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The new US military aid package has been announced. Here’s the press release from the Pentagon:

RELEASE
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine
July 7, 2023

Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced additional security assistance to meet Ukraine’s critical security and defense needs. This authorization is the Biden Administration’s forty-second drawdown of equipment from DoD inventories for Ukraine since August 2021. This package will provide Ukraine with additional artillery systems and ammunition, including highly effective and reliable dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM), on which the Administration conducted extensive consultations with Congress and our Allies and partners. It also includes additional air defense munitions, armored vehicles, anti-armor weapons, and other equipment to help Ukraine protect its people and counter Russia’s ongoing war of aggression.

The capabilities in this package include:

• Additional munitions for Patriot air defense systems;
• AIM-7 missiles for air defense;
• Stinger anti-aircraft systems;
• Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);
• 31 155mm Howitzers;
• 155mm artillery rounds, including DPICM, and 105mm artillery rounds;
• 32 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles;
• 32 Stryker Armored Personnel Carriers;
• Mine clearing equipment;
• Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles;
• Javelin and other anti-armor systems and rockets;
• Precision aerial munitions;
• Penguin Unmanned Aerial Systems;
• 27 tactical vehicles to recover equipment;
• 10 tactical vehicles to tow and haul equipment;
• Demolitions munitions and systems for obstacle clearing;
• Small arms and over 28 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades;
• Spare parts and other field equipment.

The United States will continue to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with capabilities to meet its immediate battlefield needs and longer-term security assistance requirements.

A timely, broad and much-needed defense aid package from the United States. We are grateful to the American people and President Joseph Biden @POTUS for decisive steps that bring Ukraine closer to victory over the enemy, and democracy to victory over dictatorship. The expansion…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 7, 2023

Any and all weapons and types of ammo that we receive from our partners are used for only one purpose: to destroy russian occupiers and expel them from Ukraine.
Thank you to @SecDef Lloyd J. Austin III, U.S. Government and all Americans for another package of security… pic.twitter.com/Ja7ewNZ86k

— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) July 7, 2023

Full text of the tweet:

Any and all weapons and types of ammo that we receive from our partners are used for only one purpose: to destroy russian occupiers and expel them from Ukraine. Thank you to @SecDefLloyd J. Austin III, U.S. Government and all Americans for another package of security assistance!

The US is not the only NATO member to announce new military aid for Ukraine this week. First up the Czech Republic: (machine translation)

The Czech Republic will soon hand over helicopters and ammunition to Ukraine, as well as take part in the training of pilots, including F-16 fighters.

This was stated by the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Petr Fiala at a joint press conference with the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky on Friday in Prague, according to a correspondent Ukrinform.

« He confirmed to the President today that the Czech Republic is giving Ukraine … helicopters, and in the coming months will hand over 100,000 large-caliber ammunition», Fiala said.

He also informed that the Czech Republic will take part in the training of pilots, including on F-16 fighters, and will also hand over simulators so that pilots can study in Ukraine.

Fiala reminded that Czech Republic is one of the most active « assistants » of Ukraine in all areas – financial, economic, humanitarian, as well as one of the largest suppliers of military equipment and amunition.

In almost 500 days, the republic transferred 676 units of heavy equipment and more than 4 million ammunition.

«This means that every day since the beginning of the war from the Czech Republic to Ukraine, an average of 10,000 units of ammonia and at least one tank, ZRK, special car and the like are sent », – calculated the head of the government of the Czech Republic.

He added that Prague is also working with other partners in this direction, in particular with regard to the repair of heavy machinery at Czech enterprises of the MIC. As an example, he introduced the repair of T-72 tanks together with the Netherlands.

The Prime Minister informed that the government’s meeting with entrepreneurs discussed the issue of joint production of Czech and Ukrainian defense firms. He called these projects important, such as those that could strengthen the state’s combat capabilities. This is no longer help, but cooperation, the politician said.

The head of the Czech government assured that he considers Ukraine’s support to be one of the priorities of his work.

Ukraine’s security is Europe’s security, Ukraine is fighting for the security of the entire continent, Fiala stressed. He promised « very intensively » to continue to support Ukraine both on the path to Victory and post-war reconstruction.

As reported, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed in Prague during the visit between the Ministry of Strategic Industries of Ukraine and the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic on cooperation in the field of defense industry.

Finland is not to be left out.

Press Releases
06.07.2023 13:45

Finland to send more defence materiel to Ukraine

Finland will deliver more defence materiel to Ukraine. The President of the Republic decided on the matter on 6 July 2023 on the proposal of the Government.

This will be the 17th package of defence materiel to Ukraine, including anti-aircraft weapons and ammunition, among other items. Replacing the defence materiel capabilities in this package will cost Finland an estimated EUR 105 million. The combined value of all defence materiel packages submitted so far is about EUR 1.2 billion.

– We will continue to support Ukraine together with our allies. The outcome of the war will determine the security order of Europe and Finland for decades, which is why supporting Ukraine is an essential part of Finland’s security, says Minister of Defence Antti Häkkänen.

For operational reasons and to ensure that the delivery reaches its destination, more detailed information on the content of the assistance, manner of delivery or schedule will not be provided. Both Ukraine’s needs and the resources of the Defence Forces have been taken into account when deciding on the additional assistance.

 

We welcome the decision of the US to provide Ukraine with the new liberation weapons that will significantly help us to de-occupy our territories while saving the lives of the Ukrainian soldiers.

Under Article 51 of the UN Charter Ukraine has a universal internationally…

— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) July 7, 2023

Full text of this tweet too:

We welcome the decision of the US to provide Ukraine with the new liberation weapons that will significantly help us to de-occupy our territories while saving the lives of the Ukrainian soldiers.

Under Article 51 of the UN Charter Ukraine has a universal internationally recognised right to self-defence and thus we have been officially requesting these types of munitions for a long time.
I would like to stress that in exercising our inalienable right to self-defence we will continue to strictly comply with all the international humanitarian conventions signed and ratified by Ukraine.

It is important to note that the russian federation has been indiscriminately using cluster munitions from day 1 of the unprovoked large-scale aggression. In February-March 2022 Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city with over a million population, was relentlessly bombarded by russians cluster munitions.

Our position is simple – we need to liberate our temporarily occupied territories and save the lives of our people. For this we need to inflict losses on the enemy – war criminals, rapists and looters – who are occupying our territories. The more losses we inflict on them the more lives of Ukrainian people we will be able to save.

It is in our interest to save the lives of our soldiers. This is why we will continue to do this using all lethal weapons available to us.

Regarding the cluster munitions, we have 5 key principles which we will abide by and which we have clearly communicated to all our partners, including the US. I have personally informed our US partners about these five principles in writing a long time ago.

1. Ukraine will use these munitions only for the de-occupation of our internationally recognised territories. These munitions will not be used on the officially recognized territory of russia.

2. We will not be using cluster munitions in urban areas (cities) to avoid the risks for the civilian populations – these are our people, they are Ukrainians we have a duty to protect.
Cluster munitions will be used only in the fields where there is a concentration of russian military. They will be used to break through the enemy defence lines with minimum risk for the lives of our soldiers. Saving the lives of our troops, even during extremely difficult offensive operations, remains our top priority.

3. Ukraine will keep a strict record of the use of these weapons and the local zones where they will be used.

4. Based on these records, after the de-occupation of our territories and our victory these territories will be prioritised for the purposes of de-mining. This will enable us to eradicate the risk from the unexploded elements of cluster munitions.
The Minister of Defence of Ukraine is by law acting as the Head of the national de-mining agency. In this capacity I will ensure the implementation of the relevant legal framework for the de-mining process after our victory.

5. We will report to our partners about the use of these munitions, and about their efficiency to ensure the appropriate standard of transparent reporting and control.

https://defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3451570/biden-administration-announces-additional-security-assistance-for-ukraine/

What Ukraine’s defense minister says below about Russia using cluster munitions indiscriminately in its full-scale invasion is accurate. But you can go as far back as 2014 to see that Russia has used them that way. I easily recall a deadly Feb 2015 cluster attack on Kramatorsk… https://t.co/WNR8FImdkQ

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) July 7, 2023

Here’s The Kyiv Independent‘s Illia Ponomarenko’s take on the cluster munitions. Full text copied and pasted below the tweet.

Speaking of all the drama over cluster munitions for Ukraine.

Let's resume this conversation when all those critics sitting in their comfortable air-conditioned offices somewhere in the West find themselves in a situation:

– when their nations have to fight an existential war…

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) July 6, 2023

Speaking of all the drama over cluster munitions for Ukraine.

Let’s resume this conversation when all those critics sitting in their comfortable air-conditioned offices somewhere in the West find themselves in a situation:

– when their nations have to fight an existential war against an adversary enjoying overwhelming supremacy in artillery and air power, with a far larger economy and population, with a totalitarian political regime that knows no bounds and is ready to spend any amount of cannon fodder, including suicidal convicts and mercenaries.

– when they see their own hometowns wiped off the earth along with their population and proudly proclaimed as “liberated”

– when their nations have to mobilize way over 1 million men and women to the military and to try and keep their shattered economy at least somewhat afloat while trying to stay as free and democratic as possible

– when they have to wake up in the dead of night due to missile and drone attacks and hope it’s not about their neighborhood and their house right here and now, and when they realize this is not going to end until the war is over

– when they realize the ongoing war has inflicted major damage to their country’s critical infrastructure and that it continues throwing the nation decades back in time

– when their military & political leadership has to spend endless months begging for weapons and assistance for their war effort, paying with the lives of their soldiers for every day in deliberations and risk management. Just to get at least something and go on saving the country.

– when their militaries have to break through one of the hardest systems of ground fortification in modern history, having to use as little as they managed to get, losing soldiers and vehicles due to a dire lack of air support and endless minefields the enemy had so much time to prepare

– when they all realize that their military has come so far against all the odds, but if it ultimately fails, their nations are absolutely done, they will all highly likely find themselves in pits with bullets in the back of their heads.

Now THEN I’d be very interested if they think their militaries need cluster munitions to go on fighting.

And speaking of civilian safety — the Ukrainian military in this war has repeatedly proven to be generally careful and discriminate when it comes to the use of weapons — well, to the extent possible in such a high-intensity war.

Especially in contrast with the bloodbath that Russia commits in this country on a daily basis.

So, dear ladies and gentlemen, I am very curious about why certain organizations overtly accuse Ukraine of putting civilians in war zones in jeopardy with cluster munitions before Ukraine even gets these munitions.

The entire discourse surrounding the potential supply of cluster munitions to Ukraine just demonstrates how to the majority of Westerners the concept of an “existential” war is so alien as to be beyond even imagination.

— Jimmy Rushton (@JimmySecUK) July 7, 2023

And this assumption is the first argument HRW makes when talking about cluster munitions.

“Cluster munitions were designed for use in the Cold War, specifically for the large-scale bombardment of massed tank and infantry formations”.

Exactly the war Ukraine is fighting. pic.twitter.com/MmNLw6zbLw

— Jimmy Rushton (@JimmySecUK) July 7, 2023

It is so strange that those who are now so triggered by the U.S. transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine just couldn’t care less when Russia was pounding Ukraine with cluster munitions in the first place.
Must be nothing but pure coincidence.

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) July 7, 2023

 

With a heated discussions about the U.S. now providing cluster ammunition to #Ukraine, it is worth remembering that Russia relentlessly shelled civilian areas with those in the past months. Here is the cemetery of RU cluster shells from the Kharkiv region. Photo from @Liberov pic.twitter.com/KcSzwlalKP

— Mattia Nelles (@mattia_n) July 7, 2023

.@KofmanMichael: for Ukraine, artillery ammo is "like sand in an hourglass." Cluster bombs "will eliminate much of the time pressure by opening up a large tranche of ammo to keep the offensive going" and they're "far more significant" than other recently acquired western arms. https://t.co/LYyTkXNKQA

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) July 7, 2023

Ponomarenko’s take on Ukraine’s potential NATO membership is also right:

The shamelessness of Kremlin bootlickers has no bounds, and they still think we are all this stupid after all those things that happened since 2014.

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) July 7, 2023

Let’s face the reality — NATO just can’t let us in right now as the war goes on.

But — even the world’s biggest slowpokes should now realize that “the door is open, but….” excuse just doesn’t work and never will.

So if we talk about serious things, there need to be at least…

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) July 7, 2023

Full text:

Let’s face the reality — NATO just can’t let us in right now as the war goes on.

But — even the world’s biggest slowpokes should now realize that “the door is open, but….” excuse just doesn’t work and never will.

So if we talk about serious things, there need to be at least two things declared and enshrined loud and clear:

– Ukraine joins NATO as soon as physically possible following the current war’s formal ending as part of Europe’s postwar security reconstruction plan that must be on the table by now;
– Ukraine is to get a membership plan ASAP, which should be declared as soon as the upcoming NATO summit;

Without this, I don’t know what else the West is waiting for and what sort of new arguments it needs, given the tragic lessons of 2014 and 2022.

You don’t like to deal with the biggest European war since WWII — then you don’t encourage the aggressor.

For some weird reason, Russia did not attack the Baltic nations, but it took its time to make use of Western weakness and shortsightedness and made sure Ukraine was not covered by Article 5.

You know what’s the outcome.

At the same time, it’s very fair to say that Ukraine, in this postwar reconstruction, is just destined to go on developing as a major and modern military power for endless decades to come.

Without this, it’s going to be just a matter of time before Russia may want to take sweet revenge and try again, having fixed its past mistakes.

 

"I will come soon, my baby girl."

Our heroes have been freed from russian captivity. They are returning to their families.
Ukraine will continue to make every effort to release our brave men and women who have been captured by the occupiers.

🎥Telegram: @DPSUkr pic.twitter.com/xZ87sdEnx2

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) July 7, 2023

Bakhmut:

BAKHMUT AXIS / 2345 UTC 7 JUL/ Front line sources indicate that UKR has advanced from the hilltops overlooking the village of Klischiivka. Contact is now reported along the rail right of way to the east of the village. pic.twitter.com/FKIn87mZRs

— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) July 7, 2023

The butcher’s bill from Lviv:

Щойно знайшли 10 тіло. Жінка.
Зараз надзвичайники вивільняють загиблу від завалів.
На цьому рятувально-пошукову операцію буде завершено.

— Андрій Садовий (@AndriySadovyi) July 7, 2023

Here’s the machine translation of Lviv Mayor Saovyi’s tweet:

10 bodies have just been found. Woman. Emergency workers are now freeing the deceased from the rubble. This will complete the search and rescue operation.

Sorokyne, Luhansk Oblast:

/2. More footages from Sorokyne area. pic.twitter.com/yaPY9Cs5tA

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) July 7, 2023

Russia tested disconnecting itself from the Internet. Again. First tweet from the thread, everything else from the Thread Reader App. Then a couple of tweets with an update and questions and answers.

‼️ Last night, Russia tested disconnecting itself from the global internet.

On June 5, around 2-4am Moscow time, 🇷🇺 authorities tested the Sovereign Internet system which led to disruptions of various websites & government infrastructure services 1/https://t.co/SvNWvlD28P

— Natalia Krapiva 👩🏻‍💻🕊 (@natynettle) July 6, 2023

2/ Russian railroad services and food safety systems were reportedly disrupted after the Sovereign Internet testing on the morning of July 5

Системы РЖД и Россельхознадзора рухнули после учений по «суверенному интернету» – Русская служба The Moscow Timeshttps://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/07/05/sistemi-rzhd-i-rosselhoznadzora-ruhnuli-posle-uchenii-po-suverennomu-internetu-a48028

3/ Experts also reported various disruption of Western internet services such as @Google @Wikipedia @getlantern @PsiphonInc between 2 and 4am Moscow time on July 5

knopki 👾☮ in DistributedХочу рассказать прохладную историю про чебурнет. Проснулся в 3:40 сегодня ночью и увидел уведомление на телефоне от DAVx5 о том, что он с двух часов не может достучаться до сервера (Hetzner, Германия)…https://t.me/distributed/263189

4/ Given the fears of blocking of YouTube, Telegram, and the last remaining sources of accurate information in Russia, this development is extremely alarming #KeepItOn

5/ the first tweet should say *July 5* of course, not June 

6/ This is not the 1st time Russia tested its Sovereign Internet system resulting in outages

@thebell_io reported that some internet providers in Ural region experienced disruptions during the testing of the 🇷🇺 Sovereign Internet’s DPI equipment in 2019

«Сеть легла»: как прошел тестовый запуск «суверенного рунета»Сегодня вступает в силу закон о «суверенном рунете», кардинально расширяющий возможности Роскомнадзора по блокировке интернет-ресурсов. Пользователям это ничего хорошего не обещает: при тестировании нhttps://thebell.io/set-legla-kak-proshel-testovyj-zapusk-suverennogo-runeta

7/ Russian internet experts tell me they doubt Roskomnadzor’s claim that the Sovereign Internet testing was “successful” as the documented internet outages were scattered & not wide scale.

Sounds like Putin won’t be able to isolate 🇷🇺 people any time soon, but he’ll keep trying 

8/ Some experts are understandably questioning why would Russia block its own governmental services in attempt to disconnect from the global internet.

Well, this will not be the first time Russian gov tries to do something evil & instead ends up making a total fool of itself…

Why would Russia disconnecting itself from the global internet cause Russians to be unable to reach their govt websites?

Every couple of years there is a story about Russia disconnecting itself from the internet and there isn't much data to support that.

— Doug Madory (also on Bluesky) (@DougMadory) July 6, 2023

This is exactly the point, Doug!

Just like with Telegram in 2018 & Twitter in 2021, Russian government’s censorship attempts often result in blocking of their own websites like Kremlin & Duma.

You underestimate Russia’s infinite ability to screw up 😏https://t.co/anS9Jwdnug

— Natalia Krapiva 👩🏻‍💻🕊 (@natynettle) July 6, 2023

Well Roskomnadzor claims the disconnecting testing was “successful” (whatever that means), but only localized outages were recorded, which is good news

As the Russian expression goes, “We aspired for better (in this case likely for worse), but it turned out as it always does.”

— Natalia Krapiva 👩🏻‍💻🕊 (@natynettle) July 6, 2023

Here’s some excerpts from (one of) the obituaries for Victoria Amelina. The author is a professor of Ukrainian and east European culture and, from what I can gather, a friend of the deceased.

Victoria Amelina, who was wounded in a Russian missile attack in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine on 27 June and died, aged 37, of her injuries four days later, knew that being a writer made her a target for Russia. She was aware that the invading forces had lists of activists and intellectuals to eliminate, but she also understood her country’s history: in March 2022, summoning one of the darkest pages in Ukrainian literary history – the murder of a generation of Ukrainian writers during the Stalinist purges of the 1930s, known as the “executed renaissance” – she wrote that “there is a real threat that Russians will successfully execute another generation of Ukrainian culture – this time by missiles and bombs”.

Victoria sought to protect and promote Ukrainian culture as the country came under attack: in 2021 she founded a literature festival in her husband Oleksandr’s home town, New York, in the Donetsk region. The town (whose unlikely name is thought to have been originally Neu Jork and to have come from 19th-century German settlers) was occupied by the Russian army in 2014 and has been on the frontline ever since.

As the assault on Ukraine and its culture unfolded, Victoria set aside fiction writing and trained as a war crimes investigator with the Ukrainian human rights group Truth Hounds. She travelled to areas liberated from Russian occupation and recorded the testimonies of witnesses and survivors. The crimes she investigated included the murder of fellow writers such as Volodymyr Vakulenko, whose occupation diaries Victoria discovered buried in his family’s garden and helped to have published this year.

Victoria’s missions to the east of Ukraine took their toll. She had recently, reluctantly, decided to take a break from her war crimes work and accepted a scholarship from Columbia University, New York, for a year’s writing residency in Paris. Having met a group of Colombian writers in Kyiv who were keen to visit the war-affected areas, however, she volunteered to accompany them for one last trip. They were dining together when a missile hit their restaurant.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Victoria had been known not as a human rights defender, but as a novelist and children’s writer. After completing a degree in computer sciences at Lviv Polytechnic National University and working for several years in IT, she became a full-time writer in 2015, after the publication of her debut novel, The Fall Syndrome (2014).

It was her second novel, Dom’s Dream Kingdom (2017), that cemented her status as a major new talent. The novel, which is currently being translated into English, explores the troubled past of Victoria’s hometown, Lviv, through the story of one family from the end of the second world war to post-independence Ukraine. It was shortlisted for several Ukrainian and international awards, including the European Union prize for literature.

Victoria is survived by Oleksandr and their son, and her parents.

There is much more at the link.

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1677426294185762817

That’s more than enough for tonight.

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