RUSSIA UKRAINE WAR: Lithuania Dubs Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism Set on Genocide.
Ukraine: Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t scaled back his long-term goals in Ukraine, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said Tuesday in a stark assessment of the war. Russian missiles struck the port city of Odessa overnight, the city’s government said, killing one person and wounding others. A shopping mall and a consumer-goods warehouse were hit, according to Ukraine’s southern military command.
Russia pursued its campaign to seize the entire Donbas area of eastern Ukraine. The only part of the Luhansk region in Donbas still under Ukrainian rule continued to resist the onslaught.
Ukraine's economy is forecast to decline 30% this year, much more sharply than previously expected, Europe's leading development bank said, citing continued damage from the Russian invasion.
Washington: The House of Representatives plans to vote early this week on a nearly $40 billion U.S. aid package for Ukraine.
Russia: Russia paraded military hardware through Red Square on Monday and as fireworks lit up the sky over Moscow during the celebrations to mark Victory Day, an annual holiday marking the defeat of the Nazis that President Vladimir Putin has seized on to promote the aims of his war in Ukraine.
Russian ally Belarus said Tuesday it was bolstering its military with an eye on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as the defense minister declared the beginning of a new stage of large-scale drills and the president said Russia would help the country develop a new missile, according to Belarusian state media.
Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said the country’s armed forces were closely monitoring this month’s U.S.-led NATO military exercises and responding adequately, according to Belta, the state news service. NATO exercises Defender-Europe 2022 and Swift Response 2022 are taking place throughout May.
Belarus began large-scale training exercises on May 4, declaring them a form of training that “doesn’t pose a threat to the European community as a whole and neighboring countries, in particular.” A second stage of exercises began Tuesday, the defense minister said.
Belarus, Ukraine’s neighbor to the north, has served as a staging ground for Russian troops and warplanes taking part in the offensive.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that, after discussing the matter with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Russia, he had tasked the prime minister and others to develop weapons matching Russia’s Iskander surface-to-surface missiles. "We are creating a new rocket," he said, according to Belta.
Mr. Lukashenko said the Russian president had assigned Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s aerospace corporation, Roscosmos, to enlist Russian rocket scientists to help Belarus with the development of an Iskander-type missile.
Russia’s Iskander missile brigades, deployed before the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, are capable of firing more than 400 missiles an hour at targets covering most of Ukraine and beyond.
As it stands right now, diplomacy is failing to provide a resolution to the ongoing Genocide in Ukraine. What will happen in the near future is very uncertain
