World about Ukraine: digest as of October 12, 2023

THE WASHINGTON POST: Russia mounts major attack on key city in eastern Ukraine

Intense fighting raged around the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka for a third day, local officials said Thursday, after Russian forces launched a major attack on the city, mobilizing thousands of troops and columns of armored vehicles.

“The battles around the city do not abate; the shelling does not abate both on the positions and on the city itself,” the head of the local military administration, Vitaliy Barabash, said on Ukrainian television.

Barabash said that “two dozen missiles” hit the area Wednesday. “There are dead, wounded, people under the rubble,” he said.

Avdiivka, which sits in a geographically strategic pocket close to the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, has been a target of Moscow’s military aggression since 2014 — but so far the Kremlin’s forces have failed in repeated attempts to capture it.

CNN: Ukraine’s Zelensky seeks to rally Western support as attention shifts to Middle East

On this occasion, however, the Ukrainian president was forced to address a crisis currently drawing more attention than Moscow’s invasion of his country: the brutal attack by Hamas on Israel.

“We are in the war, we understand what it means (to suffer) a terrorist attack,” Zelensky told journalists, putting Russia and Hamas in the same basket.

“I remember the first days of the war… so many dying people, so many deaths, it was very important not to be alone,” Zelensky added. “So my recommendation for the (NATO) leaders is that they go to Israel, and support the people.”

NL TIMES: Dutch F-16s heading to training center for Ukrainian pilots within weeks

Dutch F-16s heading to training center for Ukrainian pilots within weeks

The Dutch F-16s in which Ukrainian fighter pilots will learn to fly the Western fighter jets will go to the new training center in Romania within a few weeks, said outgoing Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren. Some time later, they can make the first training flight.

The Netherlands is one of the leaders in the group of countries that wants to help Ukraine acquire F-16s to better cope with the Russian invasion forces. It wants to donate a large part of its retired F-16s to Ukraine, but Ukrainian pilots must first learn how to operate them.

U.S. News: After Treatment at US Military Hospital, Volunteers for Ukraine Return to Fight

After Russian drones dropped a mortar round and then a grenade on an American volunteer fighting for Ukraine, the former U.S. Marine thought he might lose use of his fingers.

Shrapnel hit the right leg and arm of the 28-year-old soldier, who asked to be identified by his call-sign “Jumbo.” He needed hand surgery and Ukraine’s overstretched medical system had only a bed in a cancer hospital available.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Pentagon’s ‘FrankenSAM’ program cobbles together air defense weapons for Ukraine

The Pentagon calls it FrankenSAM — a project that cobbles together air defense weapons for Ukraine from an array of parts from around the world.

But now, as congressional gridlock delays funding for the war in Ukraine, the Frankenstein-like program for surface-to-air missiles has become more of a life saver and a reliable way to get working weapons to the battlefield now. The rapid delivery of the systems comes as Ukraine tries to ward off Russian airstrikes and make as many gains as possible before troops are slowed down by weather.

US NEWS: Ukraine Needs $42 Billion Budget Support This Year and Next

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Wednesday the country would need budget support of about $42 billion this year and next year to plug a massive deficit and aid reconstruction from the devastation caused by Russia’s invasion.

Shmyhal told a high-level roundtable to support Ukraine held during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Marrakech, Morocco, that Ukraine’s state budget deficit would be about 20% of the country’s GDP this year and 21% in 2024.

Ukraine Front Lines