‘Steady Steps Towards the Cold War’ – Ukraine at War Update for July 12

The  Pentagon on Thursday published the packing list for Washington’s latest weapons shipment to Ukraine, funded by a $225 million presidential drawdown. It represents the White House’s 61st such delivery of Department of Defense inventories.

The package includes a Patriot missile battery as part of a larger agreement with Germany, Italy, Romania and the Netherlands that will provide Kyiv with five such systems in all, plus SAMP/T systems, a similar ground-to-air interceptor made by a Franco-Italian company.

The package also wraps in several other  missiles, including HIMARS, NASAMS and Stingers

It includes:

•  One Patriot missile battery
•  Munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS)
•  Stinger anti-aircraft missiles
•  Ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)
•  155mm and 105mm artillery rounds
•  Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided (TOW) equipment and missiles
•  Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems
•  Small arms ammunition
•  Demolition munitions, spare parts and other equipment

Kremlin sees US long-range missile deployment to Germany as a return to Cold War

At the final day of the NATO Summit in Washington, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz praised the American decision to station long-range missiles in Germany as a warning against any Russian westward aggression, a move that was met with anger from the German left, and cries from the Kremlin that this signaled a return to the Cold War.

The administration of US President Joe Biden announced the decision the day before, noting that long-range missiles have been absent from Germany over the past two decades. The weapons fill what German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius called a “serious gap” in NATO defenses on the continent. The current batteries of ground-based missiles have a significantly shorter range and Germany's only long-range missiles are launched from the air.

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NATO's Nemesis

Now there is a terrible war in Europe and no excuse for hesitancy to fully help or reward Ukrainians for defending Europe’s eastern flank from being overrun by Kremlin cannon fodder.

The Biden administration said the “episodic deployments” of the missiles will begin in 2026, AFP reported.

Scholz told reporters at the summit that the new missiles will represent “something of a deterrence and they're securing peace, and it is a necessary and important decision at the right time.”

Not all of his countrymen, or even those in his party, see it that way.

Ralf Stegner, a parliamentarian within Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, argued “This will not make the world safer. On the contrary, we are entering a spiral in which the world is becoming increasingly dangerous.”

Sahra Wagenknecht, a leading leftist figure in Germany since the 1980s, told Der Spiegel that the joint action between Washington and Berlin “increases the danger that Germany itself will become a theater of war.”

Never missing a chance to chime in on such matters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov decried the decision as marking “steady steps towards the Cold War.”

“All the attributes of the Cold War with the direct confrontation are returning,” Peskov said.

Russian bombing of residential neighborhood of Vovchansk kills at least three passers-by

Russian forces dropped at least one aerial bomb on Vovchansk on Thursday, killing three civilians and leaving eight more injured.

“The enemy attacked the village of Bilyi Kolodiaz in Vovchansk. A bomb hit a residential area,” the military head of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, announced. “At least two civilians have been killed and eight more injured. Paramedics and emergency workers are working at the scene.”

Hours later, the National Police updated the death toll to three, including two men and one woman. all of whom were on the street when one or more bombs hit the residential neighborhood. Five men and three women were injured.

Ukrainska Pravda noted that early information indicated that the Russians used KAB-500 guided aerial bombs.

The Russian-Ukrainian border area around Vovchansk has been the site of intense fighting between invading forces and the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in recent weeks. While most civilians had been evacuated, local authorities estimated fewer than 100 remained.

After NATO performance and press conferences, Biden still has not convinced fellow Democrats

President Biden appeared to continue to lose votes of confidence among his followers after appearing at the NATO summit and press conferences this week, with more Democrats on Capitol Hill voicing their concerns and appeals that he drop out of the presidential race.

“Joe Biden’s record of public service is unrivaled,” Rep. Jim Hines (D-CT) posted to social media after Biden’s NATO press conference on Thursday. “His accomplishments are immense. His legacy as a great president is secure.”

“He must not risk that legacy, those accomplishments, and American democracy to soldier on in the face of the horrors promised by Donald Trump.”

The day before, Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) became the first US senator to ask that Biden abandon his campaign.

“We cannot unsee President Biden’s disastrous debate performance,” the Vermont senator wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post. “I understand why President Biden wants to run. He saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again. But he needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to do so. In my view, he is not.”

On Thursday, Trump didn’t miss an opportunity to pounce on one of Biden’s miscues, when he mistakenly referred to Trump as his vice president, rather than Kamala Harris, his real VP and a former prosecutor.

“Crooked Joe begins his ‘Big Boy’ Press Conference with, ‘I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president,’ Trump posted to his own social media platform, Truth Social. “Great job, Joe!”

Biden fired back: “Yes I know the difference. One’s a prosecutor, and the other’s a felon.”