Ukraine Sinks Russian Black Sea Boat With NATO Harpoon Missile

This strike on a Russian boat carrying troops and weapons may be viewed as target practice, with an eye towards eventually eliminating the Russian naval threat in the Black Sea, preparatory to ending the blockade of Ukrainian exports. JL 

James Marson reports in the Wall Street Journal:

The Ukrainian navy struck a Russian tugboat in the Black Sea with a Harpoon antiship missile system provided by the West. The strike on the Vasiliy Bekh tugboat is the first time Ukrainian officials have acknowledged deploying the Harpoon systems, which have been sent by the U.K. and Denmark. The Ukrainian Navy said the boat had been transporting ammunition, weapons and personnel from the Black Sea Fleet to Snake Island off the Ukrainian coast. Ukraine has in recent weeks pummeled Russian forces there after sinking the Russian cruiser Moskva

The Ukrainian navy struck a Russian tugboat in the Black Sea with a Harpoon antiship missile system provided by the West, as Russian invasion forces intensified airstrikes and shelling in the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk, Ukrainian officials said.

The strike on the Vasiliy Bekh tugboat is the first time Ukrainian officials have acknowledged deploying the Harpoon systems, which have been sent by the U.K. and Denmark. The U.S. said this week it would donate two additional American-made Harpoon systems to Ukraine as part of a fresh $1 billion military-assistance package.

The Ukrainian Navy said the boat had been transporting ammunition, weapons and personnel from the Black Sea Fleet to Snake Island off the Ukrainian coast. Russia seized the island on the first day of its invasion, but Ukraine has in recent weeks pummeled Russian forces there after sinking the Russian cruiser Moskva, which had provided air defense.

Russian officials didn’t immediately comment.

 

In Ukraine’s east, Ukrainian troops are nearly cut off in Severodonetsk, one of the last major cities not under Russian control in the Luhansk region, but Russian forces are struggling to drive them out of a chemicals factory there.

Russia is stepping up its bombing campaigns against the facility and the city of Lysychansk, controlled by Ukraine and overlooking Severodonetsk from across the strategic Siverskyi Donets River, Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Haidai said Friday. Three civilians were killed and seven injured when a missile hit a cultural center in Lysychansk where they were sheltering, Mr. Haidai said. Another civilian died from shelling on the streets, while a mother and son were killed in Severodonetsk, he said.

“Fighting continues for complete control of Severodonetsk,” Mr. Haidai said.

Russian strikes were also hitting the Azot plant where Ukrainian forces and civilians are holed up, in an echo of the earlier battle for Mariupol. Large numbers of Ukrainian troops fought on for months in the southern port city’s industrial zone after reinforcements were cut off during the early stages of the Russian invasion. Mr. Hadai said all the administrative buildings at the Azot plant have now been damaged by bombing.

Ukrainian forces are standing firm, however. Kyiv’s military said it repulsed a Russian attack on the town of Zolote to the south of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, part of Moscow’s effort to surround Ukrainian troops there.

The fight for Donbas, a heavily industrialized area in the east of the country where pro-Russian separatists sliced off some territory from Kyiv’s control in 2014, comes as European Union members are continuing consultations over whether to give Ukraine the green light to begin the long process of joining the bloc.

On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi traveled together on a train to Kyiv, where Romanian President Klaus Iohannis later joined the group in a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. At a news conference, Mr. Macron said all four visiting leaders backed Ukraine’s becoming a member of the EU. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, opened the way for Ukraine to one day join by recommending that it be recognized as an official candidate.

The commission’s move is just one of many obstacles in Ukraine’s path to membership. Kyiv needs the unanimous support of all the leaders in the 27-nation economic bloc to set in motion the painstaking process for becoming a member. Even if approved, it could take months or even years for actual negotiations to start. The issue has been divisive among EU capitals, especially in Western European countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands, where opposition to enlarging the bloc has meant that no new country has joined the EU since Croatia almost a decade ago.

Still, the backing of the EU’s largest economies creates diplomatic momentum heading into next week’s EU summit in Brussels, where the issue will be discussed. It also sends a signal to Moscow that Ukraine’s economic future lies with Europe and the West.

The battle on the ground, meanwhile, is turning into an artillery campaign and a test of both sides’ supply routes. After failing in their initial campaign to capture Kyiv, Russian forces have regrouped in Donbas, where they have made deep inroads. Russia has deployed long-range artillery to outgun Ukrainian troops, who are taking heavy casualties. Kyiv has been pleading for more weapons from the West as it scrambles to shore up its defenses.

Various Western countries have promised deliveries of heavy weapons, but Kyiv says the supplies aren’t enough, and analysts say much of the equipment promised hasn’t arrived.

On Thursday, Mr. Macron said France planned to send six more truck-mounted howitzers to Ukraine. Mr. Scholz said Germany would continue to deliver weapons to Ukraine, emphasizing a recent agreement between the U.S., the U.K. and Germany to provide multiple-launch rocket systems.

On Wednesday, the U.S. announced it was sending $1 billion in new military assistance to Ukraine, but the package of artillery, ammunition and coastal-defense systems amounts to a fraction of what Kyiv has requested. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba thanked the U.S. for the new round of assistance but stressed that “we urgently need more heavy weapons delivered more regularly.”

Meanwhile, fears are growing over the fate of two American men who volunteered to serve alongside Ukrainian forces and who are now missing and thought to be captured by Russian forces, according to officials. The mother of one of the men said she was told the two hadn’t returned from a mission. Alexander Drueke, 39 years old, and 27-year-old Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh are both U.S. military veterans.