US halts air defence missiles to Ukraine amid munitions shortage: Report
The Pentagon's slowing of some weapons shipments promised to Kyiv under former President Joe Biden's administration occurred in recent days. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Among the weapons that are being delayed are air defence interceptors that would help knock down inbound Russian drones and missiles and other munitions, the people said.Among the delayed shipments are air defence interceptors critical for countering incoming Russian drones and missiles. Russia, which already controls about a fifth of Ukraine, has continued making gradual advances, recently gaining ground in Ukraine's southeastern regions of Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk, Reuters reported.Weapons aid to Ukraine had previously been paused briefly in February and then for a longer period in March. The Trump administration has resumed the final shipments approved under Biden, but no new aid policy has been announced.- EndsMust Watch
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Economic Times
an hour ago
- Economic Times
View: Neither Israel, Iran nor the US won the Middle-East war; The real victor may be sitting in Moscow
TIL Creatives Representative AI Image The consensus after Israel's 12-day war with Iran seems to be that it ended in humiliation — not just for the Islamic Republic, but also Russia, which failed to lift a finger for a loyal ally and lost a supplier of critical drones. But that profoundly misreads both President Vladimir Putin's priorities and the timescale on which he conducts foreign no doubt that Putin's ambition to reassert Russia as a force in the Middle East has been set back. The fall of President Bashar Al-Assad in Syria was a significant loss. His failure to come to the aid of Iran, with whom he'd just signed a 20-year strategic partnership was embarrassing. A year ago, that would indeed have hurt Moscow's war effort in Ukraine, but Russia now makes its own version of the Iranian Shahed drones. Much more important is to understand where all this fits into Putin's worldview and priorities. Destroying the Ukrainian state ranks much higher for the Russian president than any other foreign policy goal, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere. And on that score, the US-Israeli attack on Iran was a net positive. In a broad sense, the outbreak of another war in the Middle East has sucked attention, energy and resources away from Ukraine, leaving Putin with a free hand. Even at last week's NATO summit, the core deliverable of a pledge to boost defense spending — to levels only justifiable by the threat from Russia — was shunted to the corner. Nobody wanted to anger Donald Trump during his victory lap. More concretely, Israel was able to blunt the impact of the Islamic Republic's missile barrages only by consuming a significant part of its air-defense stockpiles, as well as some from the US, which lent a hand using shipborne air defense systems. Equally, the US could only involve itself once it was confident it had enough Patriot batteries in place to protect its military bases around the region. The threat may have receded for now, but planners at the Pentagon are obliged to assume the war restarts and more air defense will be needed, making less available for Ukraine. So the recent dramatic boost in Russian missile and drone strikes on Ukraine was well timed. Overnight on Monday, Russia launched its biggest single barrage since the start of the war, including 477 drones and decoys, as well as 60 ballistic missiles that require high-level interceptors, such as Patriots. The fact that Ukraine lost an F-16 and its pilot trying to shoot down some of the barrage is a clear indication of the strain on the country's air defense attacks in previous days had been only a little smaller, so there was an air of desperation around President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's ask for more Patriot interceptors when he met with his US counterpart at NATO. There was also truth to Trump's comments afterward. He said he'd told Zelenskiy that he'd see what the US could do, but that the Patriots were hard to get, because: 'We need them too. We were supplying them to Israel.'This is what matters to Putin, far more than the optics abroad of his failure to come to Iran's aid. For this war will define a legacy that he sees in the context of the Russian Empire's construction over centuries. Or as his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, reportedly quipped in 2022, his boss has just three advisers: 'Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. And Catherine the Great.'Nothing that has happened in the last three years has dented this vision of Great Russian restoration. To Putin, not only is the very existence of Ukraine an affront, but the reabsorption of its resources — human, economic and military — into mother Russia is the sine qua non for Moscow's ability to remain at the top of the multipolar world order he sees replacing Western dominance. This is the reason for which Ukraine's plan to sign a trade treaty with the European Union so enraged him in 2013; it meant Kyiv would not join his own rival group, the Eurasian Union. 'All of Ukraine is ours,' Putin told an enthusiastic domestic audience at the annual St. Petersburg Economic Forum, on June 20. He wasn't shy about adding a new city, Sumy, as a new public target for occupation, either. Make no mistake, Odesa and Kharkiv would be next on the list, whose extent and end will be determined solely by what the Kremlin deems possible at acceptable cost. Ukraine is at a critical juncture. Until Trump came to office, it was evenly balanced as to whether Putin would be able to continue to exchange swathes of his armed forces for small increments of Ukrainian land long enough for Kyiv's defenses to collapse. With Trump's withdrawal of US military support, those calculations have shifted and the long-range missile and drone war forms an essential part of Russia's path to the moment Ukraine runs out of air defense interceptors, Russia's air force — still menacing in its scale and capabilities — would for the first time be able to impose air superiority across the country. The impunity that Israeli jets enjoyed over Iran should serve as a timely reminder of exactly what this could mean for Ukraine: A catastrophic collapse of defensive lines as its troops were bombed into submission from the has switched from the moral obscenity of blaming Ukraine for being invaded, to complaining about Putin's disinterest in peace talks. But he needs to do better than that. He needs to recognize, at least to himself, that Putin has played him. The intelligence operative running the Kremlin has leveraged Trump's desperation for a ceasefire to further Russia's war aims, and at a time when he too has growing vulnerabilities, including a looming credit may be years before anyone can say with certainty that the US military intervention in Iran was a success or failure. But if there is one conclusion Trump can draw from its success in imposing a ceasefire on Israel and Iran, it's that for peace-through-strength to work, you need to first show the strength. That's something he has woefully failed to do in his dealings with the Kremlin. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
View: Neither Israel, Iran nor the US won the Middle-East war; The real victor may be sitting in Moscow
The consensus after Israel's 12-day war with Iran seems to be that it ended in humiliation — not just for the Islamic Republic, but also Russia, which failed to lift a finger for a loyal ally and lost a supplier of critical drones. But that profoundly misreads both President Vladimir Putin's priorities and the timescale on which he conducts foreign policy. There's no doubt that Putin's ambition to reassert Russia as a force in the Middle East has been set back. The fall of President Bashar Al-Assad in Syria was a significant loss. His failure to come to the aid of Iran, with whom he'd just signed a 20-year strategic partnership was embarrassing. A year ago, that would indeed have hurt Moscow's war effort in Ukraine , but Russia now makes its own version of the Iranian Shahed drones . Much more important is to understand where all this fits into Putin's worldview and priorities. Destroying the Ukrainian state ranks much higher for the Russian president than any other foreign policy goal, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere. And on that score, the US-Israeli attack on Iran was a net positive. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Hear true cinema with boAt Boat Buy Now Undo In a broad sense, the outbreak of another war in the Middle East has sucked attention, energy and resources away from Ukraine, leaving Putin with a free hand. Even at last week's NATO summit , the core deliverable of a pledge to boost defense spending — to levels only justifiable by the threat from Russia — was shunted to the corner. Nobody wanted to anger Donald Trump during his victory lap. More concretely, Israel was able to blunt the impact of the Islamic Republic's missile barrages only by consuming a significant part of its air-defense stockpiles, as well as some from the US, which lent a hand using shipborne air defense systems. Equally, the US could only involve itself once it was confident it had enough Patriot batteries in place to protect its military bases around the region. The threat may have receded for now, but planners at the Pentagon are obliged to assume the war restarts and more air defense will be needed, making less available for Ukraine. Live Events So the recent dramatic boost in Russian missile and drone strikes on Ukraine was well timed. Overnight on Monday, Russia launched its biggest single barrage since the start of the war, including 477 drones and decoys, as well as 60 ballistic missiles that require high-level interceptors, such as Patriots. The fact that Ukraine lost an F-16 and its pilot trying to shoot down some of the barrage is a clear indication of the strain on the country's air defense systems. The attacks in previous days had been only a little smaller, so there was an air of desperation around President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's ask for more Patriot interceptors when he met with his US counterpart at NATO. There was also truth to Trump's comments afterward. He said he'd told Zelenskiy that he'd see what the US could do, but that the Patriots were hard to get, because: 'We need them too. We were supplying them to Israel.' This is what matters to Putin, far more than the optics abroad of his failure to come to Iran's aid. For this war will define a legacy that he sees in the context of the Russian Empire's construction over centuries. Or as his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, reportedly quipped in 2022, his boss has just three advisers: 'Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. And Catherine the Great.' Nothing that has happened in the last three years has dented this vision of Great Russian restoration. To Putin, not only is the very existence of Ukraine an affront, but the reabsorption of its resources — human, economic and military — into mother Russia is the sine qua non for Moscow's ability to remain at the top of the multipolar world order he sees replacing Western dominance. This is the reason for which Ukraine's plan to sign a trade treaty with the European Union so enraged him in 2013; it meant Kyiv would not join his own rival group, the Eurasian Union. 'All of Ukraine is ours,' Putin told an enthusiastic domestic audience at the annual St. Petersburg Economic Forum, on June 20. He wasn't shy about adding a new city, Sumy, as a new public target for occupation, either. Make no mistake, Odesa and Kharkiv would be next on the list, whose extent and end will be determined solely by what the Kremlin deems possible at acceptable cost. Ukraine is at a critical juncture. Until Trump came to office, it was evenly balanced as to whether Putin would be able to continue to exchange swathes of his armed forces for small increments of Ukrainian land long enough for Kyiv's defenses to collapse. With Trump's withdrawal of US military support, those calculations have shifted and the long-range missile and drone war forms an essential part of Russia's path to victory. From the moment Ukraine runs out of air defense interceptors, Russia's air force — still menacing in its scale and capabilities — would for the first time be able to impose air superiority across the country. The impunity that Israeli jets enjoyed over Iran should serve as a timely reminder of exactly what this could mean for Ukraine: A catastrophic collapse of defensive lines as its troops were bombed into submission from the air. Trump has switched from the moral obscenity of blaming Ukraine for being invaded, to complaining about Putin's disinterest in peace talks. But he needs to do better than that. He needs to recognize, at least to himself, that Putin has played him. The intelligence operative running the Kremlin has leveraged Trump's desperation for a ceasefire to further Russia's war aims, and at a time when he too has growing vulnerabilities, including a looming credit crisis. It may be years before anyone can say with certainty that the US military intervention in Iran was a success or failure. But if there is one conclusion Trump can draw from its success in imposing a ceasefire on Israel and Iran, it's that for peace-through-strength to work, you need to first show the strength. That's something he has woefully failed to do in his dealings with the Kremlin. .)
India.com
an hour ago
- India.com
Will Pakistan get S-400 air defense system? Turkey made a plan for F-35... what is the Russian connection?
Will Pakistan get S-400 air defense system? Turkey made a plan for F-35... what is the Russian connection? Turkey To Sell S-400 to Pakistan: Geopolitical equations are changing rapidly around the world and another big headache may emerge for India's security policy. The air defense system that protected India from air threats from Pakistan. Now the same S-400 system can go into the hands of India's enemy Pakistan. This claim has been made by a former minister of Turkey. Turkey, which bought this system from Russia for $ 2.5 billion, is now preparing to get rid of this system to build better relations with America. This matter is not just about military technology, but also indicates a new 'cold war' between India and Turkey. The bitterness in India-Turkey relations in the last decade is now openly moving towards confrontation at the level of military strategy. India and Turkey are now seen at two opposite poles of global diplomacy. Recently, when India increased diplomatic and military partnership with Turkey's rivals Cyprus and Greece, it was a clear message that India is not taking Turkey's growing closeness with Pakistan lightly. The visit of the Indian Air Force Chief to Greece and Prime Minister Modi's visit to Cyprus are part of this. At the same time, Turkey has started many military projects in collaboration with Pakistan and has also supported Pakistan on various global forums. Now selling state-of-the-art systems like S-400 to Pakistan can become a new challenge for India. Turkey wants to give up S-400, wants to get F-35 from America Turkey had made a deal for S-400 defense system from Russia in 2017, but due to this it was excluded from America's F-35 fighter jet program and also had to face CAA TSA sanctions. Now Turkey wants to improve relations with America and is developing a new multi-layer air defense system called 'Steel Dome'. 'Steel Dome' will be completely domestic, in which Turkish defense companies ASELSAN, ROKETSAN and MKE are working. Turkey has made it clear that the Russian S-400 will not be included in this system. This is an indication that Turkey is preparing to get rid of the S-400 and is trying to rejoin the F-35 program. Will S-400 be sold to Pakistan? Former Turkish Minister Cavit Caglar created a sensation by saying that Turkey should consider selling S-400 and its potential buyers could be India or Pakistan. Although he gave preference to Pakistan, but this is just speculation, not any official confirmation. The reality is that Turkey has neither been able to fully integrate S-400 into its network, nor has it activated it. In such a situation, it may think of satisfying America by selling this system. How possible is the sale of S-400 to Pakistan? However, technically and diplomatically it is not that easy. Turkey's agreement with Russia makes it clear that it cannot transfer or sell S-400 to any other country without prior permission from Russia. And getting this permission is almost impossible. Russia is not only a strategic partner of India, but it has already given India five squadrons of S-400. Russia would not want India's rival Pakistan to have the same system. Also, Pakistan is not in a financial position to buy an expensive system like the S-400. The cost of one squadron is around $500 million. On the other hand, talks are going on between India and Russia regarding additional batch of S-400 and S-500 systems. India is already the operator of these systems and Russia also trusts India. In such a situation, if Turkey wants to get rid of S-400, then India can become a viable buyer for it. Provided Russia allows it. Currently, both the S-400 units Turkey has are lying dormant and kept at an undisclosed location. Turkey does not want to activate it so that it can maintain better relations with NATO and the US.
