The White House has said it is “out of money and nearly out of time” to provide more weapons to Ukraine unless Congress acts to approve additional funding and support. The warning, issued on Monday in a letter to congressional leaders, said Congress needed to approve tens of billions of dollars in military and economic assistance to Ukraine without which Kyiv’s effort to defend itself from Russia may grind to a halt.
President Joe Biden’s budget director, Shalanda Young, said in a blunt letter to Republican House speaker Mike Johnson that if military assistance dries up it would “kneecap” Kyiv’s fight against the Russian invasion. “Cutting off the flow of US weapons and equipment will kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield, not only putting at risk the gains Ukraine has made, but increasing the likelihood of Russian military victories,” she said.
Speaker Johnson said the Biden administration had “failed to substantively address any of my conference’s legitimate concerns about the lack of a clear strategy in Ukraine”. Johnson also repeated the Republicans’ insistence on tying any Ukraine aid to changes in US policy on the southern border with Mexico, as the number of migrant arrivals rises.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán demanded that a summit of EU leaders next week avoid any decision on Ukraine’s coveted goal of getting approval for membership talks. The European Commission recommended the bloc’s leaders give their approval to launch membership talks as soon as it meets final conditions but their unanimous agreement is needed.
A Russian general died while deployed in Ukraine, the governor of Russia’s Voronezh region said, the latest high-ranking Russian military figure to die during the 21-month offensive. “Maj Gen Vladimir Zavadsky, deputy commander of the 14th Army Corps of the Northern Fleet, died in the line of duty in a special operation zone,” Voronezh governor Alexander Gusev said on Telegram, using the Russian term for its offensive in Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin said Russia should never repeat Soviet-era mass repressions, even as Moscow carries out an unprecedented crackdown on opponents of its Ukraine campaign. “It is important for us that nothing like this repeats itself in the history of our country,” Putin told his human rights council, according to Russian news agencies, referring to the mass repression seen under the Soviet Union.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, launched in February last year, accounts for about 150m tons of carbon dioxide emissions, a Ukrainian deputy minister cited experts as saying on Monday. “The war has a devastating impact on the environment. Air, soil and water is polluted as a result of the fighting,” Viktoria Kireyeva, Ukraine’s deputy minister of environmental protection and natural resources, said at a conference on the sidelines of the Cop28 climate conference in Dubai.
Putin said he regretted deteriorating ties with western countries, as he accepted the credentials of two dozen new ambassadors at the Kremlin. “The times are not easy,” Putin told the envoys. Addressing the new ambassador of the UK, he said “In the postwar [second world war] period and until recently, our countries were able to build relations. But the current state of things … is well known and we should hope that the situation – in the interest of our countries and nations – will change for the better.”
Ukraine said it had exported around 7m tons of cargo through the Black Sea despite Russia’s blockade – a more than fivefold increase in just over a month. “200 vessels exported 7m tons of cargo,” Ukraine’s reconstruction ministry said in a post on Telegram. The cargo included “almost 5m tons of Ukrainian agricultural products”.
Poland has called on the EU to restore permits limiting transit for Ukrainian truckers, prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said as Polish and Slovakian truckers blocked several border crossings to Ukraine. Polish drivers have been blocking the crossings since 6 November, demanding that the EU reinstate a system whereby Ukrainian companies need permits to operate in the bloc and the same for European truckers to enter Ukraine.
Ukraine’s military said it had attacked oil depots in the Russia-controlled Ukrainian city of Luhansk on Sunday. Its forces carried out a “successful strike”, the Strategic Communications Department of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Telegram, without going into further detail.
Russian forces are assaulting the industrial town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine from two new directions, Ukrainian officials said on Monday, as Moscow expanded its bid to capture the near-encircled town. Moscow has been trying for nearly two months to seize Avdiivka, an industrial town in the eastern Donetsk region that has become the fiercest flashpoint on the sprawling frontline.
