The UK will announce a major new artillery package for Ukraine as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak prepares to meet his Nordic, Baltic and Dutch counterparts in Riga, Latvia on Monday. According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s office, quoted by Agence France-Presse, he will announce Britain’s intention to supply “hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition under a £250 million ($304 million) contract over the next year.” , providing a constant flow of critical artillery ammunition to Ukraine throughout 2023”.
Ukraine said Russian shelling hit the southern city of Kherson on Sunday, which has come under repeated attacks since it was recaptured by Kiev forces last month. “Another baton was moved downtown. Three people were injured. They suffered shrapnel wounds, one of the wounded is in serious condition,” said Deputy Head of the President’s Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko. Regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevich said on Sunday that Moscow’s troops had carried out 54 attacks on the Kherson region the previous day using artillery, multiple-missile systems, tanks and mortars, killing three and wounding six others.
Four people were reportedly injured by shelling in the south Russian border region of Belgorod on Sunday‘ said the governor. Witnesses reported loud explosions in the regional capital.
Ukrainian forces are holding on to the heavily contested town of Bakhmut to the east, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “Aligning Bakhmut is key,” he said in his recent national address. “We’re keeping the city, although the occupiers are doing everything to ensure that not a single undamaged wall remains there.”
Power has been restored to three million more Ukrainians following recent Russian attacks on infrastructure, bringing the total to nine million after two days, the President of Ukraine said. “The power supply has been restored for another three million Ukrainians,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his video address on Sunday evening. “It means that after Friday’s terrorist attacks we already have results for nine million of our people.” Heating in Kyiv has also been fully restored, the city’s mayor said.
Protecting Ukraine’s borders is a “permanent priority” as the country prepares for all possible scenarios involving Russia and its ally Belarus, Zelenskyy added. “Protecting our border, both with Russia and Belarus, is our constant priority,” he said in his late-night video address. “We are preparing for all possible defense scenarios.” Zelenskyy also issued a new appeal to Western nations to equip Ukraine with effective air defenses.
Russia will reportedly send musicians to the Ukrainian front to boost morale, according to his Department of Defense. The “creative front brigade” is tasked with “maintaining a high moral, political and psychological state [among] the participants of the special military operation,” the Russian broadcaster RBC News quoted the ministry as saying. British defense officials said the new unit is consistent with the historical use of “military music and organized entertainment” to boost morale, as low morale remains a “significant vulnerability for much of the Russian armed forces”.
Iran’s foreign ministry has said it will “not seek permission from anyone” to develop ties with Russiaand dismissed US concerns about a growing military partnership between Tehran and Moscow. Iran is accused of supplying drones to Russia that were allegedly used to attack Ukraine. CIA chief William Burns said Iran-Russia military cooperation “poses a real threat” to US allies in the Middle East. Nasser Kanani, spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, called the comments “unfounded,” adding that Tehran “acts independently in regulating its foreign relations and seeks permission from no one”.
Veteran US diplomat Henry Kissinger believes the time for a negotiated peace in Ukraine is near. “The time is approaching to build on the strategic changes already achieved and integrate them into a new structure to achieve peace through negotiations,” Kissinger wrote in The Spectator magazine. “A peace process should link Ukraine to NATO, however phrased. The alternative of neutrality no longer makes sense,” he added. Ukraine’s presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak dismissed the comments as “appeasement of the attacker” and said there could be no agreement on the cession of territories. “Any deal with the devil – a bad peace at the expense of Ukrainian territories – will be a victory for Putin and a recipe for success for autocrats around the world,” he said in a statement on Telegram.