September 20, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

The US is not expected to provide Ukraine with long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) imminently, US officials said, despite repeated requests from Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky. 

The ATACMS will not be part of a new weapons package for Ukraine that may come as soon as Thursday, officials said, which is when Zelensky is expected to meet with US President Joe Biden for a bilateral meeting.

Currently, the maximum range of US weapons committed to Ukraine is around 93 miles with the ground-launched small diameter bomb.

What the weapons do: The ATACMS, which have a range of around 186 miles, would allow the Ukrainian military to strike targets twice as far away – even further than the UK-provided long-range Storm Shadow missiles, which have a range of about 155 miles. ATACMS missiles are fired from HIMARS rocket launchers, the same type of vehicle that launches the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles that Ukraine already employs.

The US Army’s head of acquisitions Doug Bush, said on Tuesday that a final decision on ATACMS still had not been made. CNN previously reported that Biden is expected to decide soon on sending the missiles to Ukraine, a capability that would allow them to strike targets deeper in Crimea. 

Asked what version of the ATACMS missile the Army would be able to provide, Bush said, “I think there are different versions of ATACMS, and I think that is just part of the conversation that would inform senior leader making the final decision.”

Bush said the number of ATACMS missile in the US inventory, which he would not divulge, is not a limiting factor in providing the missile to Ukraine. The Army would try to replace any missiles transferred to Kyiv with the newer Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) missile.

More background: There is also a version of the ATACMS that the US no longer uses, however, which could alleviate stockpile concerns. The US has in its stocks an earlier version of the system with rockets that carry cluster munitions, also known as dual purpose improved conventional munitions or DPICMs, officials told CNN. Those were retired after the US phased out the use of DPICMs in 2016, and Ukrainian officials have argued that the US has little excuse not to provide them if they are simply collecting dust in storage.

The cluster munitions they are equipped with have a higher dud rate than the US is comfortable with, however, officials have told CNN. The dud rate refers to the number of bomblets dispersed by the munition that fail to explode on impact, posing a long-term risk to civilians who may encounter them later. A US official said the dud rate of the ATACMS cluster munition variant depends on how they are fired. 

The US provided cluster munitions to the Ukrainians earlier this year that can be fired from shorter-range systems, and Ukraine has been using them effectively, officials have said.  

President Volodymyr Zelensky departed the United Nations on Wednesday after speaking at the Security Council meeting on the war in Ukraine.

Zelensky is expected to meet with President Joe Biden on Thursday in Washington, DC, and visit the US Capitol as he appeals for more support for Kyiv.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday sought to highlight the horrific human toll of the ongoing war in Ukraine as the Biden administration seeks to maintain support for Kyiv amid growing dissension in Congress. 

In remarks at a United Nations Security Council meeting, Blinken spoke in great detail about visiting the formerly occupied town of Yahidne during his recent trip to Ukraine, where Russian soldiers rounded up more than 300 villagers — “mostly women, children, and elderly people” — and imprisoned them in the basement of a school for nearly a month, “using them as human shields.”

He described seeing “two handwritten lists of names on the basement wall." He said, “One was for the villagers the Russian forces had executed. The other, for the people who died in the basement.”

“The oldest victim was 93 years old. The youngest — six weeks old,” Blinken continued.

“The Russians only allowed the removal of bodies once a day — so children, parents, husbands, and wives were forced to spend hours next to the corpses of their loved ones,” he described.

“I begin here because — from the comfortable distance of this chamber — it’s really easy to lose sight of what it’s like for the Ukrainian victims of Russia’s aggression,” Blinken said.

Blinken noted, “This is what happened in just one building, in one community in Ukraine. There are so many others like it."

The US official went on to discuss recent attacks by Russia. “In the last week alone, Russia has bombed apartment buildings in Kryvyi Riv, it’s burned down humanitarian aid depots in Lviv, it’s demolished grain silos in Odesa, it’s shelled eight communities in Sumy in a single day," he said.

The top US diplomat’s effort to reify the horrific reality of the war comes ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s trip to Washington, DC, and as the administration tees up for a potential funding fight with Congress over continued support for the war. 

Blinken also spoke broadly about Russia’s violations of the international order, telling fellow UN members: “It’s hard to imagine a country demonstrating more contempt for the United Nations and all it stands for.”

“This, from a country with a permanent seat on this Council,” he added.

A ban on Ukrainian grain put in place by neighboring countries is costing Kyiv more than $175 million a month, a senior official said.

Ukraine's neighbors — which include Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Romania — have said that the arrival of cheap Ukrainian grain has distorted local markets. In some countries, farmers have protested and blocked roads to demand that the imports cease. 

"If the bans continue, the losses could reach about €600 million ($644 million) by the end of the year," said Denys Marchuk, the deputy chairman of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council.

Marchuk said the embargo by other countries "plays into the hands of one country, the aggressor country of Russia." Since pulling out of the Black Sea Grain deal in July, Russia has had the ability to "influence the course of ships in the Black Sea, does not allow Ukraine to fully export."

"The ban in the Black Sea and the inability to carry out full exports via land routes will provoke an aggravation of the food crisis, which is beneficial for Russia," Marchuk said.

Ukraine has already taken some legal action: Kyiv filed a lawsuit on Monday against Poland, Hungary and Slovakia over their ban on imports, Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said.

It came after the European Union said on Friday that it planned to suspend the temporary ban on the export of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seed to Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

The measure was put in place to counter the risk of farmers in these countries being undercut by a bottleneck of cheap Ukrainian grain. However, Poland, Hungry, and Slovakia said they would defy it. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the chamber, is continuing to push for the United States to give more aid to Ukraine ahead of President Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to the Capitol.

McConnell said that “our nation has a fundamental interest in Ukraine victory and European security" during floor remarks.

He suggested that the Biden administration needs to make that case more fervently, but his words also were directed at members of his own party who have balked at providing any more assistance to the besieged nation. McConnell argued the US “support for Ukraine isn't distracted from competition with China but contributing materially to it."

He pushed back on arguments to cut off the aid, suggesting the administration should do the same. 

Republican skepticism: The Biden administration recently asked Congress for $24 billion more in assistance to Kyiv, including $13 billion in security assistance, as the president and other senior administration officials have vowed to continue US aid for “as long as it takes.”

But some members of the Republican party have raised questions about how much bipartisan support there is for such substantial sums of aid to continue. A growing number of Republicans have begun questioning the wisdom of spending billions of dollars in Ukraine and have called for greater oversight.

It all comes as Congress faces a deadline to avoid a government shutdown next week.

The Ukrainian military says it successfully hit a Russian command post in Crimea on Wednesday morning.

The command post was "of the occupiers' Black Sea Fleet near Verkhniosadove near the temporarily occupied Sevastopol," the Strategic Communications Directorate of the Defense Ministry posted on Telegram.

Some background: Over the past month, Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russian military bases and other installations, including air defenses, in Crimea.

Earlier Wednesday, Ukraine claimed responsibility for a series of explosions reported in the occupied area. Ukrainian Defense Intelligence spokesperson Andrii Yusov said Russia is using Crimea as a "logistics hub" and that "the ultimate goal, of course, is the de-occupation of Ukrainian Crimea."

Poland's Foreign Ministry has "urgently summoned" the Ukrainian ambassador to Warsaw to convey "strong protest" against comments made by President Volodymyr Zelensky at the UN General Assembly, the ministry said in a statement Wednesday. 

In his remarks at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Zelensky said "it is alarming to see how some in Europe, some of our friends in Europe, play out solidarity in a political theater – making a thriller from the grain," adding "they may seem to play their own role but in fact they are helping set the stage to a Moscow actor."

Poland's Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski told Ukraine's Ambassador Vasyl Zvarych that Zelensky's "thesis is untrue in relation to Poland and, moreover, particularly unauthorized in relation to our country, which has been supporting Ukraine since the first days of the war."

Jablonski "expressed concern about the recent public message of the highest representatives of the Ukrainian authorities, which imposes a one-sided perspective on the multidimensional problem of exporting Ukrainian agricultural products to neighboring countries."

Jablonski said he expects "both the policy pursued by the Ukrainian authorities and their public communication will reflect the actual nature of Polish-Ukrainian relations, both current and historical," and that the Ukrainian side take into account "the unprecedented assistance provided by Poland and Poles to the Ukrainian population and the Ukrainian state."

What Ukraine says: Ukraine has rejected Polish criticism of remarks made by Zelensky at the United Nations, where he criticized the unilateral ban by some European countries in imports of cheap Ukrainian grain.

Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Foreign Ministry, said that the ministry "was informed in detail about the meeting of the Ukrainian Ambassador in Warsaw with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland."

"During this meeting, the Ukrainian Ambassador once again explained the Ukrainian position on the unacceptability for Ukraine of the Polish unilateral ban on imports of Ukrainian grain."

A series of explosions reported in occupied Crimea on Wednesday were the work of Ukrainian forces, Ukrainian Defense Intelligence confirmed.

"We can confirm that these were the actions of the Ukrainian security and defense forces against the occupiers' military targets," agency spokesperson Andrii Yusov said.

Yusov told Ukrainian television: "The planned work of the Ukrainian security and defense forces continues, of course, on the military facilities of the occupiers, invaders in the temporarily occupied territories, including the Ukrainian Crimea. Very soon the details will be made public by the Armed Forces and the General Staff."

Some context: Over the past month, Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russian military bases and other installations, including air defenses, in Crimea.

The Kremlin has said US President Joe Biden has never enjoyed the same level of support among the population as Russian leader Vladimir Putin, while responding to Biden’s recent characterization of Putin as "dictator."

According to Peskov, Russian citizens have consistently given Putin strong support.

“There is an opinion of the overwhelming majority of the population of our country, which was repeatedly expressed during the elections,” he said.

Peskov also noted the Russian president never “lowered himself” to the level of personal insults against his colleagues.

Some context: Biden's comment, made during a campaign reception in New York, emphasized his unwillingness to "side with dictators like Putin," a sentiment he contrasted with former President Donald Trump and his supporters.

“I will not side with dictators like Putin. Maybe Trump and his MAGA friends can bow down and praise him, but I won’t,” Biden said, according to the White House transcript.