Zelensky, Volodymyr

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      Record Number of NATO Allies Hit Military Spending Targets

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      President Biden and the NATO secretary general sought to present a robust and united front against Russia as the alliance prepares for its annual meeting next month.President Biden and the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, announced on Monday that a record number of allies were meeting their military spending commitments as the two leaders sought to present a robust and unwavering response to Russia’s war in Ukraine.Mr. Biden and Mr. Stoltenberg met ahead of the annual NATO summit next month in Washington, where member countries are expected to discuss additional measures to help secure long-term security, funding and eventual membership for Ukraine. Mr. Stoltenberg announced on Monday that NATO was prepared to take on a larger role in Ukraine’s security in the meantime.“I expect that when we meet next month, we will agree to have a NATO role in providing security assistance and training,” Mr. Stoltenberg said. “This will reduce the burden on the United States and strengthen our support to Ukraine.”That is possible in part because the number of allies meeting their informal commitments to spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their militaries has soared. When NATO allies made the pledge in 2014, only three members — including the United States — met that mark, Mr. Stoltenberg said. About five years ago, roughly 10 did, he said, and this year more than 20 of the alliance’s 32 members will.Mr. Stoltenberg also said allies have increased military spending this year by 18 percent — the biggest jump in decades.The reassurances from the two leaders come as questions have arisen anew about the alliance and the commitment to Ukraine. Russia has recently made advances on the front lines after a temporary delay in military aid to Ukraine caused by congressional gridlock. And Mr. Biden’s main rival in the November election, former President Donald J. Trump, has expressed skepticism toward assistance for Ukraine and the value of NATO itself.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russia Plans New Offensive in Ukraine’s Northeast, Zelensky Says

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      Moscow is again amassing forces near the border, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. His comments came as officials said that a Russian strike had killed at least 14 people in Kharkiv.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Sunday that Moscow’s forces were massing for a new ground offensive on the northeast of his country, a day after a Russian missile strike on a hardware superstore in the city of Kharkiv killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens more, according to Ukrainian officials.“Russia is the only source of aggression and constantly tries to expand the war,” Mr. Zelensky said in a speech delivered in English inside the ruins of a publishing house in Kharkiv that was destroyed last week in a Russian strike.“Russia is preparing for offensive actions” around 60 miles northwest of Kharkiv, he said, adding that Moscow is gathering “another group of troops near our border.” Mr. Zelensky gave no further details about the potential attack.Moscow surprised Ukraine on May 10 when its troops poured across the northeastern border, punching through Ukrainian defenses and seizing villages close to the frontier. That forced the government in Kyiv to rush in reinforcements in a bid to halt the Russian advance.One target for an assault, based on Mr. Zelensky’s comments, could be the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine, which has seen frequent cross-border fire but no ground attacks since Russian forces attempted to seize its main city, also called Sumy, at the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. They were later forced to withdraw after fierce fighting. Ukraine’s military has previously warned of another Russian border assault in the northeast.The May incursion was the most significant in months of fighting, and military experts say that a key Russian objective was to expand the length of the battlefield, which already stretches hundreds of miles, and in that way force Ukraine to spread its troops more thinly. In doing so, Moscow apparently hoped to extend its existing advantage in terms of the size of its military, the experts say.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine’s Oleksandr Usyk Becomes World’s Undisputed Heavyweight Champion

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      The Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk became the world’s undisputed heavyweight champion on Sunday. The victory has lifted morale in a country struggling to contain Russian advances on the battlefield.Many Ukrainians were up in the early hours of Sunday morning, for once not to seek shelter from incoming Russian missiles, but to celebrate the Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk becoming the world’s undisputed heavyweight champion.Mr. Usyk’s victory over the British boxer Tyson Fury was a rare piece of good news for an embattled nation that is struggling to contain Russian advances, particularly in the northeast, where Moscow has opened a new front.President Volodymyr Zelensky lauded the victory as a symbol of Ukraine’s resilience.“Ukrainians hit hard!” Mr. Zelensky wrote in a Telegram post around 3 a.m. that included a photograph of Mr. Usyk delivering a punch to Mr. Fury. “And in the end, all our opponents will be overcome.”Ukrainian troops are currently engaged in fierce fighting to halt Russia’s grinding advance all along the front line, and there are fears that some key positions may soon fall. Russian troops recently advanced farther into Robotyne, a village in the south that was one of the rare successes of Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive last summer.Faced with such grim prospects, many Ukrainians watched the match hoping that a win would lift their spirits.“This victory is very good for raising our morale,” Valentyna Polishchuk, 54, said on Sunday in Kyiv, the capital. “Things are not good in our country, and this is at least something good.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Blinken Arrives in Ukraine Amid Russian Military Gains

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      The Biden administration had warned for months that the delay by Congress to approve an aid package would leave the Ukrainians vulnerable.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday morning for a visit meant to reaffirm American support for Ukraine but that might be shadowed by Russian military gains in the country’s northeast.The unannounced trip, by overnight train from eastern Poland, was Mr. Blinken’s fourth to Kyiv since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It comes about three weeks after President Biden signed a $60 billion aid package for Ukraine that Congress passed after months of infighting among House Republicans.Mr. Blinken plans to deliver a speech in Kyiv on Tuesday celebrating the influx of American aid and portraying Russia’s failed effort to take control of the country as a strategic success for Ukraine, a senior U.S. official said.Mr. Blinken will also underscore that Ukraine must continue to make progress on democratic governance and anti-corruption reforms if it wants to integrate with the West, the official said.Mr. Biden and Mr. Blinken had warned for months that Congress’s delay in approving critically needed U.S. arms would leave Ukraine’s military vulnerable along an eastern battlefront that has been stalemated for months. The U.S. official declined to draw a direct connection between the delayed aid and Russia’s gains near the city of Kharkiv. But the official said it was clear that the gap in funding had left Ukraine, whose military is starved for ammunition and other critical equipment, weakened.The official said that the Ukrainians had held their positions and were exacting a toll on the Russians, and that they were likely to make gains as U.S. assistance flows into the country.Mr. Blinken plans to meet with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and other top officials. A second senior U.S. official would not say whether Russia had been notified in advance of Mr. Blinken’s visit. Russian forces have frequently attacked Kyiv with missiles and drones.Mr. Blinken is the first senior Biden official to visit Ukraine since the passage of the congressional aid package. The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with Mr. Zelensky in Kyiv in late March, before the aid passed.Speaking at an event hosted by The Financial Times this month, Mr. Sullivan said that he expected Russia to make some short-term gains, but that the new U.S. aid would allow Ukraine to “hold the line” and eventually begin recapturing territory. More

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      Russian Forces Push Deeper Into Northern Ukraine

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      A Ukrainian military unit said that its troops were forced to retreat from several positions and that one settlement had been captured by Russian forces.Russian forces continued their advance across northeastern Ukraine on Sunday, seizing a number of small settlements along the border and forcing Ukrainian troops to retreat from some positions, according to the Russian and Ukrainian militaries, as well as aid workers.Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its troops had captured four more settlements — all but one located directly north of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city — as they pressed ahead with a new offensive launched on Friday. Aid workers confirmed that Russian troops had advanced deeper inside Ukrainian territory and were now threatening several small towns on the outskirts of Kharkiv.A Ukrainian military unit fighting in the area said the Russian forces were pushing hard from the Russia-Ukraine border toward Kharkiv.“Today, during heavy fighting, our defenders were forced to withdraw from a few more of their positions, and today, another settlement has come completely under Russian control,” said a video statement released on Saturday night by Hostri Kartuzy, a Ukrainian special forces unit. “The Russians are dying in droves. But they are pressing on regardless and succeeding in some areas.”Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top military commander, said that the situation in the Kharkiv region had “significantly worsened” this past week, but that Russian attempts to break through Ukrainian defensive lines had been unsuccessful so far.A Ukrainian tank on Sunday near a damaged car in the Vovchansk district of the Kharkiv region.Roman Pilipey/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘They Are Erasing Streets’: Russian Attacks Bring War Nearer Kharkiv

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      Russia’s latest offensive has expanded the battlefield along Ukraine’s northern border, and sent thousands of civilians fleeing to the closest large city.After all-night air raid alarms, a weary Kharkiv woke up Saturday morning to a heavy gray sky and the disconcerting news that the Russian Army continued to press its advance on nearby Ukrainian territory.All night, dull explosions from battlefields 40 miles away echoed across Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. On Saturday morning, a day after Russian forces seized several villages along the border and Ukraine rushed reinforcements to the area, the ghostly wail of air raid sirens continued to drift over the city’s deserted parks and long, empty boulevards.Thousands of people are fleeing the border areas and arriving at shelters in Kharkiv.Tetiana Novikova is one of them.Until Friday, she had spent her entire 55 years in Vovchansk, a small town near the Russian border. She was born there, married there, worked in a factory there and raised two children there.But the shelling became so terrifying that she and her family made the painful decision to abandon the home they had lived in for decades. On Friday evening, she arrived with her elderly parents, shaken, hungry and a bit lost, at a Kharkiv school that has been turned into a displaced persons’ reception center.The only people left in Vovchansk, Ms. Novikova said, “are the old and the disabled, and they can’t move.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine Says It Foiled Russian Plot to Kill Zelensky

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      The Ukrainian security services arrested two Ukrainian colonels and accused them of spying for Russia. They said the plot also targeted top Ukrainian intelligence officials.Ukraine’s security services said on Tuesday that they had foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top military and political figures. Two Ukrainian colonels accused of participating in the plot have been arrested on suspicion of treason.The Ukrainian domestic intelligence agency, the S.B.U., said in a statement that the plot had involved a network of agents — including the two colonels — that was run by Russia’s Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the main successor agency to the K.G.B. According to the Ukrainian agency, the agents working at Russia’s direction were tasked with identifying people close to Mr. Zelensky’s security detail who could take him hostage and later kill him.The agency’s statement said the other top Ukrainian officials targeted in the plot included Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the S.B.U., and Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency. The Ukrainian claims could not be independently verified.It is not the first time that Ukraine has reported a potential assassination attempt aimed at its top leaders. Mr. Zelensky himself said in an interview with an Italian television channel earlier this year that his security services had told him of more than 10 such attempts.Ukraine’s security services offered few details about previous assassination plots. But this time, the agency went to some length in its statement to describe how the Ukrainian officials were to be killed.The services said the two colonels accused in the plot belonged to the State Security Administration, which protects top officials. They had been recruited before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to the statement, which identified three F.S.B. members — Maxim Mishustin, Dmytro Perlin and Oleksiy Kornev — as running the operation from Moscow.The assassination of General Budanov, the services said, was planned to take place before Orthodox Easter, which was celebrated on May 5. The F.S.B.’s network of agents in Ukraine was tasked with observing and passing on information about General Budanov’s whereabouts, the Ukrainian security services said. Once his location had been confirmed and communicated, he would have been targeted in a rocket and drone attack.Weapons for the attack were provided to one of the colonels, including attack drones, ammunition for a rocket launcher and anti-personnel mines, according to the security services and Ukraine’s prosecutor general. The colonel was to pass the weapons to other agents to carry out the attack, the Ukrainian statement said.General Budanov’s wife was poisoned late last year, according to the Ukrainian military intelligence agency, in an incident that led to widespread speculation that Russia was stepping up efforts to target Ukraine’s senior leadership.The S.B.U. also reported last month that it had arrested, in cooperation with Polish security services, a Polish man who it said had offered to spy for Russia as part of a plot to assassinate Mr. Zelensky.Russia made no immediate comment about Tuesday’s allegations. More

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      Vote to Resume U.S. Military Aid Is Met With Relief in Ukraine

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      Much-needed munitions like artillery shells could start arriving relatively quickly, but experts say it could take weeks before U.S. assistance has a direct impact on the war.The Ukrainian lieutenant was at a firing position on the eastern front, commanding an artillery unit relying on American-provided M777 howitzers and other big guns, as U.S. lawmakers gathered in Washington to decide if his cannons would be forced to go silent for lack of ammunition.But when the lieutenant returned to his base on Saturday night, he got the news that he and millions of Ukrainians had been praying to hear.“I had just entered the building after a shift change when the guys informed me that the aid package for Ukraine had finally been approved by Congress,” said the lieutenant, who is identified only by his first name, Oleksandr, in line with military protocol. “We hope this aid package will reach us as soon as possible.”The decision by American lawmakers to resume military assistance after months of costly delay was greeted with a collective sigh of relief and an outpouring of gratitude across a battered and bloodied Ukraine. It may have been late in coming, soldiers and civilians said, but American support meant more than bullets and bombs.It offered something equally important: hope.Immediately after the vote passed in Congress, Ukrainian citizens took to social media to offer thanks and express joy, posting American flag memes blending Ukrainian imagery with American symbols like the Statue of Liberty.“I have tears in my eyes,” Anton Gerashchenko, the founder of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, a research group, said in a message. “So much suffering, so much pain. So many lost friends and wonderful people in these horrible years of war. Now there is hope to save more lives of those who are still alive.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More