The US Department of Defense has been asked to continue its surge of weapons deliveries to Ukraine, US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday after condemning Russia’s Christmas Day attack on Ukraine’s energy system and some of its cities.
Russia attacked Ukraine with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as drones, Kyiv said.
The strikes wounded at least six people in the northeastern city of Kharkiv and killed one in the region of Dnipropetrovsk, local officials said.
Photo: Reuters
Nearly three years into the war, Washington has committed US$175 billion in aid for Ukraine, but it is uncertain if the aid would continue at that pace under US president-elect Donald Trump, who is to replace Biden on Jan. 20.
Trump has said he wants to bring the war to a swift end.
“The purpose of this outrageous attack was to cut off the Ukrainian people’s access to heat and electricity during winter and to jeopardize the safety of its grid,” Biden said in a statement.
Keith Kellogg, Trump’s pick for special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, also criticized Wednesday’s attack.
“Christmas should be a time of peace, yet Ukraine was brutally attacked on Christmas Day,” Kellogg said. “The US is more resolved than ever to bring peace to the region.”
During his presidential election campaign, Trump questioned the level of US involvement in the conflict, suggesting that European allies should bear more of the financial burden.
Some of his fellow Republicans — who from next month are to control the US House of Representatives and the US Senate — have also cooled on sending more aid to Kyiv.
Meanwhile, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov yesterday said that Moscow sees no point in a weak ceasefire to freeze the war, but wants a legally binding deal for a lasting peace that would ensure the security of Russia and its neighbors.
“A truce is a path to nowhere,” Lavrov said, adding that Moscow suspected such a weak truce would be simply used by the West to rearm Ukraine.
“We need final legal agreements that will fix all the conditions for ensuring the security of the Russian Federation and, of course, the legitimate security interests of our neighbors,” he said.
Moscow wanted the legal documents drafted in such a way to ensure “the impossibility of violating these agreements,” he added.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
RSS