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UK may have to deploy troops to defend Europe if Putin gains upper hand, says ex-PM
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British troops may have to be deployed in Ukraine if American president-elect Donald Trump cuts Kyiv’s funding, Boris Johnson has warned.
The former prime minister said that if Russian president Vladimir Putin gains the upper hand in the conflict, the UK may have to deploy troops to defend Europe.
This comes as Russia has suffered record losses for a second consecutive day, Ukraine has claimed, as Vladimir Putin’s forces seek to advance in Donbas and repel Kyiv’s incursion into Kursk.
Just 24 hours after Ukraine claimed Russia had suffered a record 1,770 losses, Kyiv’s military claimed this grim total had been surpassed by 1,950 casualties on Monday – which would mark Russia’s worst single day since launching its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The totals given by Ukraine’s military do not specify between troops killed, wounded or captured. Ukraine now claims to have inflicted a total of 712,610 casualties upon Russia – which is broadly in line with estimates given by Ukraine’s Western allies. Neither Moscow nor Kyiv provide statistics on their own losses.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed his gratitude to rescue officials in Ukraine responding to daily Russian attacks.
In a post on X, Mr Zelensky said: “No rescue service has ever faced challenges like those our rescuers, police, medics, and everyone helping them tackle every day—often under fire or under threat of renewed Russian attacks. Every day, there is a necessary and immediate response, no matter the challenges.
“I thank everyone who saves lives after Russian strikes, clears rubble, provides first aid, extinguishes fires, and eliminates the consequences to save people’s lives.”
The European Union must back Ukraine against Russia for as a long as it takes and persuade the United States that its strategic interests in China are tied up in the outcome of the war, the woman nominated as the bloc’s top diplomat for the next five years said Tuesday.
Questions have been raised about whether the 27-nation EU’s commitment to Ukraine would remain firm with Russia appearing to have an edge in the war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, and following the reelection of Donald Trump, who has vowed to end the conflict as U.S. president.
“Ukraine’s victory is a priority for us all. The situation on the battlefield is very difficult,” Estonia ex-Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told EU lawmakers during a hearing she must pass to be appointed as foreign policy chief.
Read the full story here:
The nominee for the European Union’s next top diplomat says the bloc must commit to Ukraine for the long-haul even as the war’s costs mount
Kaja Kallas, the nominee to be the European Union’s next foreign policy chief, has warned against making assumptions about what US president-elect Donald Trump would do in Ukraine and said isolationism had never worked for the United States.
The former Estonian prime minister told her confirmation hearing in the European Parliament on Tuesday that she did not think anybody knew what Mr Trump would do and that the EU would need to hear directly from his team.
“If we look to the history, then isolationism has never worked well for America … If America is worried about China, they should first be worried about Russia, and we will have these dialogues with the United States,” Ms Kallas said.
Loud blasts have been heard in Kyiv in the early hours today amid reports on missiles heading for the Ukrainian capital.
“A rocket in Chernihiv region heading for Kyiv region!” the Ukrainian air force said on Telegram. “Rocket to Kyiv, take cover immediately,” it said.
“Russia’s winter campaign against Ukraine’s civil energy infrastructure appears to be starting. Some cruise missiles are headed Kyiv’s way,” said Oliver Carroll, a journalist based in Kyiv.
“Ballistic missiles reported headed to Kyiv right now. The sound of air defence is very audible in centre of capital,” he said in another tweet.
President-elect Donald Trump reportedly advised Russian President Vladimir Putin not to escalate the war in Ukraine in a phone call the day after the presidential election, a report says.
As one of his first orders of unofficial business as the president-elect, Trump spoke with Putin on Thursday in a telephone conversation that he took from his home in Florida, sources familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.
He allegedly asked the Russian president not to escalate his war and reminded him of the US’s military presence in Europe.
My colleague Ariana Baio reports:
On the campaign trail, Trump has promised to end the Russia–Ukraine war
The outgoing Biden administration’s top diplomat, Antony Blinken, headed to Brussels on Tuesday for talks with European allies concerned that US president-elect Donald Trump could abandon Ukraine in its war with Russia.
In his first overseas trip since Mr Trump’s election victory, the secretary of state will stop in Brussels ahead of scheduled visits to Peru and Brazil later this week, his department said.
In meetings with Nato and European Union officials, Mr Blinken will “discuss support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s aggression,” the US State Department said, without elaborating on what message he will deliver.
Ukraine is close to setting up three new joint ventures with European weapons producers in its effort to boost arms output during the war with Russia, the first deputy prime minister said.
Yulia Svyrydenko, who is also the economy minister, said five joint ventures with Western weapon producers had already been set up, including with German and Lithuanian companies. Several arms producers have opened offices in Ukraine.
“We have three more agreements with European companies in the final stages to set up joint ventures,” Svyrydenko told Reuters in an interview in the government headquarters in central Kyiv.
She gave no details about the planned new ventures or the scale of the investments.
Ukraine’s military industrial production has exploded in size with state and private companies rapidly increasing their production and innovating, as the government has scrambled to respond to Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a Massachusetts Air National Guard member to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to leaking highly classified military documents about the war in Ukraine.
Jack Teixeira pleaded guilty earlier this year to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act following his arrest in the most consequential national security case in years. He was brought into court in an orange jumpsuit and showed no visible reaction as he was sentenced by US District Judge Indira Talwani.
Earlier in the hearing he apologized before the judge.
Prosecutors had originally requested a 17-year sentence for Teixeira, saying he “perpetrated one of the most significant and consequential violations of the Espionage Act in American history”
Nato chief Mark Rutte has called on Western allies to provide Ukraine with further support “to change the trajectory of the conflict” with Russia.
Speaking ahead of a meeting Tuesday in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron, Rutte said: “We must do more than just keep Ukraine in the fight.”
He added: “We need to raise the cost for Putin and his enabling authoritarian friends by providing Ukraine with the support it needs to change the trajectory of the conflict.”
Rutte, who did not provided details about the military equipment and weapons needed for that purpose, said it was “very concerning” that Russia was getting “closer to its allies, China, Iran and North Korea.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte called on Western allies to provide further support to Ukraine “to change the trajectory of the conflict.”
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