Політика

Tokyo — U.S. naval dominance, unchallenged for decades, is now coming under strain as China’s state-backed shipbuilding industry rapidly expands, while the U.S. Navy faces severe maintenance delays.

The impact is being felt across the Navy. While some ships and submarines are stuck waiting for repairs at overcrowded U.S. shipyards, others are forced into extended deployments, pushing crews and vessels to their limits.

Analysts say the delays undermine the U.S. ability to project strength and deter conflict, especially in key areas like the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, where China is upsetting the status quo.

To help fix the problem, the U.S. is turning to its allies — particularly Japan, one of the world’s largest shipbuilders. Earlier this year, U.S. and Japanese officials began negotiating a plan to expand Japan’s role in performing major repairs on U.S. Navy vessels at its shipyards.

Rahm Emanuel, U.S. ambassador to Japan, sees the proposal as crucial for keeping U.S. ships in the region. “The Indo-Pacific is an away game for us…but with allies, it’s closer to a home game,” Emanuel told VOA.

The discussions underscore Japan’s broader shift toward a more active regional security role, as it steps away from decades of pacifism. It’s also part of a strategy by the U.S. to encourage its Asian allies to take on greater security responsibilities in the face of China’s rising influence.

However, the proposal faces major hurdles. In the U.S., legal changes would be needed to allow foreign shipyards to overhaul Navy vessels. In Japan, there are concerns about becoming a bigger target for China.

Severe backlog

But for the U.S. Navy, the challenge is severe.

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), about a third of the U.S. attack submarine fleet is currently out of service, either undergoing maintenance or awaiting repairs.

Fewer than 40% of the Navy’s scheduled ship repairs are completed on time, according to recent congressional testimony. By some estimates, the Navy is 20 years behind in maintenance work.

A wide range of key shipbuilding projects are also running years behind schedule — an “extraordinary situation” in the post-World War II history of the Navy, according to CRS.

Emanuel argues this reflects a broader decline in the U.S. defense industrial base, which has been hollowed out since the 1990s and is “not ready” to meet U.S. security needs.

“Every weapon that we’ve agreed to here, I’ve had to renegotiate the contract once it’s signed because we can’t meet the budget at the timeline,” Emanuel said. “It’s really bad planning [and] really bad preparation.”

According to a recent CRS report, the Navy’s repair backlog is caused by a shortage of skilled workers and limited capacity at the four U.S. government-run naval shipyards.

China challenge

Meanwhile, China boasts 20 large shipyards, which it is using to quickly build up what is already the world’s largest navy in terms of overall vessels.

According to a recent unclassified slide released by U.S. naval intelligence, China’s shipbuilding capacity is over 200 times that of the United States, fueled by generous government subsidies.

Even though the U.S. still maintains significant naval advantages — such as 11 aircraft carriers compared to China’s three and an unrivaled network of global alliances — some observers believe that China’s ability to dwarf U.S. shipbuilding represents a fundamental shift in the regional balance of power.

“We’ve let that underlying capacity atrophy to the point where we’re behind the eight ball at the moment, and that’s a big, thorny problem,” said Sam Byers, the senior national security advisor at the Washington D.C.-based Center for Maritime Strategy.

Benefits and drawbacks

In Emanuel’s estimation, the U.S.-Japan ship repair proposal could alleviate the U.S. Navy’s maintenance backlog, freeing U.S. shipyards to focus on meeting their construction goals. It would also allow U.S. ships to stay for longer in Asia, he said.

But not everyone agrees.

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, argues that the problem isn’t a lack of shipyard capacity but rather their inconsistent use, due to fluctuating demand from the Navy. He suggests that repairing more ships overseas could help manage these fluctuations and minimize disruptions for Japan-based crews.

“And repair yards in Japan could gain experience working on U.S. ships, which could be beneficial in a conflict,” he added.

However, he cautioned that shifting work overseas wouldn’t solve the underlying issues of funding and planning that contribute to the Navy’s repair delays.

“Of course, the Japanese ship repair yards may do a better job or be more efficient than their American counterparts. If that is the argument, then U.S. officials should make that clear,” Clark said.

Others in the shipbuilding industry have argued against what they see as outsourcing U.S. Navy shipbuilding and repairs, a step they characterize as “kicking American shipyard workers to the curb.”

Japan risks

There are also barriers in Japan, where public opinion doesn’t always align with the government’s more assertive security stance.

While certain segments of the Japanese public appear more supportive of increased military involvement after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s unclear how deep or lasting this shift is, warned Misato Matsuoka, an associate professor at Teikyo University.

“There is this gap of understanding when it comes to what is going on in the security area,” Matsuoka said. “I don’t see a lot of Japanese who are even aware of these changes.”

Matsuoka also warned that the U.S.-Japan ship repair proposal could eventually be seen as one of many factors escalating U.S.-China tensions, potentially impacting Japan negatively.

“All the things Japan is doing makes it more important within the U.S. alliance but that also increases the risk of something happening to Japanese territory,” said Robert Ward, Japan Chair at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

While Japan deepens ties with the U.S., it is careful not to provoke China, Ward noted. Nonetheless, Japan, like many countries, remains wary of what it sees as China’s destabilizing behavior in the region.

“This isn’t happening in a vacuum,” Ward said, referring to Japan’s changing security posture. “There are very good reasons why all this is happening.”

When it comes to the U.S.-Japan ship repair deal, the choices are also complex for the United States, Emanuel acknowledged. However, he argued, sometimes “you’ve got to choose between what’s bad and what’s worse.”
…

NEW YORK — Attention, Kmart shoppers, the end is near!

The erstwhile retail giant renowned for its Blue Light Specials — featuring a flashing blue orb affixed to a pole enticing shoppers to a flash sale — is shuttering its last full-scale store in mainland United States.

The store, located in swank Bridgehampton, New York, on Long Island, is slated to close Oct. 20, according to Denise Rivera, an employee who answered the phone at the store late Monday. The manager wasn’t available, she said.

That will leave only a small Kmart store in Miami. It has a handful of stores in Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Transformco, the company that bought the assets of Sears and Kmart out of the bankruptcy of Sears Holdings in 2019, did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

In its heyday, there were more than 2,000 Kmarts in the U.S.

Struggling to compete with Walmart’s low prices and Target’s trendier offerings, Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in early 2002 — becoming the largest U.S. retailer to take that step — and announced it would close more than 250 stores.

A few years later, hedge fund executive Edward Lampert combined Sears and Kmart and pledged to return them to their former greatness. But the 2008 recession and the rising dominance of Amazon contributed in derailing that mission. Sears filed for Chapter 11 in 2018 and now has just a handful of stores left in the U.S., where it once had thousands.
…

LONDON — A goal to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030 and cut fossil fuel use is within reach, the International Energy Agency said in a report on Tuesday, but will require a huge push to unlock bottlenecks such as permitting and grid connections.

The report comes as leaders from government and business come together at New York Climate week to try to drive forward action against climate change.

Almost 200 countries at the COP 28 climate summit in Dubai last year agreed to reach net zero emissions from the energy sector by 2050 and pledged to triple renewable energy capacity like wind and solar.

The IEA said the renewable energy goal “is within reach thanks to favorable economics, ample manufacturing potential and strong policies,” but said more renewable capacity by itself would not slash fossil fuel use and reduce costs for consumers.

“To unlock the full benefits of the tripling goal, countries need to make a concerted push to build and modernize 25 million kilometers of electricity grids by 2030… The world would also need 1,500 gigawatts (GW) of energy storage capacity by 2030,” the IEA said.

Countries at COP 28 also pledged to double energy efficiency measures to help curb power use, but this target will require governments to make efficiency much more of a policy priority.

Countries must embed the renewable and energy efficiency goals in their national plans to meet goals set under the Paris climate agreement, the IEA said.

Emissions from the global energy sector hit a record high last year.

Tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency measures to reduce power use could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 10 billion metric tons by the end of the decade compared with what is otherwise expected, the report said.
…

state department — The United States has pledged to continue providing Taiwan with equipment and services essential for maintaining a self-defense capability in line with the threats it faces. This statement came as an annual U.S.-Taiwan defense industry conference kicked off Sunday in Philadelphia.

In the lead-up to the event, the conference organizer — the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council (USTBC) — was targeted by a phishing cyberattack involving a forged registration form embedded with information-stealing malware.

Despite the hackers’ attempt, the council — a nonprofit trade association founded in 1976 to promote commerce between the U.S. and Taiwan — thwarted the attack. The identity of the attackers remains unknown.

“As the council has been targeted by similar attacks for more than 20 years, we realized quickly that the document was suspicious,” USTBC said in a statement. The statement added that the council submitted the document to an online virus scanner, confirmed it was malicious and deleted it.

This year’s U.S.-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference, which ends Tuesday, is the 23rd annual event in a series of conferences addressing U.S. defense cooperation with Taiwan.

“There will be considerable focus on how Taiwan’s efforts to deter a Chinese attack are progressing … and how U.S. industry should support the U.S. and Taiwan government policy,” said Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council.

“This is the most important annual gathering of U.S. industry and policymakers on U.S.-Taiwan defense relations,” he added.

Taiwan Relations Act

The State Department said that American officials’ participation in the annual conference aligns with long-standing U.S. policy.

Swift provision of equipment and services “is essential for Taiwan’s self-defense, and we will continue to work with industry to support that goal,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA.

“We continue to have an abiding interest in maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. Our ‘One China’ policy has not changed and remains guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, three joint communiques and six assurances,” the spokesperson added.

The 1979 U.S.-China Joint Communique shifted diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China (ROC), Taiwan’s formal name, to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Relations between the U.S. and Taiwan have since been governed by the Taiwan Relations Act, passed by Congress in April 1979, under which the U.S. provides defense equipment to Taiwan.

The act states that “any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes,” is a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of “grave concern to the United States.”

For decades, the U.S. has been clear that its decision to establish diplomatic relations with China in 1979 rested on the expectation that “the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means,” as stipulated in the Taiwan Relations Act.

China has objected to the Taiwan Relations Act — a U.S. public law — and deemed it invalid.

In 2022, the U.S. Congress authorized the president to direct the drawdown of up to $1 billion per fiscal year in Defense Department equipment and services for Taiwan. Since 2010, the State Department has authorized more than $38 billion in foreign military sales to Taiwan.

PRC sanctioned nine US firms

Since its establishment in 1949, the People’s Republic of China has never ruled Taiwan, but it views the democratically governed island as its own territory and has vowed to bring Taiwan under its control, even by force.

In recent years, the PRC has frequently sent military vessels near Taiwan and warplanes into its air defense identification zone to pressure the island to accept Chinese sovereignty.

Last week, China announced sanctions against nine American companies in response to U.S. defense equipment sales to Taiwan. Beijing’s latest action aims to exert additional pressure on Washington to halt its arms sales to the Taipei government.

The sanctions followed the U.S. approval of an estimated $228 million package of spare parts and other hardware for Taiwan’s aging air force.

In Beijing, officials asserted that U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan undermine China’s sovereignty and security interests.

“China urges the U.S. to earnestly abide by the one China principle and the three China-U.S. joint communiques and immediately stop the dangerous trend of arming Taiwan,” said Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during a recent briefing.

“We will take strong and resolute measures to firmly defend our national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity,” Lin added.

The United States does not subscribe to the PRC’s “one China principle,” the U.S. State Department said. “The PRC continues to publicly misrepresent U.S. policy.”

 
…

…

Комісія виявила додаткові спільні елементи у застосуванні катувань російською владою, що підтверджує висновок про їхню систематичність
…

washington — Violent crime in the United States is down for a second consecutive year, with law enforcement agencies reporting significant declines in murder and rapes, according to a just-released report from the FBI.

The FBI Crime in the Nation report released Monday found violent crime, overall, fell by 3% from 2022 to 2023, with murder and manslaughter rates dropping by 11.6% and rape down by more than 9%.

There were also smaller declines in the number of robberies and aggravated assaults.

Additionally, property crimes, which include burglary, fell by an estimated 2.4% year over year, though motor vehicle theft jumped by 12.6%.

FBI officials, briefing reporters on the report, described the drop in the number of murders as notable, saying the 11.6% decline is the largest recorded over the past 20 years.

Overall, the officials said the rate of all violent crimes in 2023 was 363.3 crimes per 100,000 inhabitants, down from a rate of 377.1 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022.

More than 16,000 U.S. state and local law enforcement agencies contributed data for the report, including all agencies serving cities with more than one million people.

The decrease in violent crimes across the U.S. continues a trend dating back to 2021, when crime rates fell after a spike in murders in 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic.

The violent crime rate also remains well below a peak in rates during the early 1990s.

Some crimes, though, have seen slight increases, including the number of aggravated assaults with knives, cutting instruments or other weapons.

The number of so-called “strong-arm” robberies – involving intimidation or a threat of the use of force – rose by 3.2%.

Assaults on police officers also jumped to a 10-year high according to the FBI report, including 60 officers murdered in the line of duty.

The number of hate crimes and victims of hate crimes also increased from 2022 to 2023, though FBI officials said the rise could have been impacted by an increase in the number of law enforcement agencies reporting hate crime data.

FBI officials declined to comment on whether the trends and the overall decrease in violent crime from 2022 to 2023 have extended into 2024. But a report issued by the non-partisan Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) in July indicates the number of violent crimes continue to fall.

That study, based on monthly crime rates for dozens of major U.S. cities found murder rates fell by 13% in the first half of 2024 compared to the first six months of 2023. Assaults, assaults with guns and carjacking also fell.

But while the CCJ report called the overall trends encouraging, it noted, “many cities are still experiencing disturbingly high leve
…

Washington — The U.S. Commerce Department on Monday proposed prohibiting key Chinese software and hardware in connected vehicles on American roads due to national security concerns — a move that would effectively bar nearly all Chinese cars from entering the U.S. market.

The planned regulation, first reported by Reuters, would also force American and other major automakers in the coming years to remove key Chinese software and hardware from vehicles in the United States.

The Biden administration has raised serious concerns about the collection of data by Chinese companies on U.S. drivers and infrastructure through connected vehicles as well as about potential foreign manipulation of vehicles connected to the internet and navigation systems. The White House ordered an investigation into the potential dangers in February.

The prohibitions would prevent testing of self-driving cars on U.S. roads by Chinese automakers and extend to vehicle software and hardware produced by other U.S. foreign adversaries including Russia.

“When foreign adversaries build software to make a vehicle that means it can be used for surveillance, can be remotely controlled, which threatens the privacy and safety of Americans on the road,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told a briefing.

“In an extreme situation, a foreign adversary could shut down or take control of all their vehicles operating in the United States all at the same time causing crashes, blocking roads.”

The move is a significant escalation in the United States’ ongoing restrictions on Chinese vehicles, software and components. Earlier this month, the Biden administration locked in steep tariff hikes on Chinese imports, including a 100% duty on electric vehicles as well as new hikes on EV batteries and key minerals.

There are relatively few Chinese-made cars or light-duty trucks imported into the United States. But Raimondo said the department is acting “before suppliers, automakers and car components linked to China or Russia become commonplace and widespread in the U.S. automotive sector… We’re not going to wait until our roads are filled with cars and the risk is extremely significant before we act.”

Nearly all newer cars and trucks are considered “connected” with onboard network hardware that allows internet access, allowing them to share data with devices both inside and outside the vehicle.

A senior administration official confirmed the proposal would effectively ban all existing Chinese light-duty cars and trucks from the U.S. market, but added it would allow Chinese automakers to seek “specific authorizations” for exemptions.

The United States has ample evidence of China prepositioning malware in critical American infrastructure, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told the same briefing.

“With potentially millions of vehicles on the road, each with 10- to 15-year lifespans the risk of disruption and sabotage increases dramatically,” Sullivan said.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington last month criticized planned action to limit Chinese vehicle exports to the United States: “China urges the U.S. to earnestly abide by market principles and international trade rules, and create a level playing field for companies from all countries. China will firmly defend its lawful rights and interests.”

The proposal calls for making software prohibitions effective in the 2027 model year while the hardware ban would take effect in the 2030 model year or January 2029.

The Commerce Department is giving the public 30 days to comment on the proposal and hopes to finalize it by Jan. 20. The rules would apply to all on-road vehicles but exclude agricultural or mining vehicles not used on public roads.

The Alliance For Automotive Innovation, a group representing major automakers including General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen and Hyundai, has warned that changing hardware and software would take time.

The group noted connected vehicle hardware and software are developed around the world, including China, but could not detail to what extent Chinese-made components are prevalent in U.S. models.
…

Moscow — A Soyuz capsule carrying two Russians and one American from the International Space Station landed Monday in Kazakhstan, ending a record-breaking stay for the Russian pair.

The capsule landed on the Kazakh steppe about 3 1/2 hours after undocking from the ISS in an apparently trouble-free descent. In the last stage of the landing, it descended under a red-and-white parachute at about 7.2 meters per second (16 mph), with small rockets fired in the final seconds to cushion the touchdown.

The astronauts were extracted from the capsule and placed in nearby chairs to help them adjust to gravity, then given medical examinations in a nearby tent.

Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub returned after 374 days aboard the space station; on Friday they broke the record for the longest continuous stay there. Also in the capsule was American Tracy Dyson, who was in the space station for six months.

Eight astronauts remain in the space station, including Americans Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have remained long past their scheduled return to Earth.

They arrived in June as the first crew of Boeing’s new Starliner capsule. But their trip was marred by thruster troubles and helium leaks, and the U.S. space agency NASA decided it was too risky to return them on Starliner.

The two astronauts are to ride home with SpaceX next year.
…

Joe Biden makes his final presidential address before the United Nations General Assembly this week. But hanging over his head as he takes to the green marble podium for the last time, and as he meets separately with other leaders in New York: conflict in the Middle East – and how his actions have shaped it. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from New York.
…

…

Sacramento, California — “Paper or plastic” will no longer be a choice at grocery store checkout lines in California under a new law signed Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom that bans all plastic shopping bags.

California had already banned thin plastic shopping bags at supermarkets and other stores, but shoppers could purchase bags made with a thicker plastic that purportedly made them reusable and recyclable.

The new measure, approved by state legislators last month, bans all plastic shopping bags starting in 2026. Consumers who don’t bring their own bags will now simply be asked if they want a paper bag.

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, one of the bill’s supporters, said people were not reusing or recycling any plastic bags. She pointed to a state study that found that the amount of plastic shopping bags trashed per person grew from 3.6 kilograms per year in 2004 to 5 kilograms per year in 2021.

Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, said the previous bag ban passed a decade ago didn’t reduce the overall use of plastic.

“We are literally choking our planet with plastic waste,” she said in February.

The environmental nonprofit Oceana applauded Newsom for signing the bill and “safeguarding California’s coastline, marine life, and communities from single-use plastic grocery bags.”

Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics campaign director, said Sunday that the new ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery store checkouts “solidifies California as a leader in tackling the global plastic pollution crisis.”

Twelve states, including California, already have some type of statewide plastic bag ban in place, according to the environmental advocacy group Environment America Research & Policy Center. Hundreds of cities across 28 states also have their own plastic bag bans in place.

The California Legislature passed its statewide ban on plastic bags in 2014. The law was later affirmed by voters in a 2016 referendum.

The California Public Interest Research Group said Sunday that the new law finally meets the intent of the original bag ban.

“Plastic bags create pollution in our environment and break into microplastics that contaminate our drinking water and threaten our health,” said the group’s director Jenn Engstrom. “Californians voted to ban plastic grocery bags in our state almost a decade ago, but the law clearly needed a redo. With the governor’s signature, California has finally banned plastic bags in grocery checkout lanes once and for all.”

As San Francisco’s mayor in 2007, Newsom signed the nation’s first plastic bag ban.
…

…

За даними місцевої влади, нині в установі перебуває 20 дітей
…

Washington — Congressional leaders announced an agreement Sunday on a short-term spending bill that will fund federal agencies for about three months, averting a possible partial government shutdown when the new budget year begins Oct. 1 and pushing final decisions until after the November election.

Lawmakers have struggled to get to this point as the current budget year winds to a close at month’s end. At the urging of the most conservative members of his conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson had linked temporary funding with a mandate that would have compelled states to require proof of citizenship when people register to vote.

But Johnson could not get all Republicans on board even as the party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, insisted on that package. Trump said Republican lawmakers should not support a stop-gap measure without the voting requirement, but the bill went down to defeat anyway, with 14 Republicans opposing it.

Bipartisan negotiations began in earnest shortly after that, with leadership agreeing to extend funding into mid-December. That gives the current Congress the ability to fashion a full-year spending bill after the Nov. 5 election, rather than push that responsibility to the next Congress and president.

In a letter to Republican colleagues, Johnson said the budget measure would be “very narrow, bare-bones” and include “only the extensions that are absolutely necessary.”

“While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances,” Johnson wrote. “As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”

Rep. Tom Cole, the House Appropriations Committee chairman, had said on Friday that talks were going well.

“So far, nothing has come up that we can’t deal with,” said Cole, R-Okla. “Most people don’t want a government shutdown and they don’t want that to interfere with the election. So nobody is like, ‘I’ve got to have this or we’re walking.’ It’s just not that way.”

Johnson’s earlier effort had no chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate and was opposed by the White House, but it did give the speaker a chance to show Trump and conservatives within his conference that he fought for their request.

The final result — government funding effectively on autopilot — was what many had predicted. With the election just weeks away, few lawmakers in either party had any appetite for the brinksmanship that often leads to a shutdown.

Now a bipartisan majority is expected to push the short-term measure over the finish line. Temporary spending bills generally fund agencies at current levels, but some additional money was included to bolster the Secret Service, replenish a disaster relief fund and aid with the presidential transition, among other things.
…

Scranton, Pennsylvania — Under extraordinarily tight security, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday visited the Pennsylvania ammunition factory that is producing one of the most critically needed munitions for his country’s fight to fend off Russian ground forces.

His visit to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant kicked off a busy week in the United States to shore up support for Ukraine in the war. He will speak at the U.N. General Assembly annual gathering in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday and then travel to Washington for talks on Thursday with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

As Zelenskyy’s large motorcade made its way to the ammunition plant on Sunday afternoon, a small contingent of supporters waving Ukrainian flags assembled nearby to show their appreciation for his visit to thank the workers.

The area around the ammunition plant had been sealed off since the morning, with municipal garbage trucks positioned across several roadblocks and a very heavy presence of city, regional and state police, including troopers on horseback.

The Scranton plant is one of the few facilities in the country to manufacture 155 mm artillery shells and has increased production over the past year.

The 155 mm shells are used in howitzer systems, which are towed large guns with long barrels that can fire at various angles. Howitzers can strike targets up to 24 kilometers to 32 kilometers away and are highly valued by ground forces to take out enemy targets from a protected distance.

Ukraine has already received more than 3 million of the 155 mm shells from the U.S.

“It’s unfortunate that we need a plant like this, but it’s here, and it’s here to protect the world,” said Vera Kowal Krewsun, a first-generation Ukrainian American who was among those who greeted Zelenskyy’s motorcade. “And I strongly feel that way.”

She said many of her friends’ parents have worked in the ammunition plant, and she called Zelenskyy’s visit “a wonderful thing.”

Laryssa Salak, 60, whose parents also immigrated from Ukraine, also said she was pleased Zelenskyy came to thank the workers. She said it upsets her that funding for Ukraine’s defense has divided Americans and that even some of her friends oppose the support, saying the money should go to help Americans instead.

“But they don’t understand that that money does not directly go to Ukraine, Salak said. “It goes to American factories that manufacture, like here, like the ammunition. So that money goes to American workers as well. And a lot of people don’t understand that.”

With the war now well into its third year, Zelenskyy has been pushing the U.S. for permission to use longer range missile systems to fire deeper inside of Russia.

So far he has not persuaded the Pentagon or White House to loosen those restrictions.

The Defense Department has emphasized that Ukraine can already hit Moscow with Ukrainian-produced drones, and there is hesitation on the strategic implications of a U.S.-made missile potentially striking the Russian capital.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia would be “at war” with the United States and its NATO allies if they allow Ukraine to use the long-range weapons.

At one point in the war, Ukraine was firing between 6,000 and 8,000 of the 155 mm shells per day. That rate started to deplete U.S. stockpiles and drew concern that the level on hand was not enough to sustain U.S. military needs if another major conventional war broke out, such as in a potential conflict over Taiwan.

In response the U.S. has invested in restarting production lines and is now manufacturing more than 40,000 155 mm rounds a month, with plans to hit 100,000 rounds a month.

Two of the Pentagon leaders who have pushed that increased production through — Doug Bush, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, and Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer — were expected to join Zelenskyy at the plant, as was Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

The 155 mm rounds are just one of the scores of ammunition, missile, air defense and advanced weapons systems the U.S. has provided Ukraine — everything from small arms bullets to advanced F-16 fighter jets. The U.S. has been the largest donor to Ukraine, providing more than $56 billion of the more than $106 billion NATO and partner countries have collected to aid in its defense.

Even though Ukraine is not a member of NATO, commitment to its defense is seen by many of the European nations as a must to keep Putin from further military aggression that could threaten bordering NATO-member countries and result in a much larger conflict.
…

Пораненим медики надали допомогу, зараз їхньому життю нічого не загрожує
…