US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday said that US military aid on its way to Ukraine would make a “real difference” on the battlefield, as the top diplomat made an unannounced visit to reassure an ally facing a fierce new Russian offensive.
In increasingly intense attacks along the northeastern border in recent days, Moscow’s troops have captured about 100 to 125km2 of territory that includes at least seven villages, open source monitoring analysts said. Although most of those villages were already depopulated, thousands of civilians in the area have fled the fighting.
Analysts have called this moment one of the most dangerous for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 — and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy yesterday asked for more air defense systems, including two Patriot air defense systems, to protect civilians under Russian fire in the northeast.
Photo: AFP
“We know this is a challenging time,” Blinken said in the Ukrainian capital, where he met with Zelenskiy, but added that US military aid is “going to make a real difference against the ongoing Russian aggression on the battlefield.”
The visit comes less than a month after the US Congress approved a long-delayed foreign assistance package that sets aside US$60 billion in aid for Ukraine, much of which would go toward replenishing badly depleted artillery and air defense systems.
Some of that “is now on the way,” Blinken said, and some has already arrived in Ukraine.
Moscow’s renewed offensive in the northeastern region of Kharkiv is the most significant border incursion since the early days of the war — and comes after months when the roughly 1,000km front line barely budged.
More than 7,500 civilians have been evacuated from the area, authorities said.
Russian forces are also expanding their push to the northern border regions of Sumy and Chernihiv, and Kyiv’s outgunned and outnumbered soldiers are struggling to hold them back, Ukrainian officials said.
Artillery, air defense interceptors and long-range ballistic missiles have already been delivered, some of them already to the front lines, said a senior US official traveling with Blinken on an overnight train from Poland who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
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