Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Ukraine gets warplanes from unidentified source; besieged Mariupol faces ‘last days’

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AFP) — Ukraine received fighter jets to help resist the Russian invasion, as Moscow intensified its offensive in the east where a besieged officer in Mariupol warned Wednesday his forces were facing their “last days, if not hours.”

The West has responded to a renewed Russian push into the Donbas region with fresh weapons for Kyiv and a push to increase “Moscow’s international isolation.”

The Pentagon said that Ukraine had recently received fighter planes and parts to bolster its air force, declining to specify the number of aircraft and their origin.

Kyiv has asked its Western partners to provide MiG-29s, which its pilots already know how to fly and a handful of Eastern European countries have.

Control of Donbas and the besieged southern port of Mariupol would allow Moscow to create a southern corridor to the Crimean peninsula that it annexed in 2014, depriving Ukraine of much of its coastline. READ MORE