United States Secretary of Defense LLoyd Austin and new Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov attend the 15th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base on September 19, 2023. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Defense Minister Rustem Umerov spoke with Pentagon head Lloyd Austin by phone on Nov. 25 and discussed Russian airstrikes, the U.S. Department of Defense revealed.
“Secretary Austin condemned Russia's continued barrage of missile and Unmanned Aerial System attacks on Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure.”
The two defense chiefs pledged to remain in close contact.
“They also discussed security assistance priorities, as Ukraine continues to fight Russian aggression.”
Lance Luo (Li P. Luo) is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. Previously, he worked at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Hromadske Television in Kyiv. He also spent three years in finance and strategy consulting. Mr. Luo graduated from the University of Southern California and serves as an arbitrator at FINRA.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed establishing a temporary “humanitarian mission” in the embattled eastern Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka, which President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Nov. 13 could provide Russian forces with an opportunity to enter and occupy the city.
The General Staff reported a fire at the Samara linear production control station near the village of Prosvet in Samara Oblast, some 950 kilometers east of Ukraine-controlled territory, with several oil storage tanks on fire.
"If you impose restrictions there, you are already partially recognizing the temporarily occupied territories as not ours," Zelensky told journalists, referring to the existing ban on Ukraine using Starshield to target sites inside Russia, which has now been partially extended to Ukrainian territories occupied by Moscow.
"The Americans raised the question: 'What if Ukraine joins NATO? Would Ukraine withdraw from Donbas?' This was the first time this issue had been raised," President Volodymyr Zelensky told journalists.
In Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Russian attacks killed three people, including a child, and injured 62 others, including eight children, Governor Ivan Fedorov said.
"The October and November restrictions now raise the disturbing possibility that these vulnerabilities persist even within systems on which the U.S. government relies," Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Chris Coons wrote.
The grounding was the first nationwide flight stoppage since January 2023, when an FAA computer system malfunctioned. Before that, the last nationwide grounding followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Local authorities later on Nov. 13 reported that a rescue worker from the Cobra emergency service was killed when a concrete slab fell on him while he was clearing debris from a building damaged in the Russian attack.
The U.S. Air Force has maintained a presence at the base since 1948, as part of the longstanding military partnership between the United States and the United Kingdom.
"Today the leaders agreed that our European Team for the negotiations on peace in Ukraine is the European Union institutions and the E5 (countries) of the Coalition of the Willing," European Council President Antonio Costa said on Nov. 13.
The property was seized on Nov. 9 as part of an investigation into the alleged embezzlement of $113 million from Ukraine's now-defunct Finance and Credit Bank, which Zhevago previously controlled.
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