WASHINGTON -- The U.S. announced plans Tuesday to provide an additional $625 million in military aid to Ukraine, a package that includes additional advanced rocket systems credited with helping the country's military gain momentum in its war with Russia.
President Joe Biden provided details on the latest package -- which includes four High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS, 200 mine-resistant vehicles, hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery and mortar ammunition -- in a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Vice President Kamala Harris joined the leaders on Tuesday's call.
"President Biden also affirmed the continued readiness of the United States to impose severe costs on any individual, entity or country that provides support to Russia's purported annexation," the White House said in a statement.
This round of military aid marks the first time the U.S. has sent additional HIMARS to Ukraine since late July. The systems -- which will bring the total number of HIMARS sent to Ukraine to 20 -- have become key tools in Ukraine's ability to strike bridges that Russia has used to supply its troops, enabling Ukrainian forces to make inroads in Russia-controlled regions.
The U.S. in recent weeks also provided funding through a separate program -- the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative -- so another 18 rocket systems can be purchased through longer-term contracts.
Funds from the initiative are being used as part of the effort by the U.S. and Western allies to ensure Ukraine's forces are trained and equipped to defend their country in the years to come. But those contracts will take several years to fulfill.
This is the first tranche of U.S. aid delivered in the new fiscal year, which began Friday.
Before that announcement, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevhen Perebyinis told a conference in the Turkish capital, Ankara, Tuesday that Ukraine needed more weapons since Russia began a partial mobilization of draft-age men last month. He said additional weapons would help end the war sooner, not escalate it.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the military has recruited more than 200,000 reservists as part of the partial mobilization launched two weeks ago. He said the recruits were undergoing training at 80 firing ranges before being deployed to the front lines in Ukraine.
Putin's mobilization order said up to 300,000 reservists were to be called up, but it held the door open for an even bigger activation. The order sparked protests across Russia and drove tens of thousands of men to flee the country.
A RUBBER STAMP
Meanwhile, Russia's upper house of parliament rubber-stamped the annexations after "referendums" that Ukraine and its Western allies have dismissed as fraudulent.
Responding to the move, Zelenskyy formally ruled out talks with Russia, declaring that negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin are impossible after his decision to take over the regions.
The Kremlin replied by saying it will wait for Ukraine to agree to sit down for talks, noting that it may not happen until a new Ukrainian president takes office.
"We will wait for the incumbent president to change his position or wait for a future Ukrainian president who would revise his stand in the interests of the Ukrainian people," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Speaking late Tuesday in his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said dozens of settlements had been retaken "from the Russian pseudo-referendum this week alone" in the four annexed regions.
In the Kherson region, he listed eight villages that Ukrainian forces reclaimed, "and this is far from a complete list. Our soldiers do not stop."
Ukraine has pressed its counteroffensive in the Kherson region since the summer, relentlessly pummeling Russian supply lines and making inroads into Russian-held areas west of the Dnieper River.
Ukrainian troops have been using the HIMARS to repeatedly hit the main bridge across the Dnieper and a dam that served as a second crossing. It also has struck pontoon bridges that Russia has used to supply its troops.
Ukraine's battlefield successes in Kherson are notable since that is one of the four areas that Russia is in the process of annexing.
Russia's effort to incorporate the four embattled regions in Ukraine's east and south was done so hastily that even the exact borders of the territories being absorbed were unclear.
The upper house of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, voted to ratify treaties to make the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions part of Russia. The lower house did so Monday.
Putin is expected to quickly endorse the annexation treaties.
BATTLEFIELD DISARRAY
On the battlefield, Russian troops abandoned a key Ukrainian city so rapidly that they left the bodies of their comrades in the streets, offering more evidence Tuesday of Moscow's latest military defeat as it struggles to hang on to four regions of Ukraine that it illegally annexed last week.
The picture on the ground underscored the disarray Putin faces amid the Ukrainian advances and attempts to establish new Russian borders.
Over the weekend, Russian troops pulled back from Lyman, a strategic eastern town that the Russians had used as a logistics and transport hub, to avoid being encircled by Ukrainian forces. The town's liberation gave Ukraine an important vantage point for pressing its offensive deeper into Russian-held territories.
Two days later, an Associated Press team reporting from Lyman saw at least 18 bodies of Russian soldiers still on the ground. The Ukrainian military appeared to have collected the bodies of their comrades after fierce battles for control of the town, but they did not immediately remove those of the Russians.
The deputy head of the Russian-backed regional administration in Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, told Russian TV that Ukrainian troops made "certain advances" from the north, and were attacking the region from other sides too. He said they were stopped by Russian forces and suffered high losses.
As Kyiv pressed its counteroffensives, Russian forces launched more missile strikes at Ukrainian cities.
Several missiles hit Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, damaging infrastructure and causing power cuts. Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said one person was killed. In the south, Russian missiles struck the city of Nikopol.
After reclaiming control of Lyman in the Donetsk region, Ukrainian forces pushed further east and may have gone as far as the border of the neighboring Luhansk region as they advanced toward Kreminna, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in its latest analysis.
On Monday, Ukrainian forces also scored significant gains in the south, raising flags over the villages of Arkhanhelske, Myroliubivka, Khreshchenivka, Mykhalivka and Novovorontsovka.
RESTARTING PLANT?
In other developments, the head of the company operating Europe's largest nuclear plant said Ukraine is considering restarting the Russian-occupied facility to ensure its safety as winter approaches.
In an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, Energoatom President Petro Kotin said the company could restart two of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant's reactors in a matter of days.
"If you have low temperature, you will just freeze everything inside. The safety equipment will be damaged," he said.
Fears that the war in Ukraine could cause a radiation leak at the Zaporizhzhia plant had prompted the shutdown of its remaining reactors. The plant has been damaged by shelling, prompting international alarm over the potential for a disaster.
Top allies of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny announced Tuesday that they would reestablish a network of groups across Russia, saying the time was right because the government has been weakened by questions about the war in Ukraine.
"The sleeping majority woke up, Putin himself woke him up," said Ivan Zhdanov, former director of Navalny's Foundation for Fighting Corruption, in a YouTube video posted by Navalny's closest ally and top strategist, Leonid Volkov.
"It's time for us to restore our network to fight mobilization and war," Zhdanov said. Russia ordered a partial mobilization Sept. 21 to beef up its troops in Ukraine.
Zhdanov and Volkov said the new network would operate as a "partisan underground," and participants would remain anonymous for their safety.
Navalny has been jailed in Russia since January 2021 on charges widely seen as politically motivated. Many of his close associates have left Russia, and his group's political infrastructure -- the anti-corruption foundation and a network of regional offices -- was destroyed in 2021 after being labeled extremist.
Information for this article was contributed by Aamer Madhani, Lolita C. Baldor, Adam Schreck, Vasilisa Stepanenko and staff members of The Associated Press.
Gallery: Images from Ukraine and Russia, month 8
