We Are Preparing for the NATO Summit in Washington, Including from the Perspective of Patriots for Ukraine – the Address by the President of Ukraine

3 July 2024 – 19:50

Dear Ukrainians!

Rescue operations after the Russian missile strike in Dnipro have been continuing all day long. More than 50 people were injured. All of them are getting the necessary assistance. For now, 5 people have been reported killed. My condolences to their families and friends.

Several buildings, a hospital, and an enterprise were damaged in Dnipro. There have also been missile strikes on our other regions: guided aerial bombs aimed at Kharkiv and our frontline positions.

There is only one way we can stop all of this: more air defense systems, more long-range strikes on the Russian terrorists’ bases, on their airbases. We are actively communicating about all this with our partners – at all levels. We are preparing for the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., including from the perspective of Patriots for Ukraine.

Today I held several meetings on our communication with partners – on plans for this July. There will be important negotiations. Some progress has also been made on new security agreements for Ukraine. I am grateful to our team for this work.

Today, I held several meetings with Government officials: Prime Minister Shmyhal, First Deputy Prime Minister Svyrydenko, Deputy Prime Minister Fedorov, Minister of Finance Marchenko. We already have clear details of new solutions for Ukrainians – new programs that will help people in this time of electricity shortages, as well as stabilize mobile communications. Now we need maximum opportunities to ensure generation – to create a new decentralized generation, and there will be financial resources for this. In the near future, Government officials will announce all the details.

One more thing. Today I spoke with Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi – there was a report on the frontline situation. I also spoke with Minister of Defense Umerov – about his contacts in America and about new packages for Ukraine.

Today, I had a meeting with the President of the UN General Assembly and congratulated the new Prime Minister of the Netherlands on the beginning of his work.

I thank everyone who is helping us! I thank everyone who is fighting and working for Ukraine and Ukrainians!

Glory to Ukraine!

“A ceasefire is not finishing the war. We’ve been there. It would be just a frozen conflict.” – President Zelenskyy in an interview with Bloomberg. https://t.co/4A0dx80Yej pic.twitter.com/iTT8VY83aL

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 3, 2024

Dnipro. Russian terrorists have struck our city again. As of now, five people have been killed, and thirty-four injured, including a child. All necessary services are on site, and rescuers are helping all the victims.

Only two things can stop this Russian terror – modern air… pic.twitter.com/nqhPYmlbxR

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 3, 2024

Dnipro. Russian terrorists have struck our city again. As of now, five people have been killed, and thirty-four injured, including a child. All necessary services are on site, and rescuers are helping all the victims.

Only two things can stop this Russian terror – modern air defense systems and the long-range capabilities of our weapons.

The world can protect lives, and it requires the determination of leaders. Determination that can and must make protection from terror the norm again.

Happy Anti-Aircraft Missile Troops Day!
Thank you for your professionalism and for protecting peaceful cities from russian terror.
Thousands of enemy missiles and drones destroyed — millions of innocent lives saved.

The video shows the combat work of the MIM-104 Patriot in… pic.twitter.com/I3iQUmh2iY

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) July 3, 2024

Happy Anti-Aircraft Missile Troops Day!
Thank you for your professionalism and for protecting peaceful cities from russian terror.
Thousands of enemy missiles and drones destroyed — millions of innocent lives saved.

The video shows the combat work of the MIM-104 Patriot in service with 🇺🇦 Anti-Aircraft Missile Troops.
📹: @BackAndAlive

The cost:

Vasyl Palamarchuk, Ukrainian writer and lawyer, father of three, died defending Ukraine.

Vasyl was 43 years old. Before the full-scale war, he defended Ukraine in 2013-2015, when Russia first invaded.

Eternal memory and eternal glory to Ukrainian Hero. pic.twitter.com/AEi7TjpYsw

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 3, 2024

The reason:

This is what Ukraine is fighting for. pic.twitter.com/lcW4QsXjs8

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 3, 2024

Nelly is 21 years old. She is a senior mortar gunner.

“There will be no peace without our Crimea, without our Donbas and without our Luhansk region. I was born when Crimea, Donbas and Luhansk were officially ours. I have not visited Crimea, but I really want to go there. I want… pic.twitter.com/d940jF6Dbd

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 3, 2024

Nelly is 21 years old. She is a senior mortar gunner.

“There will be no peace without our Crimea, without our Donbas and without our Luhansk region. I was born when Crimea, Donbas and Luhansk were officially ours. I have not visited Crimea, but I really want to go there. I want to travel around Donbas and Luhansk without a mortar, without a machine gun, but as a tourist.
When I find out that Ukraine has won, the first thing I will do is go to the cemetery to visit our Defenders,” she says.

📹: pa. nelli. ka/TikTok

Here’s the details on the next US security assistance package that was announced yesterday:

Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine:

(PDA) package valued at up to $150 million and $2.2 billion in Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds. (USAI) funding will be used to purchase interceptors for PATRIOT and NASAMS air defense systems… pic.twitter.com/LkZkx4FAKh

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) July 3, 2024

Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine:

(PDA) package valued at up to $150 million and $2.2 billion in Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds. (USAI) funding will be used to purchase interceptors for PATRIOT and NASAMS air defense systems for Ukraine.

https://defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3827072/biden-administration-announces-additional-security-assistance-for-ukraine/

RELEASE
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine
July 3, 2024

Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) announces additional security assistance to meet Ukraine’s critical security and defense needs. This includes the authorization of a Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) package valued at up to $150 million to provide Ukraine with key capabilities, including: additional air defense interceptors; artillery and other fires, and anti-tank weapons.

In addition, DoD is announcing a significant package of air defense interceptors using approximately $2.2 billion in Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) funds. This funding will be used to purchase interceptors for PATRIOT and NASAMS air defense systems for Ukraine. As previously announced, the Biden Administration plans to accelerate delivery of these munitions by re-sequencing upcoming Foreign Military Sales deliveries for Ukraine. As a result, Ukraine will be provided with the interceptors it urgently needs to protect its people and critical infrastructure against Russia’s aerial attacks.

The PDA package is the Biden Administration’s sixtieth tranche of equipment to be provided from DoD inventories for Ukraine since August 2021.

The capabilities in the PDA package include:

1. Missiles for HAWK air defense systems;
2. Ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);
3. 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds;
4. 81mm mortar rounds;
5. Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles;
6. Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems;
7. Small arms ammunition and grenades;
8. Demolitions equipment and munitions;
9. Tactical vehicles to tow and haul equipment;
10. Tactical air navigation systems and aircraft support equipment; and,
11. Spare parts, maintenance, and other field and ancillary equipment.

The United States will continue to work together with some 50 Allies and partners to ensure Ukraine’s brave defenders receive the critical capabilities needed to fight Russian aggression.

Chasiv Yar:

This is all that’s left of the Kanal district in the eastern part of Ukraine’s Chasiv Yar.

There is nothing left to mutilate and nothing else to rely on in defense.

Ukrainan forces retreated deeper into the town to go on fighting. pic.twitter.com/m5IN2ZwTaQ

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) July 3, 2024

It is important to remember, that Chasiv Yar was one of the “prepared” by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) fallback sites. It appears part of the strategy here was to pull the Russians into a location – in this case Chasiv Yar – and use it as a kill zone.

Donetsk Oblast:

Detonation after todays strike on Donetsk. pic.twitter.com/eld91elbAm

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) July 3, 2024

Henichesk, Russian occupied Kherson Oblast:

On June 30, 2024, a missile strike targeted the command post of the Dnepr group of troops near Henichesk, occupied Kherson region. The attack involved two HIMARS MLRS missiles with cluster warheads, hitting a two-story administrative building used as a command center.

The… pic.twitter.com/eQ52rCAdnI

— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) July 3, 2024

On June 30, 2024, a missile strike targeted the command post of the Dnepr group of troops near Henichesk, occupied Kherson region. The attack involved two HIMARS MLRS missiles with cluster warheads, hitting a two-story administrative building used as a command center.

The strike resulted in 5 fatalities and 12 injuries. Colonel-General Mikhail Teplinsky, the commander of the Dnepr group, was wounded. A special commission is investigating the incident, suspecting a mole, as the strike occurred shortly after Teplinsky’s arrival.

For you drone and HIMAR enthusiasts:

“Shark” UAV flew almost 100 km to the rear of the enemy and corrected the HIMARS missile strike on the rare russian radar system “Nebo-SVU”.

📹: Operational Command South pic.twitter.com/2TQRiv8i3I

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) July 3, 2024

Obligatory:

This is something we’ll need to keep an eye on as it fits the pattern we’ve been seeing in Europe:

An explosion at the General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems’ plant in Camden, United States today injured at least two people.

The Camden plant houses more than 880,000 square feet of manufacturing and storage space, and it supports military programs such as the Hellfire… pic.twitter.com/GA3BD5Yfh9

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 3, 2024

An explosion at the General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems’ plant in Camden, United States today injured at least two people.

The Camden plant houses more than 880,000 square feet of manufacturing and storage space, and it supports military programs such as the Hellfire and Javelin missiles and various mortar munitions.

https://apnews.com/article/general-dynamics-camden-defense-facility-16b98c88d1670709fcc7869c0563dad3

From the Associated Press:

CAMDEN, Ark. (AP) — An explosion at a defense weapons plant in Arkansas injured at least two people Wednesday and left another missing, the facility’s operators said.

The explosion happened at the General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems’ plant in Camden, about 86 miles (138 kilometers) south of Little Rock, a company spokesperson said. The company initially called it an “incident involving pyrotechnics” but later confirmed it was an explosion.

“At this time, we are working with first responders and can confirm the incident resulted in at least two injuries and one missing individual,” Berkley Whaley with General Dynamics said in a statement. “We are cooperating fully with the authorities as they conduct their investigation.”

Whaley also confirmed that production was paused at the building where the explosion occurred.

The company did not provide details on the extent of the injuries. The state Department of Emergency Management said it was monitoring and stood ready to assist but did not provide additional details.

One patient was treated at the Ouachita County Medical Center’s emergency room and is stable, said Diane Isaacs, the hospital’s risk manager. Another patient was flown out of the state by helicopter, she said.

For instance, this just happened in Finland:

It’s a longer article, use google translate. https://t.co/fUQ68bf3Cp

— Aki Heikkinen (@akihheikkinen) July 3, 2024

Here’s the machine translation from New Finland:

According to police chief Seppo Kolehmainen, special events that have emerged around Finland are under the supervision of the central crime police. The police have been monitoring the situation from the perspective of hybrid influence since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

During the summer, news has been published about several burglaries and attempted burglaries at water supply plants around Finland. In Pirkanmaa, the central crime police have under investigation a total of three burglaries made at water supply sites.

Turun Sanomat two water treatment plants located in the Southern Finland emergency centre area were also broken into in June.

Uusimaaaccording to the magazine, the Porvoo water reserve has been broken into two consecutive nights in June. Evening Messages has reported on attempted burglary of the Sipoo water water tower.
Chief police officer Seppo Kolehmainen tells Uusi Suomi that the police are following crime against critical infrastructure closely and that they take events seriously.

He describes the burglaries as exceptional, because the fractures to waterworks in remote locations are rather atypical. There is rarely anything worth stealing in them, Kolehmainen explains.

”Since the start of the war in Ukraine on 24 February 2022, we have been monitoring and analysing the situation all the time”, Kolehmainen says.

The investigation of water supply burglaries is carried out in Pirkanmaa by the central crime police (krp), which also monitors the overall situation nationwide.

”We have approximately the entire personnel following certain intelligence issues and they are compiled into a report in the central crime police, which makes it possible to assess the current operating environment”, Kolehmainen says.

Kolehmainen points out that drinking water represents ”valtava’s important critical infrastructure” both in Finland and elsewhere.

”Yes, this awake has to be”, he says.

The chief police officer bundles illogical burglaries, passers-by and drone flying near critical infrastructure, which has already been seen in Finland. He mentions infiltrations inside water utilities, strange hippies near gas plants and in electricity production, drones above a nuclear power plant, and strange fires, such as the ignition of Posti’s sorting center.

” I mean that there are many such observations in an environment where someone has to be awake because of the overall picture that, wait, something is happening here now. A report of these will be compiled in the central crime police.”

And a bit more on this sabotage and subversion campaign from the Thread Reader app:

European NATO countries’ security isn’t separate from that of Ukraine.

The better the war goes for Russia, the more capacity it has free to stir up incidents in other countries – likely below the threshold of armed conflict but it’s a quite direct threat nevertheless.

Example from Finland: we had a peaceful year after submitting the NATO application as Russia was bogged down in Ukraine. Since fall 2023, after the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive, we’ve seen:
– instrumentalized migration
– several attempts at sabotage at water supply 

– attempted break-ins (at least one successful) at other critical infrastructure, such as electricity supply.

These are almost daily in the news at the moment. 

In Sweden and Norway attempts at photographing security sites and critical infrastructure (often with drones) have been recorded. GPS basically doesn’t work in our region.

So yep there’s a correlation between how the war is going for Russia and the frequency and magnitude 

These incidents aren’t even only happening in Russia’s direct vicinity but also in France and Germany – in case I need to list countries that count.

Russian aggressive interference against France’s interests was the reason why Macron did such a volte face in his policy. 

Here’s a recent report from our Nordic-Baltic region, in case @hanskundnani is interested in what kind of an actor Russia actually is, instead of making this about some foreign policy analysts’ prestige. 

@hanskundnani …and here’s the report. We’re already observing a massive ramping up of all these activities and our report is nowhere near exhaustive.

Particularly good to keep an eye on what’ Russia is doing on Svalbard.

Tracking the Russian Hybrid Warfare – Cases From Nordic-Baltic CountriesIn this report, the Stockholm Free World Forum has gathered experts from all Nordic-Baltic states to showcase examples of Russian hybrid attacks against our countries. Russia employs a broad variety o…https://frivarld.se/rapporter/tracking-the-russian-hybrid-warfare-cases-from-nordic-baltic-countries/

@hanskundnani And, please note, all of this is happening while the U.S. is still committed to NATO. So this isn’t as simple as “US commitment vs. Ukraine”. 

The Russian Baltic fleet:

One of the most modern missile ships of the Russian navy was set on fire from the inside, and secret documents were stolen: a Russian military officer voluntarily defected to the Ukrainian side.

A Russian citizen with the call sign “Goga” served in the Russian Baltic Fleet and… https://t.co/WWWVKwTyar pic.twitter.com/G3GnDVvrEl

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 3, 2024

One of the most modern missile ships of the Russian navy was set on fire from the inside, and secret documents were stolen: a Russian military officer voluntarily defected to the Ukrainian side.

A Russian citizen with the call sign “Goga” served in the Russian Baltic Fleet and allegedly wanted to quit because of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. In 2023, he turned to the GUR’s I Want to Live project. Since then, he helped Ukrainian intelligence agencies and organized a sabotage on the Serpukhov ship. Together with the secret documents, “Goga” was taken out of the territory of the Russian Federation by the Ukrainian intelligence agencies, the GUR said.

📹: Radio Svoboda

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

A new video from Patron’s official TikTok.

@patron__dsns

Щастя не в грошах! Воно у гумових качечках 🌝 #песпатрон

♬ yes to heaven slowed – whitelinesprettybabyy

Here’s the machine translation of the caption:

Happiness is not in money! It is in rubber ducks 🌝 #песпатрон

Open thread!