New air defense ammunition
US releases needed military aid to Ukraine

July 3, 2024, 8:58 AM

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The opening of a new front line in the Kharkiv region by the Russian side will only put Ukraine in trouble for a short time. However, Kiev still lacks ammunition. And now the next batch comes from the United States.

The Ukrainian army is receiving urgently needed supplies. The United States will soon provide Ukraine with additional military aid worth about $2.3 billion (about €2.14 billion) to defend against Russia’s aggressive war. This was announced by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin during a visit to Washington by his Ukrainian counterpart Rustam Umzhirov.

Austin explained that the package approved by US President Joe Biden includes “additional anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank weapons, and other critical munitions from US stockpiles.” The “realignment of some foreign military supplies” will also allow the United States to provide munitions for Patriot missiles and other air defense systems “on an accelerated time frame.”

The aid is one of several that have already been made available since the US Congress released new funds worth about $61 billion (€56.2 billion) to Kiev in late April. According to the Pentagon, the US has already provided more than $50 billion in military aid to Kiev since Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine began more than two years ago.

Kyiv prepares to import electricity from the European Union

Ukraine has managed to stabilize the situation on the nearly 1,000-kilometer-long front line after resuming US arms shipments despite continued Russian pressure.

The Russian opening of a new front line in the Kharkiv region has only briefly put the Ukrainian side in trouble. According to media reports, when it comes to artillery deployment, there are now only three Russian shells for every Ukrainian shell instead of the previous five or more.

Given the ongoing Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Kyiv is preparing to import electricity from the European Union. Following Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal’s report on the current state of the country’s energy supply, a decision on electricity imports is now necessary, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening video message.

“We are now fully committed to the volume of imports agreed with the EU, and I am grateful to all our neighbors for this help,” Zelensky said. “We are doing everything we can to increase imports and this should be a European solution.” His government is preparing the relevant agreements.

Zelensky called on the Ministry of Energy to inform the population on a daily basis about the state of work in the energy sector, the current deficit and the country’s measures to eliminate this deficit.

Lukashenko warns Kyiv

In recent months, the Russian military has begun targeting and destroying Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The aim of these attacks is also to weaken the population’s will to resist.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said in a speech on the occasion of the upcoming Republic Day on June 3 in Minsk that NATO does not want to end the war in neighboring Ukraine and also intends to drag Belarus into it. “I guarantee you that we will not allow clashes on the border with Ukraine, they will not happen,” he said.

At the same time, Lukashenko warned Kiev to refrain from provocations on the border. “I would like to ask Ukrainians not to play with fire,” Lukashenko said. Minsk will not allow any aggravation or escalation. Just a few days ago, Belarus increased its border forces on the border with Ukraine due to alleged provocations.

Kiev rejected this, saying that Ukraine was simply fortifying its defensive positions on the border. At the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine more than two years ago, Belarus allowed Russian military personnel to deploy from its territory.

At least six people have been killed in the Caribbean as a result of Hurricane Beryl. Many homes and streets have been destroyed. The storm has been somewhat downgraded, but serious damage is still feared in Jamaica.

Hurricane Beryl has weakened slightly on its way through the Caribbean. As the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) announced, it has been downgraded to the second-highest Category 4. As a result, the hurricane, which has winds of up to 250 kilometers per hour, is now just below the Category 5 threshold.

The hurricane is now heading toward Jamaica, where severe damage is also feared. Tropical storm warnings are in effect for the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness urged residents to stock up on drinking water and canned food ahead of Beryl’s expected passage.

A total of six deaths have been reported.

The hurricane had previously left a trail of destruction across the southeastern Caribbean. Beryl made landfall on the island of Carriacou, part of the tiny Caribbean nation of Grenada, on Monday. Footage shows roofs torn off as if they were made of cardboard. Palm trees were snapped like matchsticks and debris was sent flying into the air. “Within half an hour, Carriacou was flattened,” said Grenada’s Prime Minister Deacon Mitchell. Homes on the island were almost completely destroyed.

Grenada has reported three deaths so far, and two people have died in Venezuela. St. Vincent and the Grenadines mourns one death – Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said 90 percent of homes in the Union Islands have been damaged or destroyed. Power outages and blocked roads are making communication with particularly affected islands difficult.

Beryl is the strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean in July.

In less than 24 hours, Beryl had grown from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane on Sunday and strengthened further after passing over Grenada. Previously, Hurricane Dennis became the first hurricane to become a Category 4 on July 8, 2005, wrote expert Michael Lowry on the X platform.

Beryl was the strongest hurricane on record in the Atlantic Ocean in July, writes Philip Klotzbach, a hurricane meteorologist at Colorado State University. One reason is the extremely warm seawater. “The current Caribbean ocean heat content is consistent with what we typically have in mid-September,” Klotzbach said. The most active phase of hurricane season is typically between mid-August and mid-October.

Climate change is making powerful storms like Beryl more likely. Tropical cyclones in the Atlantic and Caribbean are gaining strength at an accelerating rate as surface temperatures rise, according to a study published in October in the journal Scientific Reports. Because of warmer waters and the expected onset of La Niña, a cold-water phase in the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. National Weather Service (NOAA) is warning of a particularly strong Atlantic hurricane season this year.

Since the start of the Syrian civil war, Turkey has taken in more than three million refugees. Now there are serious riots against Syrians in Turkish cities – and anti-Turkish protests in Syria.

Carnage-like conditions prevailed Sunday evening in Kayseri, a conservative city of millions in central Anatolia. “We don’t want any more Syrians, we don’t want any more refugees,” protesters chanted. And it’s not just words: Many Syrian-owned shops, homes and cars were vandalized with rocks and clubs and, in at least one case, set on fire.

Although Kayseri is a stronghold of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, the rioters are demanding Erdogan’s resignation. They hold him responsible for the large number of refugees in the country. They accuse the refugees of being the cause of the tense economic situation with rising prices and lack of living space.

Nearly 500 people were arrested.

The protests spread to several other cities on Monday, from Gaziantep on the Syrian border to the western city of Bursa. Police responded with water cannons and tear gas. The next day, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the number of rioters detained was about 500, many with criminal records.

There have been frequent riots against refugees in Turkey. Ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections last year, the umbrella organization of Syrian associations in Turkey complained of increased violence during the election campaign. Spokesman Mehmet Akter said at the time: ARD Studio Istanbul:

A Syrian man is said to have harassed a girl.

There are no elections this time. The reason the mob is still roaming the streets is a message that has spread on social media: A Syrian man is said to have sexually harassed a seven-year-old Syrian girl. The man has since been arrested.

But the violence did not end there. Instead, the tide has shifted: As a result of the riots in Turkey, there are now anti-Turkish protests in northern Syria. “Come on guys, come on, smash the cars!” In an online video that has been viewed nearly five million times in a short period of time, men attack Turkish trucks with paving stones, clubs and iron bars at the al-Bab border crossing. Windows are broken. “Come on, get out! Come on, go back to Turkey!” the men shout.

Speculation about meetings between Erdogan and Assad

In the eyes of the Turkish opposition, the background to the tensions is not the incident in Kayseri, or not only. There is speculation about a possible meeting between Turkish President Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Both have been hostile to each other since the outbreak of the Syrian war.

The potential rapprochement worries Syrian refugees in Turkey, on the one hand, because they fear returning to Syria, and, on the other hand, pro-Turkish rebels in Syria, because they fear for their protection from Erdogan.

Such a meeting could be arranged as early as this week by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Assad’s most important ally. Erdogan is expected to meet Putin on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit that begins Wednesday in Kazakhstan.