(Kyiv) The United States on Friday announced more than $2 billion in new military aid to Ukraine, including ground-fired bombs that could nearly double the range of Ukraine’s strike force against the Russians.
These are the “GLSDB”, small diameter bombs manufactured by Boeing and Saab, which can fly up to 150 km and therefore threaten Russian positions behind the front lines.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked his American counterpart Joe Biden after the announcement.
“The longer our weapons range and the more mobile our troops, the sooner Russia’s brutal aggression will end,” he tweeted.
The “GLSDBs” will give the Ukrainians “a longer range capability […] which will allow them to conduct homeland defense operations and retake their sovereign territory,” Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder told reporters.
Ukraine asks the United States for ammunition that can go further than Himars rockets (80 km).
These GLSDBs can give Ukrainian forces the ability to strike positions in the Donbass, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, and northern Crimea.
This could in particular threaten Russian arms depots.
According to Saab, these weapons could hit a target at any angle within one meter.
“The accuracy of GLSDBs is so high that they can hit the radius of a car tire,” Saab claims on its site.
When is the delivery?
In December, John Hardie and Bradley Bowman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank wrote that GLSDBs could be fired from several types of launchers, including Himars and M270 MLRS already in use in Ukraine.
“But they can also be fired by non-traditional launchers, such as from the back of a truck or any container, hidden in plain sight,” they added.
“It would therefore be more difficult for Russian forces to find and destroy the system. »
But they had said that the first deliveries to Ukraine could take up to nine months.
Asked about this, the Pentagon did not respond immediately.
A Boeing spokesman said the group would not provide details on delivery times.
This nearly $2.2 billion US security assistance also includes “crucial air defense capabilities to help Ukraine defend its people”, “armored infantry vehicles” and ammunition for the Himars launcher system. rockets, the Defense Department said.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion at the end of February 2022, the American authorities have allocated more than 29.3 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, according to the Pentagon.
The United States will continue to work with our allies and partners to provide Ukraine with the capabilities to meet its immediate battlefield and longer-term security assistance needs. of the department.
Funds seized from Russian oligarch will help Ukraine
The US Department of Justice announced on Friday the first transfer of confiscated Russian funds, with the aim of helping Ukraine, according to CNN.
“I am announcing today that I have authorized the first-ever transfer of seized Russian funds, destined for Ukraine,” said Merrick Garland, adding that the confiscated assets followed the indictment of oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev in April.
This sum will go to the State Department “to support the Ukrainian people”, said the secretary.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriï Kostin, present at his side, welcomed this transfer “in the amount of 5.4 million dollars” to “rebuild Ukraine”.
“All Ukrainians have, in one way or another, suffered from this war. We must ensure that the Ukrainian people receive compensation for the enormous damage suffered,” he wrote on Twitter.
Russian billionaire Konstantin Malofeev is considered one of the main sources of funding for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
He had been charged with “attempting to evade sanctions by using accomplices to secretly acquire and run media outlets across Europe”, according to Washington.
Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, the United States has announced numerous rounds of sanctions against Russian companies or citizens.
The American sanctions aim in particular to freeze the possible assets of these people in the United States and prohibit all the interactions between them with American banks.
Russian bombings
AFP journalists noted on Friday the violence of the clashes which reduced certain neighborhoods on the outskirts of Bakhmout to ruins, with the incessant dull percussions of the artillery and the exchange of heavy fire with small arms.
De la fumée s’élevait du centre-ville tandis que des hélicoptères militaires ukrainiens survolaient des plaines gelées en rase-mottes pour éviter d’être repérés et abattus.
Selon les autorités, cette ville compte aujourd’hui environ 6500 habitants contre environ 70 000 avant la guerre.
Jeudi, une personne a été tuée et sept ont été blessées dans une attaque contre un véhicule transportant des secouristes volontaires.
Oleksandre Tkatchenko, 65 ans, a dit s’être précipité avec d’autres voisins pour extirper une femme de la carcasse du véhicule. Ce n’était « clairement » pas une cible militaire, car la voiture « était rouge », a-t-il dénoncé.
Les bombardements se sont également poursuivis à Kherson, une grande ville du Sud prise puis abandonnée par les Russes, où une personne a été tuée et une autre blessée vendredi, d’après les autorités.
« Efforts considérables »
À Kyiv, où les sirènes d’alerte antiaérienne ont retenti à deux reprises dans la journée, le président du Conseil européen Charles Michel, la présidente de la Commission européenne Ursula von der Leyen et d’autres hauts représentants de l’UE se sont réunis avec M. Zelensky.
Ce dernier a affirmé que son pays ne perdrait pas « un seul jour » pour avancer vers l’entrée dans l’Union européenne et a jugé « possible » d’engager les discussions à ce sujet dès cette année.
Les dirigeants européens ont salué dans un communiqué les « efforts considérables » fournis par l’Ukraine malgré la guerre, soulignant « les progrès » dans la création d’institutions « indépendantes et efficaces » chargées de lutter contre la corruption qui ronge ce pays.
« Nous avons répété que la mise en place de réformes judiciaires profondes et cohérentes […] remained essential” in order to allow the integration process to move forward, they nevertheless noted, without mentioning a precise timetable.
“Ukraine is the EU, the EU is Ukraine,” said Charles Michel after the summit.
This country has been an official candidate for membership of the European Union since June 2022, an arduous process requiring many reforms that could last for years.
Oil products
Ursula von der Leyen assured that she was working on new sanctions against Russia for February 24, the first anniversary of the invasion, judging that she should “pay for the destruction she caused”.
She said the punitive measures taken over the past year had already set back the Russian economy by “a generation”, noting that capping the price of Russian oil exports at $60 a barrel was costing Moscow 160 million euros a year. day.
It will be superimposed on a cap on the price of refined petroleum products, which the ambassadors of the EU member states approved on Friday, before final adoption by the European Council.
A European embargo on these same petroleum products sent abroad by sea must already come into force on Sunday, the Kremlin having meanwhile castigated a “negative” measure on Friday which will “further unbalance” the markets.
In their joint statement after the summit, European leaders also said they wanted to “intensify” their efforts “to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine’s reconstruction and for reparations purposes, in accordance with European and international law”.