The United States will send approximately $300 million in weapons to Ukraine. The French National Assembly voted in favor of the Franco-Ukrainian security agreement.
The Pentagon will send about $300 million in weapons to Ukraine after making some savings in its contracts. This is the first American aid announced since last December.
“This package constitutes the 55th tranche of aid, valued at $300 million and includes capabilities to meet Ukraine’s immediate air defense, artillery and anti-tank needs” said Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary.
The Pentagon has, however, admitted to being short of resources, and needs at least $10 billion to replenish all the weapons it has withdrawn from its stockpiles.
On the other side of the Atlantic, in France, The National Assembly voted in favor of the Franco-Ukrainian security agreement, signed last month by Emmanuel Macron and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
The agreement, lasting 10 years, includes assistance aimed at restoring the territorial integrity of Ukraine and providing support from Paris for the integration of Kyiv into the European Union and NATO.
New series of Russian strikes in Ukraine
In Ukraine, a series of attacks left three dead and 38 injured, including children in Kryvyï Rih, the hometown of the Ukrainian President. Several apartment buildings and a supermarket were destroyed by the missiles.
In his daily address, Volodymyr Zelensky promised that all destruction and deaths on Ukrainian soil committed by Moscow will be punished.
Attacks by Russian pro-Ukraine fighters in Russia
On the Russian side, state television RU-RTR broadcast images of the drone attack on Belgorod, blamed on Ukraine. The Russian Defense Ministry also said it repelled several attacks by Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Ukrainian Russian fighters in Kursk, near the Russian-Ukrainian border, and killed 234 fighters who took part in these assaults.
Speaking in a video statement, Russia’s chief military spokesman Igor Konashenkov blamed the attack on “terrorist formations of the Kyiv regime”insisting that the Russian army and border forces were capable of stopping the attackers and avoiding a cross-border raid. He also said the attackers lost seven tanks and five armored vehicles.
