Ukraine-Russia War: A Dirty Power Game of Supremacy

 

Latest perniciousU.S.-made advanced missiles in a Ukrainian attack on Russian-annexed Crimea.

The world must be an abode for people to live together in peace, but what we practically see is just diametrically the opposite. Most humans have become sub-humans. The whole world has become a place of hell of incalculable humanagonies, majorly because of Uncle Sam.

The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the American ambassador on 24 June 2024to protest what it says was the use of U.S.-made advanced missiles in a Ukrainian attack on Russian-annexed Crimea that reportedly killed four people and wounded more than 150.

Washington “has effectively become a party” to the war on Ukraine’s side, the ministry said in a statement, adding, “Retaliatory measures will certainly follow.” It did not elaborate.

There was no immediate comment from U.S. or Ukrainian officials. The Associated Press could not independently verify Russia’s claims about the missiles used.

Kyiv’s forces have relied heavily on Western-supplied weaponry since Russia’s invasion more than three years ago. The military aid has been crucial in allowing Ukraine to hold the Kremlin’s army at bay, with few major changes along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line in eastern and southern Ukraine for many months.

Some Western countries have hesitated over providing more and more sophisticated help for Kyiv’s army because of concerns about potentially provoking the Kremlin. But as Ukraine has at times struggled to hold the line against Russia’s bigger and better-equipped military, Western leaders have gradually relented and granted more support.

In the latest key development, the Pentagon said last week that Ukraine’s military is being allowed to use longer-range missiles provided by the U.S. to strike targets inside Russia if it is acting in self-defense. Since the outset of the war, the U.S. had maintained a policy of allowing Ukraine to use the weapons it provided to hit targets on Russian soil for fear of further escalating the conflict.

Crimea, which Russian annexed from Ukraine in 2014 in a move that most of the world rejected as unlawful, long had been declared a fair target for Ukraine by its Western allies.

Russian authorities said that the dead-on24 June 2024 attack included two children who were hit by falling debris from Ukrainian missiles that were shot down over a coastal area in Sevastopol, a port city in Crimea. It said cluster munitions, which critics say harm more civilians than combatants, were also used.

Russia said the missiles were U.S.-made ATACMS, a long-range, guided missile. It summoned U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy to the Foreign Ministry.
The targeting and “mission input” for such missile attacks is carried out by U.S. military experts, the ministry statement alleged, saying the United States bears “equal responsibility for this outrage” with the Ukrainian authorities.

It went on to say that “allowing strikes deep inside the Russian territory will not be left unanswered.”Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry on 24 June 2024 reported striking a “major logistical hub” of the Ukrainian military that held Western-supplied missiles and other weapons.It said the strike was carried out by warplanes, drones, ground-launched missiles and artillery.

The attacks in the war-torn Donetsk region have prompted a scaled-up evacuation effort by Ukrainian rescue services. Local officials said that powerful Russian glide bombs have also been used in the town, the latest eastern front flash point as Russian attacks continue to put stretched Ukrainian front-line units on the defensive.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 24 June 2024 that Russia had dropped more than 800 glide bombs in Ukraine in the past week alone.
“Ukraine needs the necessary means to destroy the carriers of these bombs, including Russian combat aircraft, wherever they are. This step is essential,” he wrote in an online post.

Glide bombs are heavy Soviet-era bombs fitted with precision guidance systems and launched from aircraft flying out of range of air defenses. The bombs weigh more than a ton and blast targets to smithereens, leaving a huge crater.

Police rescuers in Toretsk helped older residents out of their homes, carrying one woman out of her bed and onto a stretcher.

“It’s a terrible situation, because for three days we could not evacuate,” Oksana Zharko, 48, told The Associated Press while leaving the town in a police van with family members and a cat in a plastic carrier box.

“Yesterday there was an attack and our house was destroyed — very strong, there are no walls left. Everyone is stressed, emotional, in tears. It’s very scary.”

Russian attacks in recent weeks have focused on the town of Chasiv Yar farther north, as Ukrainian commanders in the area say their resources remain stretched.

Ukraine is still struggling to stabilize parts of its front line after desperately needed military assistance was approved by the United States in April 2024.
Zelenskyy called on countries assisting Ukraine to further relax restrictions on using Western weapons to strike military targets inside Russia.

“Clear decisions are needed to help protect our people,” he said. “Long-range strikes and modern air defense are the foundation for stopping the daily Russian terror. I thank all our partners who understand this.”

Hours after Zelenskyy spoke, Ukrainian officials said Russian glide bombs had struck near a postal warehouse in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city in the northeast, killing an employee and injuring nine people including an 8-month-old baby.

According to a statement by Nova Poshta, the private postal and courier company that operates the site, the strike set at least seven delivery trucks ablaze, while damaging at least three others and the warehouse itself. One driver died as a result.

As many as nine people remained trapped under burning wreckage, and rescue teams were combing the site on 24 June 2024 evening, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram.

Ukrainian officials published photos of bodies stretched out under picnic blankets in a park in Vilniansk, and deep craters in the blackened earth next to the charred, twisted remains of a building.

At least 38 people were wounded on 22 June 2024 evening’s attack, authorities said, and declared a day of mourning on23 June 2024. Vilniansk is in the Zaporizhzhia region, less than 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the local capital and north of the front lines, as Russian forces continue to occupy part of the province.

Russia-appointed officials in Donetsk, which is partially occupied and illegally annexed by Moscow, said that Ukrainian shelling on 23 June 2024 wounded a 4-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl. According to Russia’s Emergencies Ministry, four of its staff also came under shelling as they attempted to put out a fire in the Kremlin-occupied local capital, also called Donetsk.

The Russian Defense Ministry on 23 June 2024 reported its forces overnight shot down three dozen Ukrainian drones over six regions in Russia’s southwest. It later said that a total of 72 were downed on 22 June 2024 and during the night.

Debris from one drone fell on a village in the Kursk region, blowing out windows and damaging roofs and fences, according to a Telegram post by regional Gov. Aleksey Smirnov.

The attacks in the war-torn Donetsk region have prompted a scaled-up evacuation effort by Ukrainian rescue services. Local officials said that powerful Russian glide bombs have also been used in the town, the latest eastern front flash point as Russian attacks continue to put stretched Ukrainian front-line units on the defensive.

“It’s a terrible situation, because for three days we could not evacuate,” Oksana Zharko, 48, told The Associated Press while leaving the town in a police van with family members and a cat in a plastic carrier box.“Yesterday there was an attack and our house was destroyed — very strong, there are no walls left. Everyone is stressed, emotional, in tears. It’s very scary.”

Ukraine’s military is allowed to use longer-range missiles provided by the U.S. to strike targets inside Russia across more than just the front lines near Kharkiv if it is acting in self-defense, the Pentagon said.

Russia has been firing on Ukrainian targets from inside its border, treating its territory as a “safe zone,” said Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary.

“As we see those forces conducting those types of operations from across the border, we’ve explained Ukraine can and does have the right to fire back to defend themselves,” Ryder told reporters recently.

The Pentagon said,“This is not about geography. It’s about common sense,” said spokesman Army Maj. Charlie Dietz. “If Russia is attacking or about to attack from its territory into Ukraine, it only makes sense to allow Ukraine to hit back against the forces that are hitting it from across the border.”
Where is the end of the conflict of power supremacy between America and Russia? How long shall we have to wait for, in a pensive mood?


Anwar A. Khan is a freedom
fighter who writes on politics
and international issues.