Following the US’s decision to send its High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to Ukraine, the United Kingdom is also stepping up to the plate and sending its M270 multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS) to Ukraine. This comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly pleaded to the world for heavier offensive weapons amidst heavy Russian shelling in the east.
A technical issue at oil giant OMV’s Schwechat refinery on Saturday forced the government to release strategic gasoline stocks while OMV considers what to do about its investments in Russia.
The government announced a release of 112,000 tonnes of petrol and 56,000 tonnes of diesel. The release will cover a period of about 14 days, while OMV had so far not been able to determine for how long the refinery’s “technical malfunction”, which has damaged the main distillation unit for crude oil, would last.
French President Emmanuel Macron criticised his opponents, leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon and far-right Marine Le Pen, labelling their political projects as being about “disorder and submission,” in his first press interview since his re-election on Friday.
A meeting on Friday between the head of the African Union and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia highlighted the acute needs each one hopes the other can fill: Africa needs food, and the Kremlin needs allies.
Russia’s blockade of Ukraine, ordinarily a major exporter of grain, has worsened food crises in Africa and the Middle East, and the African Union chief, President Macky Sall of Senegal, said the grain should be freed up.
On May 16, Sweden and Finland announced an end to decades of neutrality, proclaiming their intention to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its escalating conflict with Russia.
Less than three weeks later, Stockholm, Sweden’s capital, has been turned into a naval garrison with the arrival of a US amphibious assault battle group, consisting of the assault ship USS Kearsarge, the dock landing ship USS Gunston Hall, the guided-missile destroyer USS Gravely and the command ship USS Mount Whitney.
The question was posed in a private briefing to U.S. intelligence officials weeks before Russia launched its invasion in late February: Was Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, made in the mold of Britain’s Winston Churchill or Afghanistan’s Ashraf Ghani?
Russia took aim Sunday at Western military supplies for Ukraine, launching airstrikes on Kyiv that it claimed destroyed tanks donated from abroad, as Vladimir Putin warned that any Western deliveries of longer-range rocket systems would prompt Moscow to hit “objects that we haven’t yet struck.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday Russian troops have succeeded in their main stated task of “protecting civilians” in the separatist-controlled areas in eastern Ukraine.
He added that Russian forces have “liberated” parts of Ukraine and “this work will continue until all the goals of the special military operation are achieved.”
As diplomatic moves continue to shape the future of grain exports from Ukraine’s Black Sea and Russia’s Sea of Azov ports as a result of Moscow’s aggression, the outcome of attempts to “rewire” worldwide grain transport logistics is complicating the international geoeconomic environment by inducing food security problems.
The Russia-Ukraine war is upending global supply chains.
In the case of Central Asia (the five republics plus Afghanistan) this impact reinforces the need for redundant transport routes and options for the landlocked states of Central Asia. These states still rely on Soviet-era transport links that connect them to markets. This remains true even though during the three decades since independence in 1991 have seen new roads, railways, and pipeline put in place, many funded by China.