On Monday, a bipartisan group of six Senators urged Pentagon to do more to help Ukraine defend its cities and military installations from Russian air and missile attacks.
In a letter, Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Robert Portman (R-Ohio), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) urged the defense leaders to consider recommending the inclusion of fourth-generation fighter aircraft, along with funding for the necessary flight training in future military aid packages.
The senators insist on the need to transfer modern fighter jets to Ukraine to significantly increase its ability to counter deadly missile attacks on civilian cities. They also said in a letter they met in June with a delegation of Ukrainian fighter pilots and air defense officers to hear first-hand what they need to defend Ukrainian cities and military installations from Russian air and missile attacks.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now in its 145th day, has become increasingly bloody. Russian missiles struck the city of Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, killing at least 24 people, including three children, in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called “an open act of terrorism”.
The midday attack on a city hundreds of kilometers from front-line fighting and far from invading Russian troops came as European Union officials convened in The Hague to discuss Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine. Russians also hit the shopping center in Kremenchuk, where dozens of dead and they don’t stop the daily shelling of Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and front-line cities.