Україна Ukraine

US defence secretary announces aid as Zelenskiy pleads with west for more Patriot systems to defend Ukrainian cities

The Podlet-K1, also known as the 48Ya6-K1, is a modern mobile radar system designed to detect air targets at low and extremely low altitudes, according to the Army Recognition website.

The Azov brigade, which leaders say has a culture of ‘mutual respect’, is tasked with repelling relentless Russian attacks as the invaders make most of artillery mismatch

The Australian government announced a new aid package for Ukraine worth 100 million Australian dollars ($65 million) on April 27, following a meeting between Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles in Lviv.

The Norwegian Ministry of Defense revealed plans to provide up to $13.7 million for maintaining Leopard 2A4 tanks at a Polish maintenance center.

Bill Blair, Canada’s Minister of National Defence, announced on 26 April that CAD 3 million [roughly US$2.2 million] will be allocated to the Ukrainian defence industry for the production of drones.

Slovak activists collected 3.9 million euros ($4 million) for the Czech ammunition initiative for Ukraine in 12 days, after the Slovak government refused to participate.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) launched drone strikes against two oil refineries and a military airfield in Russia’s Krasnodar region overnight on April 27, a source in the security and defense forces told the Kyiv Independent.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is against sending the weapons to Ukraine because he fears the move will draw Germany into the war.

A Russian multirole helicopter Ka-32 was destroyed at the Ostafyevo airfield in Moscow overnight on April 26, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) reported. An intelligence source confirmed to the Kyiv Independent that the helicopter was destroyed as a result of a HUR operation.

The move is the latest from Western nations responding to calls from Kyiv for more air defenses in the face of escalating Russian missile and drone attacks on cities across the country.

The U.S. will provide Ukraine with a $1 billion military aid package, the U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced on April 26 before the beginning of the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) meeting, also known as Ramstein format.

"In March and April (of 2024) alone, Russia’s iterative attacks hitting first responders killed nearly 30 rescue workers in Odesa, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia and wounded more than 20," said Timothy Hanway, the acting U.S. envoy to the OSCE.

While the proposal must still get through more legislative steps before becoming law, it was supported by lawmakers from both center-right and center-left parties.

Twenty-year-old Dylan Earl has been charged with planning an attack against London businesses connected to Ukraine after being recruited to spy for Russia.

Ukraine requires naval vessels for tasks such as the protection of Black Sea shipping routes.

The organization is loosely described, but characterized as having the goal of trying to "destroy the multinational unity and territorial integrity of Russia."

The U.K.'s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank said the cargo ship the Angara, currently docked at a shipyard in China's eastern Zhejiang province, has been involved in carrying North Korean military cargo to Russia overseas.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his April 24 evening address that Ukraine "will do everything" to compensate for the six months that passed while the country waited for the U.S. to pass further assistance for Kyiv.

The U.S. secretly shipped over 100 long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine last week, some of which were immediately deployed and used to strike a Russian military airfield in Dzhankoi in occupied Crimea, the New York Times (NYT) reported on April 25.

A drone coalition co-led by the U.K. and Latvia has collected over 500 million euros ($535 million) to purchase drones for Ukraine, Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds wrote on X on April 24.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on April 24 that Ukraine has precise intelligence information that Russia is preparing to disrupt a global peace summit set to take place in Switzerland in June.

Ukraine and Portugal have begun negotiations on a draft bilateral security agreement, the Presidential Office announced on April 24.

Ukrainian troops will be able to boost the effectiveness of their long-range attacks inside Russia as an influx of Western military aid aims to help Kyiv shape the war "in much stronger ways," according to the head of the U.K. military, Tony Radakin.