MOSCOW: A Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea Saturday blew up an ammunition depot, sparking evacuations on the Moscow-annexed peninsula and halting rail traffic, just five days after drones damaged Russia’s symbolic bridge across the Kerch Strait.
Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, has been targeted by Kyiv throughout Moscow’s 17-month long Ukraine offensive but has come under more intense, increased attacks in recent weeks.
In a counteroffensive launched to retake lands lost to Moscow, Kyiv has increasingly made clear — despite some Western unease — that it aims to also take back the Black Sea peninsula.
“The goal is to return Crimea,” Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said, according to a transcript published by his office Saturday of a speech addressing the Aspen Security Forum Friday.
He said Kyiv considers the Crimea bridge — opened by Russian leader Vladimir Putin in 2018 — as an “enemy object” and wants it to be “neutralized.”
Less than 24 hours later, the Moscow-installed head of Crimea Sergei Aksyonov, said an “enemy” drone had detonated an ammunition depot.
“As a result of an attack by an enemy drone on the Krasnogvardeisky district, an ammunition depot detonated,” Aksyonov said on Telegram, referring to an area that lies inland at the center of Crimea.
He did not specify exactly where it hit and ordered the evacuation of people living within five kilometers of the zone, without saying how many residents would be moved.
Aksyonov reported no casualties and claimed there was little damage, but unverified videos on social media showed billowing smoke rising into the air.
He also said rail traffic will be stopped on the peninsula: “To minimize risks, it was also decided to halt rail traffic on Crimean railways.”
Authorities later said that two trains going from Moscow to Crimea’s main city of Simferopol and one in the opposite direction had been stopped.
Road traffic across the Crimea bridge — one of the few ways to get out of Crimea as flights have been canceled during the conflict — only resumed Saturday after a Ukrainian attack damaged the bridge Tuesday, killing two people.
The attacks on Crimea have come as many of Kyiv’s Western allies feel uncomfortable about Ukrainian ambitions to take back the annexed land, fearing a larger scale conflict with Russia.
They have also signified a sharp escalation in the Black Sea area, with Russia this week exiting the landmark grain deal that allowed the safe passage of cargo ships and saying it would consider vessels destined for Ukraine as potential military targets.
Ukraine has also warned that it may consider vessels heading to Russian ports as “carrying military cargo.”
In his speech, Zelensky warned that Moscow “believes that the Black Sea is purely Russian.”
He said Kyiv was “looking for a way out” to find a new grain corridor after Moscow exited the deal and that it was talking to other Black Sea countries such as Turkiye, Romania and Bulgaria.
Kyiv has called on the United Nations and neighboring countries to secure safe passage for cargoes through joint patrols.
The Russian army on Friday carried out live fire exercises in the Black Sea, with the UN warning against escalation.
On the battlefield, Moscow’s forces said Saturday that they had pushed back three Ukrainian attacks in the eastern villages of Urozhayniy and Priyutniy.
Russia also alleged that Kyiv had used notorious cluster munitions on the Russian border village of Zhuravlevka, two weeks after the US was criticized for sending the controversial weapons to Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden faced fierce criticism from his own allies earlier this month for sending the munitions — that can have long-term risk to civilians.
Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said “three cluster munitions from a multiple rocket launcher were fired (by the Ukrainian army) at the village of Zhuravlevka” on Friday.
The small village lies on the border with Ukraine in a region that has seen near daily cross-border attacks for months.
It was the first time Russia reported the weapons were used on its territory.
Biden earlier this month said he had made a “very difficult decision” to send the weapons to Kyiv.
Putin has said Moscow had enough cluster munition to answer if Ukraine was to use the weapons.
Kyiv drone strikes Crimea munitions depot as attacks escalate
https://arab.news/76h79
Kyiv drone strikes Crimea munitions depot as attacks escalate
- Kyiv has increasingly made clear that it aims to also take back the Black Sea peninsula
- Kyiv considers the Crimea bridge as an ‘enemy object’ and wants it to be ‘neutralized’
Pakistan militant raid kills 16 soldiers: intelligence officials
- Pakistani Taliban claim responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement it was staged ‘in retaliation for the martyrdom of our senior commanders’
“Over 30 militants attacked an army post” in the Makeen area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, one senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity. “Sixteen soldiers were martyred and five were critically injured in the assault.”
“The militants set fire to the wireless communication equipment, documents and other items present at the checkpoint,” he said, before retreating from the two-hour assault which took place 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the Afghan border.
A second intelligence official also anonymously confirmed the same toll of dead and wounded.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement it was staged “in retaliation for the martyrdom of our senior commanders.”
Myanmar ethnic rebels say captured junta western command
- Ann would be the second regional military command to fall to ethnic rebels in five months
- Fighting has rocked Rakhine state since the Arakan Army attacked security forces in November last year
BANGKOK: A Myanmar ethnic rebel group has captured a military regional command in Rakhine state, it said, in what would be a major blow to the junta.
The Arakan Army (AA) had “completely captured” the western regional command at Ann on Friday after weeks of fighting, the group said in a statement on its Telegram channel.
Ann would be the second regional military command to fall to ethnic rebels in five months, and a huge blow to the military.
Myanmar’s military has 14 regional commands across the country with many of them currently fighting established ethnic rebel groups or newer “People’s Defense Forces” that have sprung up to battle the military’s 2021 coup.
Fighting has rocked Rakhine state since the AA attacked security forces in November last year, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since the putsch.
AA fighters have seized swathes of territory in the state that is home to China and India-backed port projects and all but cut off state capital Sittwe.
The AA posted photos of a man whom it said was the Ann deputy regional commander, in the custody of its fighters.
AFP was unable to confirm that information and has contacted the AA’s spokesman for comment.
AFP was unable to reach people on the ground around Ann where Internet and phone services are patchy.
In decades of on-off fighting since independence from Britain in 1948 the military had never lost a regional military command until last August, when the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) captured the northeastern command in Lashio in Shan state.
Myanmar’s borderlands are home to myriad ethnic armed groups who have battled the military since independence for autonomy and control of lucrative resources.
Last month the UN warned Rakhine state was heading toward famine, as ongoing clashes squeeze commerce and agricultural production.
“Rakhine’s economy has stopped functioning,” the report from the UN Development Programme said, projecting “famine conditions by mid-2025” if current levels of food insecurity were left unaddressed.
Joe Biden approves $571 million in defense support for Taiwan
- The US is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties between Washington and Taipei
- Taiwan went on alert last week in response to what it said was China’s largest massing of naval forces in three decades
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Friday agreed to provide $571.3 million in defense support for Taiwan, the White House said, while the State Department approved the potential sale to the island of $265 million worth of military equipment.
The United States is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties between Washington and Taipei, to the constant anger of Beijing.
Democratically governed Taiwan rejects China’s claims of sovereignty.
China has stepped up military pressure against Taiwan, including daily military activities near the island and two rounds of war games this year.
Taiwan went on alert last week in response to what it said was China’s largest massing of naval forces in three decades around Taiwan and in the East and South China Seas.
Biden had delegated to the secretary of state the authority “to direct the drawdown of up to $571.3 million in defense articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to provide assistance to Taiwan,” the White House said in a statement without providing details.
Taiwan’s defense ministry thanked the United States for its “firm security guarantee,” saying in a statement the two sides would continue to work closely on security issues to ensure peace in the Taiwan Strait.
The Pentagon said the State Department had approved the potential sale to Taiwan of about $265 million worth of command, control, communications, and computer modernization equipment.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said the equipment sale would help upgrade its command-and-control systems.
Taiwan’s defense ministry also said on Saturday that the US government had approved $30 million of parts for 76 mm autocannon, which it said would boost the island’s capacity to counter China’s “grey-zone” warfare.
US Senate approves Social Security change despite fiscal concerns
- The Senate in a 76-20 bipartisan vote shortly after midnight approved the Social Security Fairness Act
- The House of Representatives last month approved the bill in a 327-75 vote
WASHINGTON: The US Congress early on Saturday passed a measure to boost Social Security retirement payments to some retirees who draw public pensions — such as former police and firefighters — which critics warned will further weaken the program’s finances.
The Senate in a 76-20 bipartisan vote shortly after midnight approved the Social Security Fairness Act, which would repeal two-decades-old provisions that can reduce benefits for people who also receive a pension.
The House of Representatives last month approved the bill in a 327-75 vote, which means that Senate approval sends it to Democratic President Joe Biden to sign into law. The White House did not immediately respond to a question about whether Biden intended to do so.
The bill will overturn a decades-old change to the program that had been made to limit federal benefits to some higher-earning workers with pensions. Over time, growing numbers of municipal employees such as firefighters and postal workers also saw their payments capped.
Most Americans do not participate in pension plans, which pay a defined benefit, and instead are dependent on what money they can save and Social Security. Just one in ten US private sector workers have pension plans, according to Labor Department data.
The new provisions impact about 3 percent of Social Security beneficiaries — totaling a little more than 2.5 million Americans — and the workers and retirees affected by these provisions are key constituencies for lawmakers and their powerful advocacy groups have pushed for a legislative fix.
Some of them could receive hundreds of dollars more a month in federal benefits as a result of the bill, retirement experts said.
Some federal budget experts warned the change could hurt the program’s already shaky finances as the bill’s price tag is approximately $196 billion over the next decade, according to an analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
Emerson Sprick, associate director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said in an interview, “the fact that there is such overwhelming support in Congress for exactly the opposite of what policy researchers agree on is pretty frustrating.”
Instead of scrapping the current formulas for determining retirement benefits for these workers, revisions have been floated, as well as more accurate communication from the Social Security Administration on how much money these public sector employees should expect.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal think tank, is also warning the extra cost will affect the program’s future.
“We are racing to our own fiscal demise,” the group’s president, Maya MacGuineas, said in a statement.
“It is truly astonishing that at a time when we are just nine years away from the trust fund for the nation’s largest program being completely exhausted, lawmakers are about to consider speeding that up by six months.”
Republican Senator Ted Cruz on the Senate floor on Wednesday said the bill as written will “throw granny over the cliff.”
“Every senator who votes to impose $200 billion dollars of cost on the Social Security Trust Fund, you are choosing to sacrifice the interest of seniors who paid into Social Security and who earned those benefits,” he said.
Bill supporters said Social Security’s future can be addressed at a later time.
Asked about the solvency implications pf this legislation, Senator Michael Bennet, a supporter of the bill, said: “Those are much longer term issues that we have to find a way to address together.”
US authorizes military sales of more than $5 billion to Egypt
- Cairo is one of the largest recipients of US security aid since its peace treaty with Israel in 1979
Washington: The United States government on Friday authorized the sale of more than $5 billion in military equipment to Egypt, which has become an increasingly close partner in mediating the Gaza crisis despite serious human rights concerns.
The State Department informed Congress it had approved the sale of $4.69 billion in equipment for 555 US-made M1A1 Abrams tanks operated by Egypt, $630 million in 2,183 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles and $30 million in precision-guided munitions.
The sale “will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a Major Non-NATO Ally country that continues to be an important strategic partner in the Middle East,” according to a statement.
US President Joe Biden took office in 2021 vowing a harder line on Egypt over human rights concerns under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, but his administration has repeatedly gone ahead with arms deals with Egypt.
Cairo is one of the largest recipients of US security aid since its peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
Egypt and the United States have worked increasingly closely since the outbreak of the war in Gaza in 2023, with Cairo playing a mediating role.
In addition to the sales to Egypt, the State Department also authorized $295 million in equipment for Taiwan, $170 million in bombs and missiles for Morocco, and $130 million in uncrewed aircraft systems and armored vehicles to Greece.
The Taiwan authorizations were announced shortly after US President Joe Biden announced $571.3 million in new military aid to the self-ruled island, which China claims as part of its territory and has vowed to retake — by force, if necessary.
The US Congress can still block the sales, but such attempts are usually unsuccessful.
