US pledges to send Patriot missiles to Ukraine in funding deal
By David Crowe
London: American weapons will be shipped to Ukraine in a sweeping funding deal that aims to defend civilians against Russian missiles and drones, as US President Donald Trump promises a major intervention in the war.
Trump has agreed to send Patriot missile defence systems that will be paid for by European nations to ease the cost to the US, giving Ukraine some of the additional support it has been seeking for months.
US President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the NATO summit last month.Credit: AP
The move comes as a key Republican legislator says Trump told him last week it was “time to move” on the issue, highlighting the growing impatience in the White House with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump confirmed on Sunday in Washington that the agreement on Patriot missiles would be part of what he called a major announcement on Monday, when he meets NATO chief Mark Rutte at the White House.
“It’ll be business for us, and we will send them Patriots, which they desperately need, because Putin really surprised a lot of people,” the president said.
“He talks nice, and then he bombs everybody in the evening.”
Rutte, who lavished praise on Trump at the NATO summit in the Netherlands last month, has pushed for more support for Ukraine, while European leaders spoke to Trump’s aides in Rome last week about paying for the Patriot missiles.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a strong supporter of Trump, said the moves this week would be a “turning point” in the war.
“The idea of America selling weapons to help Ukraine is very much in play,” Graham told CBS News.
“Stay tuned about a plan to go after the seized [Russian] assets more aggressively, stay tuned for a plan where America will begin to sell to our European allies tremendous amount of weapons that can benefit Ukraine.
“Putin has calculated that we would get tired and Europe would get weary. He made a huge mistake. NATO is bigger and stronger and we’re more committed than ever to make sure he does not take Ukraine by force.”
Graham, who is leading an effort in Congress to impose tougher sanctions on Russia and its allies, stepped up his criticism of China and India for helping Russia and said they could suffer greater penalties.
“And the big offender here is China, India and Brazil. India buys oil from Russia, cheap, and resells it. That’s despicable,” he said.
“The only way you’re going to end this war is to get people who prop up Putin, make them choose between the American economy and helping Putin.
“China, India and Brazil, you’re about to get hurt big-time if you keep helping Putin.”
Meanwhile, Ukrainian security agents have killed a group of Russian spies near Kyiv in another escalation of the secret war between the two countries.
It follows the assassination of a top Ukrainian intelligence officer days earlier.
The Security Service of Ukraine said the Russian agents were “liquidated” after resisting arrest at a location near the capital, and it blamed them for the brazen daylight killing of the Ukrainian officer last Thursday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Vasyl Malyuk in Kyiv on June 1.Credit: Ukrainian residency/handout
With Russia holding ground on the battlefield and pounding Ukrainian cities with bombs, the intelligence war has intensified with operations including surprise attacks on Russian facilities far behind the lines.
The Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, said on messaging site Telegram that it had “liquidated” the Russian agents responsible for the assassination last Thursday.
“Employees of the Security Service of Ukraine during a special operation eliminated the agents of the Russian special services who, on the instructions of the FSB of the Russian Federation, carried out the murder of the SBU colonel in Kyiv,” it said.
“The special operation to find the killers of the Ukrainian defender was personally led by the head of the SBU, Lieutenant General Vasyl Malyuk.”
The SBU said two members of the Russian FSB security agency – a man and a woman – killed Ukrainian intelligence officer Ivan Voronych in a car park in Kyiv last week.
The aftermath of a Russian drone attack in Pryluky, in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine, in June.Credit: Ukraine Emergency Service/AP
CCTV footage showed a man dressed in black and wearing a mask running toward the Ukrainian officer as he walked from his apartment to his car, shooting him several times.
Voronych was part of an elite unit that conducted “grey zone” operations against the Russians behind enemy lines, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
While the SBU did not say how many FSB agents were involved, it released a video showing two bodies.
A still taken from footage by a source in the Ukrainian Security Service shows a Ukrainian drone striking Russian planes deep in Russia’s territory.Credit: AP
The latest operations follow Ukraine’s success on June 1 in sending agents into Russia over an 18-month period to target air bases from civilian trucks carrying drones.
Known as Operation Spider Web, this led to serious damage to five Russian air bases on June 1.
In April, a car bomb killed Russian general Yaroslav Moskalik in Moscow, in what Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described as terrorism. Russian authorities later that month arrested a 42-year-old Russian national who had previously lived in Ukraine, charging him with planting the bomb.
In a similar attack last December, an explosion from an electric scooter killed Russian general Igor Kirillov in Moscow, one day after the SBU had publicly blamed him for authorising the use of chemical weapons in the war. The SBU took responsibility for the assassination.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week welcomed “good signals” from the US about the restoration of weapon deliveries, after the Pentagon froze shipments and Trump denied knowing who had ordered the freeze.
Zelensky said on Sunday that Russian forces had attacked Ukraine with more than 1800 drones, 1200 guided aerial bombs and 83 missiles over the past week.
“The Russians are intensifying terror against cities and communities to increasingly intimidate our people,” he said.
Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, retired general Keith Kellogg, arrived in Kyiv on Monday, a senior Ukrainian official said.
With Reuters
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