US confirms it has REOPENED the embassy in Kyiv after three months as Ukrainians on the front line fire howitzers with the message ‘From America With Love’ at Russian targets
- The Stars and Stripes was hoisted above the US embassy in Kyiv on Wednesday
- The embassy reopened three months after Russia invaded Ukraine
- Secretary of State Antony Blinken said extra security precautions were in place
- Meanwhile images emerged of M777 howitzers sent by the US to Ukraine
- ‘From America With Love’ was written on the barrel of one
Diplomats raised the Stars and Stripes over the U.S. embassy in Kyiv on Wednesday, signaling that it was open for business again after shutting down three months ago before Russia invaded Ukraine.
It is the latest sign of business as usual in the Ukrainian capital after its forces pushed back Russian troops.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops celebrated the arrival of heavy weapons from the U.S. by writing ‘From America With Love’ on new howitzer artillery pieces.
And Ukraine said this week its armed forces had destroyed Russian tanks deep behind enemy lines in the Donbas region using British-made Brimstone missiles for the first time.
The result is the resumption of operations at the American embassy.
‘When we suspended operations at the embassy, we made the point clear: while we would relocate U.S. embassy personnel for their safety and security, this would in no way prevent our engagement with, and support for, the Ukrainian people, government, and civil society as well as our allies and partners,’ said Secretary of State Antony Blinken, adding that extra security measures had been implemented.
He paid tribute to the heroism of the Ukrainian resistance.
The Stars and Stripes was hoisted about the U.S. embassy in Kyiv on Wednesday. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it had resumed operations after about three months
A small crowd gathered outside the embassy gates to watch the flag being raised
The embassy announced its resumption of business with a Twitter post
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces thanked the U.S. for the delivery of howitzer artillery pieces. The wrote ‘From America With Love’ on the barrel of one
Ukrainian forces have moved most of their U.S.-made howitzers to the frontline of their war with Russia, helping push back invading troops to the east
‘Today we are officially resuming operations at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv. The Ukrainian people, with our security assistance, have defended their homeland in the face of Russia’s unconscionable invasion, and, as a result, the Stars and Stripes are flying over the embassy once again.
A small crowd gathered outside its gates as the flag went up.
Elsewhere, it emerged that Vladimir Putin had finally deployed his feared ‘Terminator’ armored vehicles, designed to support infantry units fighting in urban areas, in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
And photographs revealed that Ukrainian gunners had written ‘From America with Love’ on newly delivered howitzers.
General Valerii Fedorovych Zaluzhnyi, 48, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, summed up their jubilation with the weapons.
‘Special greetings and thanks from our artillerymen to the American people for the M777 howitzer,’ he wrote on Facebook.
‘My guys know the price of artillery. First of all, they wanted to convey that this is a high-precision and very effective weapon.’
A senior U.S. defense official said they were already proving effective.
‘You’re already seeing the Ukrainians being willing to go on the counteroffensive in the Donbas,’ the official told reporters.
‘They are taking back some towns that the Russians have taken in the past.’
Ukrainian officials told their American counterparts that so far 74 of the 90 M777 artillery cannon supplied to Ukraine are at the forefront of the fight, providing long-range, indirect fire capability.
But Russia said it had struck back, claiming to have hit a Ukrainian battery of 155-mm howitzers manufactured by the United States, its defense ministry said in an update on the ‘special military operation.’
Video shows the much-vaunted armored vehicles, which are designed to support infantry units fighting in urban areas, in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine
Russian Tank Support Combat Vehicle BMPT ‘Terminator’ before Red Square Victory Day’s parade
In an effort to bolster Russia’s arsenal, a platoon of Terminator military vehicles were deployed and used for the first time in battle in the Donbas.
The BMPTs – or tank support combat vehicles as they are designated – were seen near Severodonetsk in Luhansk region.
‘They are involved in the fire destruction of Ukrainian positions, armoured vehicles, and crews of anti-tank missile systems,’ a defence source told state news agency RIA Novosti.
It is equipped with grenade launchers, anti-tank systems and small arms, and was nicknamed Terminator by its manufacturers Uralvagonzavod.
The Terminator saw action in Syria and was initially moved to the Ukrainian border in February.
It is unclear why Putin’s generals have delayed its deployment until now.
At the same time, Russia said almost 1,000 Ukrainian fighters fighters who had held out inside Mariupol’s batter steel plant have surrendered.
It is thought the UN and Red Cross – which helped facilitate the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol 10 days beforehand – are working in the background to ensure the pledge is honoured.
But they face an uncertain fate.
959 Ukrainian troops holed up inside the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol (pictured) have now surrendered, Russia says, with more still to come out
Ukrainian soldiers are lined up before loading on to buses taking them out of Mariupol towards Russian-occupied territory, where witnesses say some are being held in a ‘concentration camp’
Witnesses said at least seven bus-loads of Ukrainian troops have arrived in the town of Olenvika, where they were taken to a penal colony.
The facility – named ‘corrective prison colony No. 52’ – was already being used to house Ukrainians deemed ‘unreliable’ by Russian security services, described by an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol as a ’21st century concentration camp’.
Inmates including the wives of soldiers, journalists and former government workers have described being starved, tortured, and threatened with execution at the cramped camp – which was built for 850 people but now houses more than 3,000.
Ukraine says it hopes to get the fighters back in a prisoner exchange.
In another blow to Putin’s forces, a Russian soldier has pleaded guilty to charges of war crimes after he became the first to go on trial in Ukraine.
Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin, 21, answered ‘yes’ when asked by a judge in Kyiv today whether he was guilty of shooting 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelypov in the head in the village of Chupakhivka during the first week of the war.
Kateryna Shelypova, Oleksandr’s widow, sat over Shishimarin’s right shoulder as he confessed to his crimes, for which he now faces life in prison.
At one point during the proceedings she was pictured pressing her palms together in front of her face – as if praying.
Vadim Shishimarin, 21, a sergeant in a Russian tank unit (front), today pleaded guilty to war crimes for shooting dead a 62-year-old civilian as the man’s widow watched (rear)
Kateryna listened closely to the proceedings, at one point pressing her palms together in front of her face as if in prayer (pictured)
Speaking before the trial, Kateryna revealed her husband once worked for the KGB and even guarded Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev when he visited Crimea.
She said he was proud to serve the Russian elite but was ultimately shot by Russian soldiers because he pulled out his phone as Shishimarin and his comrades drove past in a stolen civilian car.
Shishimarin had confessed fears that Oleksandr was about to report his location to Ukrainian troops is what prompted him to open fire.
‘What can I say? Him being a child, he is young I feel sorry for him,’ Kateryna told ITV in an interview aired last week.
Oleksandr Shelypov once served the Russian elite as part of the Soviet KGB, but was ultimately shot dead by Russian troops
None-the-less, she branded the actions of Russian soldiers ‘unforgivable’ and said they have ‘brought too much grief to us’. ‘We didn’t ask them to come,’ she added.
Shishimarin admitted to killing Oleksandr with a Kalashnikov rifle as he fled with four other soldiers in a stolen car in a village in the Sumy region on February 28, just days after Vladimir Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine on February 24.
The man was pushing a bicycle by the side of the road when he was shot in the head and ‘died on the spot a few dozen metres from his home’, the Ukrainian prosecutor general said during the opening phase of the trial last week.
Prosecutors said Shishimarin was ordered by a superior ‘to kill a civilian so he would not report them to Ukrainian defenders.’
Iryna Venediktova, the prosecutor general, said: ‘Shishimarin is actually physically in Ukraine. We are starting a trial not in absentia but rather directly with the person who killed a civilian, and this is a war crime.’
The Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, posted a short video on May 4 of Shishimarin speaking in front of camera and briefly describing how he shot the man.
The SBU described the video as ‘one of the first confessions of the enemy invaders.’
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