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Ukraine

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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    Halifax2TheMaxHalifax2TheMax Posts: 36,611
    edited February 24
    For all you repubs, if you're not for this, you're on the wrong side of history. I won't recite them all but just know this, if you can. From a Letter From an American:

    Two years ago today, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky made a passionate plea to the people of Russia, begging them to avoid war. He gave the speech in Russian, his own primary language, and, reminding Russians of their shared border and history, told them to “listen to the voice of reason”: Ukrainians want peace.  

    “You’ve been told I'm going to bomb Donbass,” he said. “Bomb what? The Donetsk stadium where the locals and I cheered for our team at Euro 2012? The bar where we drank when they lost? Luhansk, where my best friend's mom lives?” Zelensky tried to make the human cost of this conflict clear. Observers lauded the speech and contrasted its statesmanship with the ramblings in which Putin had recently engaged.

    And yet Zelensky’s speech stood only as a marker. Early the next day, Russian president Vladimir Putin launched a “special military operation” involving dozens of missile strikes on Ukrainian cities before dawn. He claimed in a statement that was transparently false that he needed to defend the people in the “new republics” within Ukraine that he had recognized two days before from “persecution and genocide by the Kyiv regime.” He called for “demilitarization” of Ukraine, demanding that soldiers lay down their weapons and saying that any bloodshed would be on their hands.

    Putin called for the murder of Ukrainian leaders in the executive branch and parliament and intended to seize or kill those involved in the 2014 Maidan Revolution, which sought to turn the country away from Russia and toward a democratic government within Europe, and which itself prompted a Russian invasion. He planned for his troops to seize Ukraine’s electric, heating, and financial systems so the people would have to do as he wished. The operation was intended to be lightning fast.

    But rather than collapsing, Ukrainians held firm. The day after Russia invaded, Zelensky and his cabinet recorded a video in Kyiv. “We are all here,” he said. “Our  soldiers are here. The citizens are here, and we are here. We will defend our independence…. Glory to Ukraine!” When the United States offered the next day to transport Zelensky outside the country, where he could lead a government in exile, he responded:

    “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
    Post edited by Halifax2TheMax on
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    Halifax2TheMaxHalifax2TheMax Posts: 36,611
    From the above. SHAME on the repubs. "Coalition of the Willing?" GTFOOH. GWB shrub has been awful quiet.  Chris? Chris? Darth Cheney? RU RU Rubio? Are there any stalwarts left in the repub party? Can someone check their social media and let me know? Please?

    “Two years,” Ukraine president Zelensky wrote today. “We are all here…. Together with representatives of Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Egypt, Estonia, the EU, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, the Holy See, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, the Netherlands, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Thailand, Türkiye, the UAE, the United Kingdom, the USA, Viet Nam, as well as international organisations….”

    Slava Ukraini.
    09/15/1998 & 09/16/1998, Mansfield, MA; 08/29/00 08/30/00, Mansfield, MA; 07/02/03, 07/03/03, Mansfield, MA; 09/28/04, 09/29/04, Boston, MA; 09/22/05, Halifax, NS; 05/24/06, 05/25/06, Boston, MA; 07/22/06, 07/23/06, Gorge, WA; 06/27/2008, Hartford; 06/28/08, 06/30/08, Mansfield; 08/18/2009, O2, London, UK; 10/30/09, 10/31/09, Philadelphia, PA; 05/15/10, Hartford, CT; 05/17/10, Boston, MA; 05/20/10, 05/21/10, NY, NY; 06/22/10, Dublin, IRE; 06/23/10, Northern Ireland; 09/03/11, 09/04/11, Alpine Valley, WI; 09/11/11, 09/12/11, Toronto, Ont; 09/14/11, Ottawa, Ont; 09/15/11, Hamilton, Ont; 07/02/2012, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/04/2012 & 07/05/2012, Berlin, Germany; 07/07/2012, Stockholm, Sweden; 09/30/2012, Missoula, MT; 07/16/2013, London, Ont; 07/19/2013, Chicago, IL; 10/15/2013 & 10/16/2013, Worcester, MA; 10/21/2013 & 10/22/2013, Philadelphia, PA; 10/25/2013, Hartford, CT; 11/29/2013, Portland, OR; 11/30/2013, Spokane, WA; 12/04/2013, Vancouver, BC; 12/06/2013, Seattle, WA; 10/03/2014, St. Louis. MO; 10/22/2014, Denver, CO; 10/26/2015, New York, NY; 04/23/2016, New Orleans, LA; 04/28/2016 & 04/29/2016, Philadelphia, PA; 05/01/2016 & 05/02/2016, New York, NY; 05/08/2016, Ottawa, Ont.; 05/10/2016 & 05/12/2016, Toronto, Ont.; 08/05/2016 & 08/07/2016, Boston, MA; 08/20/2016 & 08/22/2016, Chicago, IL; 07/01/2018, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/03/2018, Krakow, Poland; 07/05/2018, Berlin, Germany; 09/02/2018 & 09/04/2018, Boston, MA; 09/08/2022, Toronto, Ont; 09/11/2022, New York, NY; 09/14/2022, Camden, NJ; 09/02/2023, St. Paul, MN;

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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
    Will put this here , just phenomenal.....4:09 rebuttal offered at UN by Polish Ambassador of Russian counterpart...

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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
    https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-missile-airspace-violation-c9d2511f169e9f80a08082726c118114   Poland demands explanation from Russia after a missile enters its airspace during attack on Ukraine

     
    Poland demands explanation from Russia after a missile enters its airspace during attack on Ukraine
    By VANESSA GERA and TONY HICKS
    2 hours ago

    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Poland demanded an explanation from Russia on Sunday after one of its missiles strayed briefly into Polish airspace during a major missile attack on Ukraine, prompting the NATO member to activate F-16 fighter jets.

    It was Russia's third big missile attack on Ukraine in the past four days, and the second to target the capital, Kyiv.

    The governor of the Lviv region, Maksym Kozytskyi, said on the Telegram platform that critical infrastructure was hit, but he didn't specify what precisely was struck. No deaths or injuries were reported.

    Later, authorities said that rescuers had just put out a fire at a critical infrastructure facility in the Lviv region, which had been attacked with missiles and drones at night and in the morning.

    The head of Kyiv's military administration, Serhiy Popko, said Russia used cruise missiles launched from Tu-95MS strategic bombers. An air alert in the capital lasted for more than two hours as rockets entered Kyiv in groups from the north.

    He said the attacks were launched from the Engels district in the Saratov region of Russia.

    According to preliminary data, there were no casualties or damage in the capital, he said.

    Armed Forces Operational Command of Poland, a member of NATO, said in a statement that there was a violation of Polish airspace at 4:23 a.m. (0323 GMT) by one of the cruise missiles launched by Russia against towns in western Ukraine.

    The object entered near Oserdow, a village in an agricultural region near the border with Ukraine, and stayed in Polish airspace for 39 seconds, the statement said. It wasn't immediately clear if Russia intended for the missile to enter Poland's airspace. Cruise missiles are able to change their trajectory to evade air defense systems.

    Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz later told reporters in a televised news conference that the Russian missile would have been shot down had there been any indication that it was heading towards a target in Poland.

    He said that Polish authorities monitored the attack on Ukraine and were in contact with Ukrainian counterparts. Polish and NATO F-16s were activated as part of the strategic response.

    He said the missile penetrated Polish airspace about a kilometer or two (a half-mile to around a mile) as Russia was targeting the region around Lviv in western Ukraine.

    “As last night’s rocket attack on Ukraine was one of the most intense since the beginning of the Russian aggression, all the strategic procedures were launched on time and the object was monitored until it left the Polish airspace,” he said.

    On the diplomatic front, the Polish foreign ministry said that it would “demand explanations from the Russian Federation in connection with another violation of the country’s airspace.”

    “Above all, we call on the Russian Federation to stop the terrorist air attacks on the inhabitants and territory of Ukraine, end the war, and address the country’s internal problems,” the statement read.

    Andrzej Szejna, a deputy foreign minister, told the TVN24 broadcaster that the foreign ministry intended to summon the Russian ambassador to Poland and hand him a protest note.

    Henryk Zdyb, the head of the village of Oserdow, said in an interview with the daily Gazeta Wyborcza that he saw the missile, saying it produced a whistling sound.

    “I saw a rapidly moving object in the sky. It was illuminated and flying quite low over the border with Ukraine,” he told the paper.

    Since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago, there have been a number of intrusions into Polish airspace, triggering worry in the European Union and NATO member state and reminding people of how close the war is.

    “We have to come to terms with the fact that the war is taking place right next to us, and we are part of the confrontation between the West and Russia,” commentator Artur Bartkiewicz wrote in the Rzeczpospolita newspaper Sunday.

    In 2022, two Poles were killed in a missile blast. Western officials blamed those deaths on a Ukrainian air defense missile that went astray, but also accused Russia of culpability because it started the war, with the Ukrainian missiles launched in self-defense.

    On Saturday night, one person was killed and four others were wounded in a Ukrainian missile attack on Sevastopol on the Russia-occupied Crimean Peninsula, city Gov. Mikhail Razvozhaev said on his Telegram channel.

    ___

    Vanessa Gera reported from Warsaw, Poland.


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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
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    mickeyratmickeyrat up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,801
    its about fucking time

    https://apnews.com/article/house-ukraine-speaker-johnson-mtg-68a810a998381dfd9f4c3c4e452b9f51   Ukraine, Israel aid advances in rare House vote as Democrats help Republicans push it forward

     
    Ukraine, Israel aid advances in rare House vote as Democrats help Republicans push it forward
    By STEPHEN GROVES, LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING
    Today

    WASHINGTON (AP) — With rare bipartisan momentum, the House pushed ahead Friday on a foreign aid package of $95 billion for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian support as a robust coalition of lawmakers helped it clear a procedural hurdle to reach final votes this weekend. Friday’s vote produced a seldom-seen outcome in the typically hyper-partisan House, with Democrats helping Republican Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan advance overwhelmingly 316-94. Final House approval could come this weekend, when the package would be sent to the Senate.

    It was a victory for the strategy Johnson set in motion this week after he agonized for two months over the legislation. Still, Johnson has had to spend the past 24 hours making the rounds on conservative media working to salvage support for the wartime funding, particularly for Ukraine as it faces a critical moment battling Russia, but also for his own job as the effort to remove him as speaker grew.

    “Ukrainians desperately need lethal aid right now. ... We cannot allow Vladimir Putin to roll through another country and take it," Johnson told the conservative host of The Mark Levin Show about the Russian president's invasion of Ukraine. “These are very serious matters with global implications.”

    Johnson said after the vote that while it wasn’t “perfect legislation," it was the “best possible product” Republicans can get given their thin majority in one chamber of Congress.

    After months of delay, the House worked slowly but deliberately once Johnson made up his mind this week to plough ahead with a package that matches, with a few alterations, what the Senate passed in February. President Joe Biden sent a swift endorsement of the speaker's plan and, in a rare moment, Donald Trump, the Republican presumed presidential nominee who opposes most overseas aid for Ukraine, has not derailed the speaker's work.

    “The world is watching what the Congress does," the White House said in a statement. "Passing this legislation would send a powerful message about the strength of American leadership at a pivotal moment.”

    In an extremely rare step, the members of the House Rules Committee joined forces late Thursday in a near midnight vote, the four Democrats giving their support on a procedural step, to push past the Republican majority's three hardline holdouts to send the package to the House floor for debate on a 9-3 vote. It was a moment unseen in recent House memory.

    Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries said that he spoke with Johnson on Thursday night to ensure the bill would clear the Rules Committee.

    "It’s long past time that we support our democratic allies,” Jeffries said after the vote.

    “House Democrats have once again cleared the way for legislation that’s important to the American people.”

    Johnson will need to rely on Democrats again Saturday to turn back amendments Republicans have offered that could kill the package. One from hardline Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene would reduce spending for Ukraine to zero.

    Greene has filed a “motion to vacate” the speaker from office, and it drew another supporter Friday as Rep. Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican, co-sponsored the motion. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, another co-sponsor, suggested that before the House breaks next week others could follow, building pressure on Johnson to step down.

    Rep. Eli Crane, a hardline conservative from Arizona, also said he was “open” to joining the move to oust Johnson.

    “I definitely sense that there’s a souring to Republican leadership,” he said.

    Greene could launch a bid to evict Johnson from the speaker's office, should she call it up for a vote, much the way Republicans booted Kevin McCarthy from the position last fall. Jeffries, the Democratic leader, remained noncommittal to helping Johnson keep the speaker's gavel, though some Democrats have suggested they would be inclined help defeat the motion to vacate through procedural maneuvers.

    With one of the most narrow House majorities in modern times, Johnson can only afford to lose a single vote or two from his Republican ranks to pass any bill. That dynamic has thrust him into the arms of Democrats as he searches for votes to pass the package.

    Without his Republican majority fully behind him, Johnson could not shape the package as the ultra-conservatives demand lest he lose Democratic backing. It forced him to leave behind tough security measures to clamp down on migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

    At best, Johnson has been able to carve up a Senate-passed version of the bill into separate parts, as is the preference among House Republicans, and the final votes will be on distinct measures — for Ukraine, Israel and Indo-Pacific allies.

    The package would also include a fourth provision that includes many Republican priorities that Democrats endorse, or at least are willing to accept. Those include proposals that allow the U.S. to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine; impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl; and potentially ban the video app TikTok if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake within a year.

    Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the vote showed “the world that Democrats understand the world and our allies. That we’re going to stand by them and make sure that we give them the support and the aid that they need, that we care about humanitarian concerns.”

    He added that in his 26 years in the House, he had never seen one party have to help the other like Democrats did this week.

    “It just shows how the Republicans cannot manage the House and the House floor to get things done,” Meeks said.

    Republicans, even those who supported the process, were severely disappointed it had come to this.

    “I'm concerned,” said Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., who voted for the procedural step but, was nevertheless displeased with the process. “This is reflective of the controversy in the country: How much aid?”

    Passing each bill, in votes expected Saturday, will require Johnson to form complicated bipartisan coalitions on each, with Democrats for example ensuring Ukraine aid is approved, but some left-leaning progressives refusing to back military aid for Israel over the destruction of Gaza. Still, Jeffries said that a majority of Democrats would vote Saturday for the packages of aid for Ukraine, Israel and allies in Asia.

    The components would then be automatically stitched back together into a single package sent to the Senate where hardliners there are also planning procedural moves to stall final approval.


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    you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
    memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
    another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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    https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-long-range-missiles-4d2254639eb5a503d8b0a291ed0680e9   Ukraine uses long-range missiles secretly provided by US to hit Russian-held areas, officials say

     
    Ukraine uses long-range missiles secretly provided by US to hit Russian-held areas, officials say
    By LOLITA C. BALDOR and TARA COPP
    Today

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukraine for the first time has begun using long-range ballistic missiles provided secretly by the United States, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, American officials said Wednesday.

    Long sought by Ukrainian leaders, the new missiles give Ukraine nearly double the striking distance — up to 300 kilometers (190 miles) — that it had with the mid-range version of the weapon that it received from the U.S. last October.

    "We’ve already sent some, we will send more now that we have additional authority and money,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. The additional ATACMS were included in a new military aid package signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

    Biden approved delivery of the long-range Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, in February, and then in March the U.S. included a “significant” number of them in a $300 million aid package announced, officials said.

    U.S. officials would not provide the exact number of missiles given last month or in the latest aid package, which totals about $1 billion.

    Ukraine has been forced to ration its weapons and is facing increasing Russian attacks. Ukraine had been begging for the long-range system because the missiles provide a critical ability to strike Russian targets that are farther away, allowing Ukrainian forces to stay safely out of range.

    Information about the delivery was kept so quiet that lawmakers and others in recent days have been demanding that the U.S. send the weapons — not knowing they were already in Ukraine.

    For months, the U.S. resisted sending Ukraine the long-range missiles out of concern that Kyiv could use them to hit deep into Russian territory, enraging Moscow and escalating the conflict. That was a key reason the administration sent the mid-range version, with a range of about 160 kilometers (roughly 100 miles), in October instead.

    Adm. Christopher Grady, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that the White House and military planners looked carefully at the risks of providing long-range fires to Ukraine and determined that the time was right to provide them now.

    He told The Associated Press in an interview that long-range weapons will help Ukraine take out Russian logistics nodes and troop concentrations that are not on the front lines. Grady declined to identify what specific weapons were being provided but said they will be “very disruptive if used properly, and I’m confident they will be.”

    Like many of the other sophisticated weapons systems provided to Ukraine, the administration weighed whether their use would risk further escalating the conflict. The administration is continuing to make clear that the weapons cannot be used to hit targets inside Russia. At the State Department, spokesman Vedant Patel said Wednesday that Biden directed his national security team to send the ATACMS specifying that they be used inside Ukrainian sovereign territory.

    “I think the time is right, and the boss (Biden) made the decision the time is right to provide these based on where the fight is right now,” Grady said Wednesday. “I think it was a very well considered decision, and we really wrung it out — but again, any time you introduce a new system, any change — into a battlefield, you have to think through the escalatory nature of it.”

    Ukrainian officials haven’t publicly acknowledged the receipt or use of long-range ATACMS. But in thanking Congress for passing the new aid bill Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted on the social platform X that “Ukraine’s long-range capabilities, artillery and air defense are extremely important tools for the quick restoration of a just peace.”

    One U.S. official said the Biden administration warned Russia last year that if Moscow acquired and used long-range ballistic missiles in Ukraine, Washington would provide the same capability to Kyiv. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about internal discussions.

    Russia got some of those weapons from North Korea and has used them on the battlefield in Ukraine, said the official, prompting the Biden administration to greenlight the new long-range missiles.

    The U.S. had refused to confirm that the long-range missiles were given to Ukraine until they were actually used on the battlefield and Kyiv leaders approved the public release. One official said the weapons were used early last week to strike the airfield in Dzhankoi, a city in Crimea, a peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. They were used again overnight east of the occupied city of Berdyansk.

    Videos on social media last week showed the explosions at the military airfield, but officials at the time would not confirm it was the ATACMS.

    "These strikes proved -– once again -– that Ukraine can notch battlefield victories when given the right tools,” said Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee who has long pressed the administration to send the long-range weapons.

    Ukraine’s first use of the weapon came as political gridlock in Congress had delayed approval of a $95 billion foreign aid package for months, including funding for Ukraine, Israel and other allies. Facing acute shortages of artillery and air defense systems, Ukraine has been rationing its munitions as U.S. funding was delayed.

    With the war now in its third year, Russia used the delay in U.S. weapons deliveries and its own edge in firepower and personnel to step up attacks across eastern Ukraine. It has increasingly used satellite-guided gliding bombs — dropped from planes from a safe distance — to pummel Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition.

    The mid-range missiles provided last year, and some of the long-range ones sent more recently, carry cluster munitions that open in the air when fired, releasing hundreds of bomblets rather than a single warhead. Others sent recently have a single warhead.

    One critical factor in the February decision to send the weapons was the U.S. Army’s ability to begin replacing the older ATACMS. The Army is now buying the Precision Strike Missile, so is more comfortable taking ATACMS off the shelves to provide to Ukraine, the official said.

    At the White House, Sullivan said the administration “has worked relentlessly to address those concerns" and stocks are now coming off the production line and the ATACMS can be sent without hurting U.S. military readiness.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Ellen Knickmeyer and Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.


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