Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu met Wednesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Ankara in an effort to stave off a global food crisis by restarting Ukrainian grain exports along a sea corridor.
Norway and Spain are among the few countries that have flown below the radar with their support to Ukraine. Without any drama and unnecessary bureaucracy, Norway has donated some M109A3GN 155mm tracked self-propelled howitzers and is currently used by the Ukrainian forces. Spain is also doing its part by stating that it is ready to send Leopard battle tanks and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine.
Amidst allegedly losing two more Russian generals the past week, Russia’s Vladimir Putin decided that it was time to purge his top military generals by dismissing five more generals. This comes as Russia continues to struggle in advancing and capturing areas in eastern Ukraine, specifically in Severodonetsk, where it has failed to capture the entire city.
Amidst raging firefights in the east as Russia and Ukraine enter the fourth month of the war, the Ukrainian Armed Forces claimed that they have destroyed Russia’s 35th Combined Arms Army as a fighting unit in Izyum, Kharkiv.
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?