NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made a surprise visit to Kyiv. Server Kyiv Independent reminded, that since the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, this is Stoltenberg’s third visit to the attacked country. And during this third visit, he acknowledged that the delay in American aid had affected the situation on the battlefield.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he and Stoltenberg discussed further cooperation between Ukraine and NATO and “the real unification of our forces.”
“Ukraine and the alliance have reached the highest level of relations since our independence, but not the highest possible,” the president said. He alluded to the fact that the Ukrainians have not yet received even a hint of a more precise date for their country’s entry into the alliance.
However, the Ukrainians heard one assurance from Stoltenberg.
Stoltenberg invited Zelensky to join NATO’s July summit in Washington, although US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith said in February that she did not expect the alliance to offer Ukraine an invitation to join.
“Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO. Ukraine will become a member of NATO. The work we are doing now puts you on an irreversible path to NATO membership, so that when the time is right, Ukraine can immediately become a NATO member,” Stoltenberg noted.
During a press conference in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said that the two also discussed an initiative to establish a special fund for the financial support of Ukrainian defense worth 100 billion euros (about 2.5 trillion crowns) for a period of five years. The Czech state budget for 2024 calculates spending of 2.2 trillion for 2024.
“Allies have the opportunity to implement such an initiative. The details are very important to us and it is important that this is not at the expense of the bilateral volumes that are marked by our agreements on security guarantees,” the president added.
According to the BBC, Zelenskyi appreciated, that American aid was beginning to arrive, but lamented that it was coming too slowly. In his opinion, everything needs to be speeded up. The British public BBC drew attention to this part of Zelensky’s speech. According to Zelensky, Russia is taking advantage of the delay in American aid.
Specifically, he emphasized that Ukraine needs artillery shells and air defense systems.
“Our partners have all these things and should now be working here in Ukraine to destroy Russia’s terrorist ambitions. … The Russian army is preparing for further offensive actions,” Zelenskyy said.
In return, Stoltenberg, alongside Zelenskyi, said it was not too late for “Ukraine to win”.
Institute for the Study of War Washington (ISW) in addition, he noted that the failure of the US and Europe to ensure the timely delivery of critical systems to Ukraine will not only continue to limit Ukraine’s ability to plan and conduct offensive and defensive operations, but also signals to the Kremlin weakness and hesitation in Western support for Ukraine.
These signals, according to the institute, reinforce the Kremlin’s belief that it can “wait out” Western support for Ukraine and achieve its goals of destroying Ukrainian statehood and subjugating the Ukrainian people after the West leaves Ukraine, thereby encouraging Putin to continue his aggression. Recent Kremlin intelligence operations targeting the West have specifically emphasized the idea that Russia can and will survive Western military aid to Ukraine and Ukraine’s will and ability to defend itself.
In addition, the institute, citing other sources, pointed out that the Kremlin is conducting a hybrid campaign directly aimed at NATO states, including the use of GPS jamming and sabotaging military logistics on the territory of NATO members. The Financial Times (FT) reported on April 29 that Baltic ministers are warning that Russia is behind recent cases of GPS jamming that disrupted commercial navigation signals and forced two Finnair flights to turn back mid-flight from Helsinki to Tartu. The FT estimates GPS jamming has affected “tens of thousands” of civilian flights in recent months.
Russia said it captured the village of Semenivka, which lies north of Avdijivka, which Moscow captured in February. On Sunday, Russia said the nearby village of Novobachmutivka had fallen into its hands.
The Washington Institute noted that Russian forces have secured additional marginal tactical gains northwest and southwest of Avdijivka since April 29, but have not made significant progress in the direction of Avdijivka in the past 24 hours.
“Geolocation images released on April 28 and 29 show that Russian forces advanced in the western and northeastern part of Ocheretyne (northwest of Avdijivka), along the railway line to the northwestern edge of Ocheretyne and in Netailov (southwest of Avdijivka). Russian forces have the option of choosing from multiple tactical directions for future offensive drives near Avdijivka, but it remains unclear where they will focus their efforts in the near future,” the institute wrote.
Russian pro-war bloggers claim that the Russians advanced in several places, but according to ISW there is a lack of geolocating footage to confirm this.
ISW addressed the ongoing Russian theft of Ukrainian children.
According to the institute, investigations by Ukrainian news agencies and Russian opposition media indicate that Russia is denying legal representatives of forcibly deported and adopted Ukrainian children the ability to repatriate those children, further undermining the Kremlin’s claim that the deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children is a necessary humanitarian effort.
BBC Panorama and the Russian opposition website Vazhnie Istorii published an investigation in November 2023 that detailed how the leader of the “Just Russia” party, Sergei Mironov, and his wife, Inna Varlamova, deported a ten-month-old girl and a two-year-old boy from an orphanage in the Kherson region in the fall of 2022. Mironov Mironov and Varlam adopted the girl and changed her name, surname and place of birth on her new Russian birth certificate, and the boy’s whereabouts remain unknown. On April 28, 2024, the Ukrainian channel TSN published an investigation that describes in more detail the circumstances surrounding Mironov’s adoption of the girl and includes footage of Mironov and his wife attending the child’s christening.
TSN claimed that Mironov and Varlamova brought both the girl and the boy to the Moscow region, but that the boy was sick and that Mironov and Varlamova abandoned him, which is why his whereabouts remain unknown. TSN also reported that Ukraine’s ombudsman’s office found that the girl, who is now nearly three years old, actually has a legal guardian and a younger sister living in Greece, noting that the girls’ guardian is requesting her return.
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Ukraine (War in Ukraine)
Reports from the battlefield are difficult to verify in real time, regardless of whether they come from any side of the conflict. Both warring parties, for understandable reasons, may release completely or partially false (misleading) information.
PL editorial content discussing this conflict can be found on this page.
war in Ukraine
Reports from the battlefield are difficult to verify in real time, regardless of whether they come from any side of the conflict. Both warring parties, for understandable reasons, may release completely or partially false (misleading) information.
You can find brief information regarding this conflict updated by ČTK several times an hour on this page. PL editorial content discussing this conflict can be found on this page.
author: Miloš Polák
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