On the night of 9/12/2001, my phone was ringing as I walked in the door after two days on standby at my fire department. I was an Ashburn, VA firefighter/EMT. We had sent one fire truck and ambulance already to the Pentagon that terrible morning of 9/11; I was on the second engine crew waiting to respond.
Russia’s foreign minister on Tuesday warned anew Ukraine that it must demilitarize, threatening further military action and falsely accusing Kyiv and the West of fueling the war that started with Moscow’s invasion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged Wednesday that his “special military operation” in Ukraine is taking longer than expected but said it has succeeded in seizing new territory and added that his country’s nuclear weapons are deterring escalation of the conflict.
A top adviser to Ukraine’s president has cited military chiefs as saying 10,000 to 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the country’s nine-month struggle against Russia’s invasion, a rare comment on such figures and far below estimates of Ukrainian casualties from Western leaders.
The U.S. is sending an additional $400 million in ammunition and generators to Ukraine, the White House announced Wednesday, and is pulling the gear from its own stockpiles to get the support to Kyiv as fast as possible as Russia continues to target Ukraine’s energy sources and winter sets in.