Russian troops and thousands are lining up along northwest of
Kharkiv in Ukraine,
says Ukraines President Radhimir Zalenski,
as he renews his plea for permission to target them
with missiles supplied by Western allies.
Zalenski says the satellite images show Russian forces building up
near Ukraine Sumi city
and that the areas from where Russian combat aircraft takeoff
and missiles are launched are already located.
But Ukrainian forces are not allowed to strike targets inside
Russia with Western missiles,
He said the restraint on attacking the rest Russian troops
in their territory is providing the Russian forces a safe
space for ground attacks,
preparations and firing missiles at Ukrainian cities.
Now. Zelensky warned that after Kharki now Kremlin is planning
to attack the Sumi city
as his troops struggle to hold back Russias invasion forces.
Ukrainian leader continues to seek more military aid from his
Western allies.
Today, Zalenski is visiting Belgium to sign a security pact
with Prime Minister Alexander the Crew.
That's after he visited Spain on Monday and signed a
security pact with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez that allocates
$1.08 billion military support to Ukraine this year.
Furthermore, Ukraines top commander Alexander Sirski has said that French
military instructors would soon arrive in the country to train
Ukrainian servicemen
after video link talks with French Defense Minister Sebastian Lekornu,
and he said paperwork has been signed to enable the
first French instructors to visit Ukrainian training centers.
Meanwhile, Russia claims to have captured 2 villages in Ukraine.
In a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry,
military officials said they have captured Ivanivka in the Kharki
region
and Nitelov in the Donetsk region.
Russia has also claimed to have downed drone,
a drone in fact, outside Moscow.
Andrei Boroviov, the governor of Moscow region,
said air defenses downed a drone in Balashika,
leading to the debris falling on a house,
but nobody was hurt in the incident as the house
was evacuated in time.
On the other hand, in Kharki,
prosecutor shared footage of twin missile attacks that left 16
dead on Saturday.
Security camera footage showed the moment when a large construction
supply store was hit by Russian missiles
in the latest Russian held city of Luhansk in eastern
Ukraine came under attack twice within three hours early on
Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Russia has announced to build a nuclear power plant
in Uzbekistan.
A deal has been signed in a Russian President Vladimir
Putin visit to Uzbekistan.
According to Kremlin, Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom will build
up to six nuclear reactors with a capacity of 55
megawatts each in Uzbekistan.
Now. This is, however, a smaller scale project than the
2.4 gigawatts one agreed in
2018, which remains to be finalized.
Putin said Russia will put $400 million
into a joint investment fund of $500 million to finance
projects in Uzbekistan.
If implemented, the deal will showcase Russias ability to export
high tech products to new Asian markets amid sanctions by
the Western countries.
The move is being seen as Russia extending influence in
Central Asia in competition with the West.
Essentially, Uzbekistan has tripled its exports of uranium products to
the European Union markets in the past year.
Now the Uzbek president called it the first such project
in post Soviet Central Asia.
Interestingly, there are no nuclear power plants in any of
the 5X Soviet Central Asian republics,
although Uzbekistan and its neighbor Kazakhstan,
both uranium producers, have long said their growing economies needed
them.
In fact, to give us more on this,
we were earlier just joined by Professor Peter Kuznick,
Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at the American University,
and just listening to what he had to say.
Russia will be actually selling more and more
oil and gas to Uzbekistan,
which previously had been exporting oil and gas.
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have both said that they need nuclear
power,
that their their oil and gas supplies should not be
exported.
They need them internally, but they also need nuclear power
to meet their demand.
And Russia is in a prime position,
Rose Adam. The Russian nuclear agency has been exporting a
lot of nuclear power.
So they're in a very strong position technologically,
economically, politically to carry this out right now.
The West's ability to hurt Russia with sanctions has proven
to be surprisingly limited.
Russia has been opening up trade with the East,
orienting away from the West.
And so now they've got increased trade,
as you know, with India,
with China, with Eastern Europe,
with Africa, with other Asian countries.
So Russia has its own strategy which has been working.
Whereas countries like Britain and Germany are showing signs of
economic decline,
Russia is actually showing signs of economic growth.
So Russia has not been hurt.
But in the long run,
this has not been positive for Russia's economy.
What Russia's done is been building up its military industrial
complex.
While that can work in the short run,
but in the long run,
it's not producing the kinds of goods that people need
to raise their standard of living.
And so in the long run,
this will not be beneficial for Russia,
but in the short run,
it has been working. For all the latest news,
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