Robert P. White

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Robert  P. White Robert White United States Army lieutenant general.

14/08/2023
The Ukraine Grain Deal. 22 July 2022 - 17 July 2023.A short life, with its flaws, but the only diplomatic light in the d...
24/07/2023

The Ukraine Grain Deal. 22 July 2022 - 17 July 2023.

A short life, with its flaws, but the only diplomatic light in the darkness of Russia's invasion.

It had allowed Ukraine to export its grain to the world through the Black Sea.

A third less than normal, but still 33 million tonnes. However, in recent months, its health had deteriorated.

Russia was accused of slowing the route with naval blockades and long inspections, and the deal finally succumbed.

Last week saw Moscow's official withdrawal. Russia then launched a wave of missile strikes on ports it once promised to leave alone.

EXPLAINED: What was the Ukraine grain deal?

One site destroyed was a grain terminal owned by one of Ukraine's biggest producers, Kernel. Officials say more than 60,000 tonnes of grain has been destroyed in the past week.

"We stopped our exports for the first two to three months of the war," explains Yevhen Osypov, Kernel's CEO.

"The prices of oil and grain went up by 50%, and you can see the same happening again now."

While global grain supplies seem to be stable for now, global markets saw the price of grain rise by 8% within a day of Russia pulling out - the highest daily rise since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin now says his country "is capable of replacing the Ukrainian grain both on a commercial and free-of-charge basis, especially as we expect another record harvest this year".

In an article published on the Kremlin's website ahead of this week's Russia-Africa summit, President Putin wrote that "Russia will continue its energetic efforts to provide supplies of grain, food products, fertilisers and other goods to Africa".

Both Russia and Ukraine are among the world's leading grain exporters.

Ukrainian servicemen prepare to fire a Ukrainian self-propelled howitzer 2C22 Bohdana towards Russian positions on a fro...
22/07/2023

Ukrainian servicemen prepare to fire a Ukrainian self-propelled howitzer 2C22 Bohdana towards Russian positions on a front line in an undisclosed location in Eastern Ukraine on July 20, 2023

11/07/2023
Congressional Democrats met Ukrainian leaders in the capital, they announced on Sunday. The Democrats, led by House Spea...
04/07/2023

Congressional Democrats met Ukrainian leaders in the capital, they announced on Sunday. The Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials on Saturday for three hours to discuss American support for the war. Pelosi, the most senior American official to visit Ukraine since the war began in February, said the topics of discussion included "security, humanitarian assistance, economic assistance and eventually rebuilding when victory is won."

About 100 civilians were evacuated from a Mariupol steel plant. Of the thousands of civilians still trapped in the besieged port city, about a thousand are believed to be sheltering in bunkers beneath the plant. Previous attempts to evacuate the civilians have been thwarted by repeated Russian shelling.

Officials in Odesa imposed a curfew. Officials in the southern port city say the enforced curfew will extend from Sunday night through Tuesday morning after warning of possible sabotage in the city. In the past, pro-Russian activists have mobilized for protests and unrest in the city on May 2 each year. Russian ground forces are now fighting just a few hours away and Russian naval vessels are blockading Odesa's port.

Di invasion of Ukraine by Russia don enter day 11 as open shooting and shelling still dey go on.Since di war start late ...
02/07/2023

Di invasion of Ukraine by Russia don enter day 11 as open shooting and shelling still dey go on.

Since di war start late March Ukrainian military forces don try hold some parts of dia territory.

While odas don fall to di control of Russian forces.

Ukraine (AP) — A second attempt to evacuate civilians from a besieged city in southern Ukraine collapsed Sunday amid ren...
11/06/2023

Ukraine (AP) — A second attempt to evacuate civilians from a besieged city in southern Ukraine collapsed Sunday amid renewed Russian shelling, while Russian President Vladimir Putin turned the blame for the war back on Ukraine and said Moscow's invasion could be halted “only if Kyiv ceases hostilities.”

Food, water, medicine and almost all other supplies were in desperately short supply in the port city of Mariupol, where Russian and Ukrainian forces had agreed to an 11-hour cease-fire that would allow civilians and the wounded to be evacuated. But Russian attacks quickly closed the humanitarian corridor, Ukrainian officials said.

“There can be no ‘green corridors’ because only the sick brain of the Russians decides when to start shooting and at whom,“ Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko said on Telegram.

The news dashed hopes that more people could escape the fighting in Ukraine, where Russia's plan to quickly overrun the country has been stymied by fierce resistance. Russia has made significant advances in southern Ukraine and along the coast, but many of its efforts have become stalled, including an immense military convoy that has been almost motionless for days north of Kyiv.

Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy rallied his people to remain defiant, especially those in cities that Russian soldiers have entered.

“You should take to the streets! You should fight!” he said Saturday on Ukrainian television. “It is necessary to go out and drive this evil out of our cities, from our land.”

Zelenskyy also asked the U.S. and NATO countries to send more warplanes to Ukraine, though that idea is complicated by questions about which countries would provide the aircraft and how those countries would replace the planes.

The war, now in its 11th day, has caused 1.5 million people to flee the country. The head of the U.N. refugee agency called the exodus “the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II."

As he has often done, Putin blamed Ukraine for the war, telling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday that Kyiv needed to stop all hostilities and fulfill “the well-known demands of Russia."

Putin launched his attack with a string of false accusations against Kyiv, including that it is led by neo-Nazis intent on undermining Russia with the development of nuclear weapons.

The Russian leader also told Erdogan he hoped Ukraine "would show a more constructive approach (to talks), fully taking into account the emerging realities.” A third round of Russia-Ukraine negotiations is scheduled for Monday.

Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke about the nuclear situation in Ukraine, which has 15 nuclear reactors and was the scene of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

The men agreed in principle to a “dialogue” involving Russia, Ukraine and the U.N.'s atomic watchdog, according to a French official who spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with the presidency’s practices. Potential talks on the issue are to be organized in the coming days, he said.

Putin also blamed the fire last week at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which Ukrainian officials said was caused by Russian attackers, on a “provocation organized by Ukrainian radicals."

“Attempts to shift responsibility for this incident onto the Russian military are part of a cynical propaganda campaign,” he said, according to the French official.

International leaders, as well as Pope Francis, appealed to Putin to negotiate.

In a highly unusual move, the pope said he had dispatched two cardinals to Ukraine, saying the Vatican would do everything it could to end the conflict.

“In Ukraine, rivers of blood and tears are flowing,” the pontiff said in his traditional Sunday blessing. “This is not just a military operation, but a war that sows death, destruction and misery."

After the cease-fire in Mariupol failed to hold Saturday, Russian forces intensified their shelling of the city and dropped massive bombs on residential areas of Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said.

The handful of residents who managed to flee Mariupol before the humanitarian corridor closed said the city of 430,000 had been devastated.

“We saw everything: houses burning, all the people sitting in basements,” said Yelena Zamay, who fled to one of the self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatists. “No communication, no water, no gas, no light, no water. There was nothing.”

British military officials compared Russia’s tactics to those Moscow used in Chechnya and Syria, where surrounded cities were pulverized by airstrikes and artillery.

“This is likely to represent an effort to break Ukrainian morale,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense said.

Zelenskyy reiterated a request for foreign protectors to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which NATO so far has ruled out because of concerns such an action would lead to a far wider war.

“The world is strong enough to close our skies,” Zelenskyy said Sunday in a video address.

The day before, Zelenskyy pleaded with American lawmakers in a video call to help get more warplanes to Ukraine.

U.S. officials say Washington is discussing ways to get the planes to Ukraine in a complex scenario that would include sending American-made F-16s to former Soviet bloc nations, particularly Poland, that are now members of NATO. Those countries would then send Ukraine their own Soviet-era MiGs, which Ukrainian pilots are trained to fly.

But because of production backlogs on the U.S. warplanes, the Eastern European nations would essentially have to give their MiGs to the Ukrainians and accept U.S. promises that they would get F-16s as soon as that was possible. Adding to the difficulties is the fact that the next shipment of F-16s is destined for Taiwan, and the U.S. Congress would be reluctant to delay those deliveries.

The Russian military has warned Ukraine’s neighbors against hosting its warplanes, saying that Moscow may consider those counties part of the conflict if Ukrainian aircraft fly combat missions from their territory.

The death toll remains lost in the fog of war. The U.N. says it has confirmed just a few hundred civilian deaths but also warned that the number is a vast undercount.

Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to Zelenskyy, said Ukrainian officials and international humanitarian organizations were working with Russia through intermediaries to establish humanitarian corridors from Bucha and Hostomel, which are Kyiv suburbs where there has been heavy fighting.

Ukraine’s military is greatly outmatched by Russia’s, but its professional and volunteer forces have fought back with fierce tenacity. In Kyiv, volunteers lined up Saturday to join the military.

Even in cities that have fallen, there were signs of resistance.

Onlookers in Chernihiv cheered as they watched a Russian military plane fall from the sky and crash, according to video released by the Ukrainian government. In Kherson, hundreds of protesters waved blue and yellow Ukrainian flags and shouted, “Go home.”

Russia has made significant advances in southern Ukraine as it seeks to block access to the Sea of Azov. Capturing Mariupol could allow Moscow to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 in a move that most other countries considered illegal.

The West has broadly backed Ukraine, offering aid and weapon shipments and slapping Russia with vast sanctions. But no NATO troops have been sent to Ukraine, leaving Ukrainians to fight Russian troops alone.

Russia's economy has been devastated by the sanctions, with the ruble plunging in value and dozens of multinational companies ending or dramatically scaling back their work in the country. On Sunday, American Express announced it would suspend operations in Russia, as well as in Russian-allied Belarus. Globally issued American Express cards will no longer work at stores or ATMs in Russia, the company said, and AmEx cards issued in Russia by local banks will also no longer work outside the country.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spent the weekend visiting NATO member nations in Eastern Europe that have taken in refugees from Ukraine. In Moldova on Sunday, he pledged support for the Western-leaning former Soviet republic that is warily watching Russia’s moves in Ukraine.

The U.N. said it would increase its humanitarian operations both inside and outside Ukraine, and the Security Council scheduled a meeting for Monday on the worsening situation.

The U.N. World Food Program has warned of an impending hunger crisis in Ukraine, a major global wheat supplier, saying millions will need food aid “immediately.”

The U.S. Senate confirmed Maj. Gen. Robert “Pat” White May 23 for appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and assi...
17/05/2023

The U.S. Senate confirmed Maj. Gen. Robert “Pat” White May 23 for appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and assignment as commanding general of III Corps and Fort Hood.

A change of command ceremony, marking the transfer of leadership from Lt. Gen. Paul E. Funk II to White, is set for 9:30 a.m. June 5 on Fort Hood’s Sadowski Field.

Funk will be promoted to four stars and serve as commanding general of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command after departing Fort Hood.

White will be promoted to lieutenant general immediately prior to the change of command.

White most recently served as director of operations, United States European Command. White and his wife, Emma, moved to Fort Hood from Stuttgart, Germany, this month.

White served as an armor officer since earning a commission from Claremont McKenna College in 1986. Over his three decade career, he served in a variety of command and staff positions of increasing responsibility in the United States, Europe, Middle East and South Asia. These include combat deployments for Operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom, and Inherent Resolve.

While new to Fort Hood, White has served in III Corps units several times during his career. From July 2017 through March 2018, while commanding the 1st Armored Division, White led ground operations in Baghdad during the final defeat of ISIS in Iraq. White’s headquarters reported to III Corps and Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.

White’s awards and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal and the Bronze Star Medal for Valor.

III Corps is comprised of four combat divisions, a sustainment command, a cavalry regiment, a fires brigade and multiple enabler units encompassing almost 90,000 Soldiers on five military installations across five states. The corps celebrated its 101st birthday on May 16.

Russia has launched a wave of air strikes against cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv, leaving at least 13 people dead...
28/04/2023

Russia has launched a wave of air strikes against cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv, leaving at least 13 people dead.

Eleven people including a child were killed in an attack that hit a block of flats in the central city of Uman, officials said.

And a woman and her three-year-old daughter were killed in the city of Dnipro, according to the local mayor.

Explosions were also reported in the city of Kremenchuk in central Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the apartment block was among 10 residential buildings that were damaged in Uman. The state rescue service said the child killed in the city was born in 2013 and another 11 people needed hospital treatment.

Mr Zelensky said the attacks showed further international action needed to be taken against Russia.

"Evil can be stopped by weapons - our defenders are doing it. And it can be stopped by sanctions - global sanctions must be enhanced," he said in a tweet.

The head of the Kyiv city military administration said it was the first Russian missile attack on the capital in 51 days.

There are no immediate reports of civilian casualties in the capital.

Ukraine claimed Monday that it took several more villages, pushing Russian forces right back to the northeastern border,...
07/04/2023

Ukraine claimed Monday that it took several more villages, pushing Russian forces right back to the northeastern border, part of a lightning counteroffensive that forced Moscow to withdraw troops from some areas in recent days.

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