Ukraine and the EU signed a security agreement. Russia drops a 500-kilogram aerial bomb on a residential neighborhood in Selydove, injuring children. NATO will offer Ukraine a new structure to manage its military assistance, not membership negotiations at the Washington summit, the New York Times says.
Russia drops 500-kilogram aerial bomb on residential neighborhood in Selydove, injuring children
Russian forces dropped what is tentatively thought to be a FAB-500 glide bomb on a residential neighborhood in Selydove, Donetsk region on Thursday morning, the Donetsk regional prosecutor’s office said. The strike hit a yard outside an apartment building.
Six people, including an 11-year-old girl and her 17-year-old brother were wounded in the attack. Among the injured were four people ages 63 to 67 who live nearby. They were taken to hospital.
Multi-story buildings, private houses, administrative buildings and cars were also damaged in the attack.
Ukraine, EU sign security agreement
The European Union and Ukraine signed joint security commitments on the margins of the European Council meeting in Brussels on Thursday.
The agreement with the EU lays out the bloc’s commitment to help Ukraine in nine areas of security and defense policy, including arms deliveries, military training, defense industry cooperation, addressing cyber and hybrid threats, demining, support to civilian security sector, countering the diversion of firearms, energy security, and intelligence sharing.
The second part of the pact details EU’s wider security commitments that include support to Ukraine’s accession to the bloc, global outreach based on the objectives of Ukraine’s peace formula, financial support and reconstruction, enhancing Ukraine’s integration into EU’s single market, protection of Ukrainian refugees, maintaining sanctions against Russia, using profits from Russia’s immobilized assets to support Ukraine, support to the tribunal on Russia’s crime of aggression, and promoting regional cooperation.
“For the first time, this agreement will enshrine the commitment of all 27 Member States to provide Ukraine with extensive support, regardless of any internal institutional changes,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said in a statement, announcing the signing of the agreement.
“Today, I am in Brussels to attend a meeting of the European Council and to thank all European leaders for their unity and for affirming the irreversibility of our European course,” Zelenskyi said. “Each step we take brings us closer to our historic goal of peace and prosperity in our common European home,” he added.
EU leaders are gathered in Brussels on Thursday and Friday for a summit to name top officials and decide on what policies to follow in the coming years.
NATO to offer Ukraine new structure to manage military assistance, not membership negotiations at summit, NYT says
Officials say Kyiv won’t get membership negotiations at the coming NATO summit, but the alliance will announce a structure to coordinate aid over the longer term, according to the New York Times.
NATO will offer Ukraine a new headquarters to manage its military assistance at its upcoming 75th anniversary summit in Washington, officials said, an assurance of the alliance’s long-term commitment to the country’s security that has been heralded as a “bridge” to Kyiv’s eventual membership.
The alliance will announce that it has agreed to set up a mission in Germany to coordinate aid of all kinds to Ukraine over the longer term, American and NATO officials said. The move is intended to send a strong signal of allied commitment, both to Kyiv and to Moscow, which hopes the West will grow tired of supporting the war.
Because the mission will be under NATO’s auspices, it is designed to function even if Donald J. Trump, a sharp critic of the alliance and of aid to Ukraine, wins the U.S. presidency in November.
The Biden administration and NATO officials came up with the idea as a way to give something solid to Kyiv at the summit even as they maintain the time is not right for Ukraine to join.
The new mission will bring under one umbrella the activities of the current “capabilities coalition” of countries that provide various aspects of military aid to Ukraine, like air defenses, artillery, F-16 fighter jets, arms and training.
It will also coordinate training of Ukrainian military personnel in allied countries and the longer-term bilateral security agreements that different countries have signed with Ukraine, according to the United States and NATO officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because details of the plan have not yet been announced.
But NATO countries are all on board with establishing the mission, the officials said, and it will be announced at the summit meeting.
Called the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine, or NSATU, the mission will work to reduce duplications and complications from the various kinds of weaponry sent to Ukraine.
One example, U.S. and NATO officials said, is the recent French offer to donate an unspecified number of Mirage fighter jets when Ukraine is already struggling to train pilots and put F-16s in the air. The Mirage, a similarly sophisticated plane, requires different training, parts and maintenance that may strain Ukrainian capabilities.
The mission will be based at a U.S. military facility in Wiesbaden, Germany, and headed by a three-star general — likely an American — reporting directly to the top NATO and American general in Europe, Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli.
Placing the mission under General Cavoli’s NATO hat will protect it from any political change in Washington, said Ivo Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO who has been briefed on the plan.
The new mission will also incorporate an existing United States group stationed in Wiesbaden to handle weapons shipments and personnel training.
And it will run parallel to the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which is under American leadership and coordinates weapons deliveries by about 50 countries to Ukraine, well beyond NATO’s own 32 member states. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, who set up the contact group, insisted that it remain for now under American chairmanship, the officials said.
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Guests:
- Denys Minin, Activist and Volunteer from Mariupol, Founder of the NGO “Vyvezemo!”
- Olena Churanova, Editor, Fact-checker of the StopFake project, Senior Lecturer at the Mohyla School of Journalism
- Diana Berg, Activist and Founder of the Mariupol Platform TYU, Organizer of the “Donetsk is Ukraine” movement
