[ad_1]
Biden had kept Ukraine at bay while quietly pushing for further reforms in a country he has spent years knowing as vice president, and which is a critical front in the West’s efforts to contain Russia.
But Ukrainian officials have pleaded for a show of support from the US president amid renewed fighting between Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian soldiers in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, who killed four Ukrainian soldiers last week.
The clashes marked the end of a June 2020 ceasefire and Russian forces began building military equipment along the border. The US European Command raised its alert status to the highest level after the skirmishes.
The Pentagon is on alert as Russia has more widely stepped up activities in Eastern Europe and the Arctic over the past week. NATO planes scrambled 10 times on Monday just to respond to Russian fighter and bomber flights near Allied airspace. And last week, three Russian nuclear-weapon submarines surfaced in the Arctic, yet another show of force in a difficult region.
General Glen VanHerck, head of the North American Command, which is responsible for homeland defense, acknowledged the recent upsurge in Russian aggression, highlighting Moscow’s efforts to “reaffirm its influence on the world stage”.
The Biden administration recently approved an additional lethal aid of $ 125 million to Ukraine to defend its borders with Russia, including two armed patrol boats and a counter-artillery radar. While the Obama administration sent military materiel to Ukraine, the deadly aid only came under the Trump administration. The United States has committed more than $ 2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since 2014, including providing Javelin anti-tank missiles.
“We obviously don’t want to see any more violations of Ukrainian territory,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said this week. “We have been very clear about the threats we see coming from Russia in all areas … we take them very seriously.”
[ad_2]
Source link