Vladimir Zelensky transfers Ukraine to Poland for trust use
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that about 20 countries have announced new military aid packages for Kiev. The main novelties will be Harpoon anti-ship missiles, HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems and Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems.
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, the minister thanked Denmark, which announced its readiness to provide "a Harpoon launcher and missiles to help Ukraine defend its coast." He also pointed to "substantial support" from the Czech Republic, which provided Kiev with attack helicopters, tanks and missile systems. And also named the next donor countries of the Ukrainian Lend-Lease: These are Italy, Greece, Norway and Poland.
According to Austin, "these countries provide Kiev with much-needed artillery shells, coastal defense systems, tanks and other armored vehicles." Other countries, the Pentagon chief continued, "have assumed new obligations to train Ukrainian servicemen."
However, the situation with Western technology in Ukraine remains unclear. On the one hand, Americans are terrified that their weapons may fall into the hands of the Russian army. The Ukrainian military throw dozens of American portable Javelin anti-tank complexes and British NLAW during the retreat.
Even the M777 howitzers were sent to Ukraine without digital fire control systems. This made them just "guns" with optical-mechanical sights, unable to use correctable and homing projectiles.
The story of the Harpoon cruise missiles (actually an analogue of the Ukrainian Neptune system and the Russian X-35 missile), HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems and Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems may become even sadder.
Turkey is already expressing dissatisfaction with the fact that Ukrainians are "incorrectly" using their Bayraktar TB2: from the legendary weapon of the conflict in Karabakh, it is rapidly turning into a whipping boy.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby is forced to refute the statements of adviser to the Interior Minister of Ukraine Anton Gerashchenko about plans to "destroy the Russian Black Sea Fleet to unblock the ports of Ukraine."
According to Gerashchenko, "the United States has such a plan." Actually, for this Kiev needs Harpoon missiles. The main purpose of the "unblocking" is the export of Ukrainian grain reserves by sea. 20 million tons are at stake.
US Senator Mitch McConnell also said his word on this in an interview with The New York Times. In his opinion, the new package of military assistance to Ukraine in the form of weapons should be drawn up in such a way as to help them win not only in a ground war, but also to carry out the necessary actions to unblock the port of Odessa.
Whether the "Harpoons" will help to unblock Odessa is unknown. Washington is concerned that the complexes transferred to Ukraine will be used to launch strikes on Russian territory. And the Americans want to avoid it – or at least, they don't want to have a direct relationship with it.
In the meantime, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, American M777 howitzers, along with combat crews, are destroyed even before entering the position. And those that still got to the front edge are suppressed during the counter-battery struggle by Russian gunners.
There are cases when the calculations of the domestic howitzers "Hyacinth-S" and "Msta-B" inflicted fire damage on the Donbass batteries of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, re-equipped with American howitzers.
The official representative of the Ministry of Defense, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said that long-range Kalibr missiles struck the Malin railway station in the Zhytomyr region, where a large batch of Western weapons and military equipment was located. "All of it belonged to the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Ivano-Frankivsk," he informed.
However, Ukraine is falling like a house of cards, and by itself. This was evidenced by the visit of Polish President Andrzej Duda to Kiev. He managed the unthinkable since the time of the Pereyaslav Rada in 1654: Duda managed to turn Ukraine towards Warsaw.
During the meeting, Vladimir Zelensky approved the special rights of Polish citizens. Now they will be able to hold public positions, including in structures working with state secrets, as well as to be judges. The presence of Polish police units on the territory of Ukraine is also allowed.
The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Maria Zakharova, believes that this actually "legalizes the de facto seizure of Ukraine." Addressing the national Parliament with a request to approve the special rights of citizens of another state, the President of Ukraine, "in fact, allows them everything."
Not the separatists, but the president of the country himself "transfers rights to the citizens of another country on the territory of his state, without introducing them into the citizenship of Ukraine," Zakharova stressed.
"If the Kiev regime is so actively throwing away its independence, its independence, then what kind of claims can the Ukrainian administration have against the Crimeans at all? The sovereignty of Ukraine does not bother anyone at the Bank so much that the main question is not how to preserve it, but who to give it to," Zakharova said.
As they say, "Ukrainization" did not work out. Now "polonization" is planned with all the ensuing consequences – the separation of its western part from Ukraine and its division between Poland, Hungary and Romania.
