ukraine, they ignore democracy in their own countries. Based on the results of the new Project Europe survey, it is clear that Europeans expect their leaders to work towards a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible and to bring a quick end to the war.
After weeks of debate within the Biden administration and building pressure from Germany and some members of Congress, the administration has announced that it will send 30 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine in what is being seen as a breakthrough. The debate as to whether or not to send Western-made tanks to Ukraine has also been a source of division amid NATO allies.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian government confirmed the resignation of numerous high-ranking officials as the result of widespread corruption allegations. The situation is being called the biggest graft scandal since Russia invaded Ukraine almost a year ago.
Speaking at a meeting of European Union Foreign Ministers in Brussels, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó declared that “Sanctions have taken the EU to a dead end. Sanctions harm us Europeans more than the Russians. Everyone can see that. This is not a political statement, it’s a fact.”
According to a report in Der Spiegel, German foreign intelligence has assessed that Ukraine is losing a “three-digit number” of troops daily. Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has said that it is “alarmed” at the high number of casualties suffered by Ukrainian forces and that Berlin believes that the number of losses reached three digits daily during the battle of Bakhmut. German politicians were informed of the high number of casualties during a secret Bundestag meeting last week.
The State Secretary stressed that if Kiev wants to join the European Union, it must respect the rights of ethnic minorities in Ukraine, as well as abide by all related international laws and rules, things that the Ukrainian government has only paid lip service too while continuing to oppress all of the minority populations in the country.
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Saturday, announced the completion of an anti-air exercise that was carried out near Moscow, saying, “In the Moscow region, a training session was held with the personnel of the anti-aircraft missile brigade of the Western Military District on repelling air attacks on important military-industrial and administrative facilities.” The announcement and exercises came just days after numerous reports that Russia had installed Pantsir-S1 air defense systems on several key buildings in Moscow.
After weeks of Germany refusing to allow its Western allies to send their Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Berlin has finally authorized Poland to send its German-made Leopard tanks to Kyiv to fight the Russian invasion.