Day 278: US Mulls Arming Ukraine with 100-Mile Range Weapons, Report Says

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Facts

  • According to reporting from Reuters, the Pentagon is considering a Boeing proposal to arm Ukraine with Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB) — munitions capable of traveling a 94-mile (150 km) range.
  • While the US has reportedly rejected proposals for the 185-mile (297 km) range ATACMS missile, GLSDBs — produced jointly by Boeing and Saab — would allow Ukraine to hit targets previously out of reach and disrupt Russia's supply lines near the rear. The Pentagon and Boeing declined to comment on Reuters' report.
  • Meanwhile, as Ukraine continued to struggle with energy shortages, Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Sunday that the situation was stabilizing, stating that only scheduled outages would be in effect. He thanked, "the thousands of people who worked round the clock, all over our state, to restore light, water, heat and communication."
  • However, Zelenskyy warned Ukrainians to prepare for further Russian attacks. "We understand that the terrorists are preparing new strikes. We know that for sure. And as long as they have missiles, they won’t stop, unfortunately..."
  • On Monday, renewed Russian attacks were reported in Sumy, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia, in addition to Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Kherson. Ukrainian officials reported that two civilians were killed and four others were injured in Donetsk, while one person was killed and three more were injured in Zaporizhzhia. One civilian was killed and two more were injured in Kherson, while two people were injured in Kharkiv.
  • Pro-Russia officials from the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) reported that three civilians were killed and seven more were injured in Ukrainian attacks on the region for the same time period.
  • Elsewhere, the foreign ministers of Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden all arrived in Kyiv on Monday. Lithuania's Gabrielius Landsbergis said they were there to show "full solidarity with Ukraine" in the face of Russia's "barbaric brutality."

Sources: Reuters, Ukrinform, Pravda, Dan, and Guardian.

Narratives

  • Anti-Russia narrative, as provided by The Guardian. The only way Ukraine can conduct meaningful negotiations is if Russia loses this war and loses decisively. The West must help Kyiv achieve this outcome as it would would prevent countries like China from having imperial ambitions of their own and further threatening world peace.
  • Pro-Russia narrative, as provided by Tass. Russia welcomes the efforts of the Vatican and some other countries to be intermediaries in the war. However, Kyiv has not fundamentally changed its position of trying to defeat Russia on the battlefield, so such negotiations are not possible at this stage.

Predictions