This is Ukraine’s ‘finest hour,’ UK says, as it boost military supplies; Russia seen trying to annex eastern regions

Russia’s military is now “significantly weaker,” both materially and conceptually, as a result of its invasion of Ukraine, according to the latest intelligence update from the U.K.’s Defence Ministry.

“Russia’s defence budget approximately doubled between 2005 and 2018, with investment in several high-end air, land and sea capabilities,” the ministry said on Twitter on Tuesday.

However, “the modernisation of its physical equipment has not enabled Russia to dominate Ukraine,” the ministry continued, noting that failures both in strategic planning and operational execution “have left it unable to translate numerical strength into decisive advantage.”

Russia’s weakened military will struggle to recover due to international sanctions, and this will have a lasting impact on Russia’s ability to deploy conventional military force, the U.K. said.

— Holly Ellyatt

The U.K.’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to announce a new £300 million ($375 million) package of defensive military aid for Ukraine on Tuesday, includes electronic warfare equipment, a counter battery radar system, GPS jamming equipment and thousands of night vision devices. 

Britain is also sending more than a dozen new specialized Toyota Landcruisers to help protect civilian officials in eastern Ukraine and evacuate civilians from frontline areas, following a request from the Ukrainian government.

Johnson will address the Ukrainian parliament via videolink and is expected to evoke the words of Winston Churchill, Britain’s leader during World War II, by telling Ukrainian lawmakers that this is their country’s “finest hour” and that the U.K. is proud “to be among their friends.” 

“When my country faced the threat of invasion during the Second World War, our parliament – like yours – continued to meet throughout the conflict, and the British people showed such unity and resolve that we remember our time of greatest peril as our finest hour,” he will say, according to pre-released comments by the government.

“This is Ukraine’s finest hour, an epic chapter in your national story that will be remembered and recounted for generations to come.”

“Your children and grandchildren will say that Ukrainians taught the world that the brute force of an aggressor counts for nothing against the moral force of a people determined to be free,” Johnson is expected to add.

The address also marks the reopening of the U.K.’s embassy in Kyiv.

— Holly Ellyatt

Ukrainian troops defending Kharkiv have pushed Russians back from the city over the last 24 to 48 hours, the U.S. Department of Defense said late Monday.

A senior U.S. Defense official said at a briefing that Ukraine’s forces have “managed to push the Russians out about 40 kilometers [25 miles] to the east of Kharkiv.” The city is still under aerial bombardment.

Kharkiv has been under sustained attack since late February, and most its civilian residents have fled the city.

The strategically important city is in Ukraine’s northeast, only about 32 kilometers (20 miles) from the Russian border.

Russian troops in eastern Ukraine are making “anemic” progress and continue to be beset by low morale, poor command and control and weak logistics, the official told reporters.

Turning to arms shipments, the Pentagon official said more than 70 of 90 M-777 howitzers that the United States is sending to Ukraine have arrived there. So have about 140,000 rounds for those cannons, which is about half the amount planned for delivery.

— Ted Kemp and Christina Wilkie

Russian troops in eastern Ukraine are making “anemic” progress and continue to be beset by low morale, poor command and control and weak logistics, a senior U.S. Defense Department official told reporters.

The Kremlin has made minor gains in the far eastern region of Luhansk and outside the city of Izyum, but overall gains in the region are fleeting, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Instead of holding territory, Russia troops have recently been moving into an area, declaring victory and then leaving the area to Ukrainian troops to resume control, U.S. intelligence indicates.

This creates a fiction for the Russian domestic audience that the military has made significant gains in Ukraine, but does not actually require that Russian troops suppress civilian populations.

Kremlin efforts to control civilian populations elsewhere in Ukraine have resulted in thousands of deaths and scores of likely war crimes committed against the Ukrainian population.

— Christina Wilkie

U.S. intelligence indicates that Russia is planning to hold sham referenda in mid-May in a bid annex Donetsk and Luhansk, the two regions of eastern Ukraine currently under Russian occupation, said Michael Carpenter, Washington’s ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

“Russia has plans to engineer referenda on joining Russia sometime in mid-May,” he said at a State Department briefing. He added that Moscow “is considering a similar plan for Kherson,” a region in southern Ukraine anchored by a city of the same name.

This would mean dismantling local governments, schools and institutions and then declaring the occupied Kherson region an “independent people’s republic,” before later annexing it.

Russia recently announced plans to force people in Kherson to switch to the ruble as currency. It has also cut off internet and cell phone access across the region, which is home to more than 1 million people.

“Sham referenda and fabricated votes will not be considered legitimate, nor will any attempts to annex additional Ukrainian territory,” said Carpenter. But he acknowledged that the OSCE does not have the power to disrupt Russia’s plans.

— Christina Wilkie