KYIV
\nThe United States warned China of serious consequences if it provided arms to support Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, as Kyiv\u2019s top general visited the frontline town of Bakhmut where Ukrainian defenders were holding out against constant attacks.
\nWashington and its NATO allies are scrambling to dissuade China from providing military aid for Moscow\u2019s war, making public comments on their belief that Beijing is considering providing lethal equipment possibly including drones.
\nWestern fears of China helping to arm Russia come as Moscow\u2019s forces struggle to make gains around key objectives in eastern Ukraine, and as Kyiv prepares a counter-offensive with advanced Western weapons including battle tanks.
\n\u201cBeijing will have to make its own decisions about how it proceeds, whether it provides military assistance \u2014 but if it goes down that road it will come at real costs to China,\u201d White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union\u201d program.
\nWhile China had not moved forward in providing that aid, neither had it taken the option off the table, Sullivan said in a separate interview on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week\u201d program.
\nBeijing has refused to condemn Moscow\u2019s attack on Ukraine, most recently at a meeting of the Group of Twenty (G20) in India on Saturday. It published a cease-fire proposal on Friday, the first anniversary of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, but the offer was met with skepticism among Ukraine\u2019s Western allies.
\n\u201cWhen I hear reports \u2014 and I don\u2019t know whether they are true \u2014 according to which China may be planning to supply kamikaze drones to Russia while at the same time presenting a peace plan, then I suggest we judge China by its actions and not its words,\u201d German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told German public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk on Sunday.
\nCIA Director William Burns also weighed in regarding China in an interview aired on Sunday, saying the US intelligence agency was \u201cconfident that the Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment.\u201d
\n\u201cWe also don\u2019t see that a final decision has been made yet, and we don\u2019t see evidence of actual shipments of lethal equipment,\u201d Burns told CBS\u2019s \u201cFace the Nation\u201d program.
\nRepublican Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, cited reports that drones were among the weapons China was considering sending to Russia.
\nMcCaul said Chinese leader Xi Jinping was preparing to visit Moscow next week for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
\nPutin cast the Ukraine war, which he calls a \u201cspecial military operation,\u201d as a confrontation with the West which threatens the survival of Russia and the Russian people.
\n\u201cThey have one goal: to disband the former Soviet Union and its fundamental part \u2014 the Russian Federation,\u201d Putin told Rossiya 1 state television in an interview recorded on Wednesday but released on Sunday.
\nNATO and the West dismiss this narrative, saying their objective in providing weapons and other aid to Kyiv is to help Ukraine defend itself against an unprovoked attack.
\nEven so, Putin\u2019s framing of the war as a threat to Russia\u2019s existence allows the Kremlin chief greater freedom in the types of weapons he could one day use, including possibly nuclear weapons.
\nDmitry Medvedev, Russia\u2019s former president and an ally of Putin, said in remarks published on Monday that the supply of Western arms to Kyiv risked a global nuclear catastrophe.<\/p>\n
COMMANDER VISITS FRONT
\nOn the frontlines, Ukrainian ground forces commander Col. General Oleksandr Syrskyi visited the eastern city of Bakhmut, the focus of Russia\u2019s attacks for months as it tries to take control of the Donbas industrial region.
\nUkrainian forces launched a number of counter-attacks and repulsed Russian forces around the village of Yahidne over the weekend, after Russia\u2019s Wagner mercenary group claimed to have captured it and the village of Berkhivka.
\nThe Russian defense ministry said on Sunday that its forces had destroyed Ukrainian \u201csabotage and reconnaissance groups,\u201d including in the area of Yahidne, while Russia\u2019s TASS state agency reported that Ukraine\u2019s forces blew up a dam just north of Bakhmut.
\nReuters was unable to independently verify the reports.
\nSyrskyi visited Bakhmut to boost morale and talk strategy with units defending the town and surrounding villages, the Ukrainian military said.
\nHe \u201clistened to the unit commanders tackling urgent problems, provided assistance in solving them, and supported the servicemen,\u201d the Ground Forces said on the Telegram messaging app.
\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday fired a senior commander helping lead the fight in the east, but gave no reason for the move.
\nIn a one-line decree, Zelensky announced the dismissal of Eduard Moskalyov as commander of the joint forces of Ukraine, which are engaged in battles in the Donbas.
\nIn neighboring Belarus, a Russian ally and staging ground for Russian forces attacking Ukraine, Belarus partisans and members of the exiled opposition said they damaged a Russian A-50 surveillance military aircraft in a drone attack near Minsk on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV The United States warned China of serious consequences if it provided arms to support Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, as Kyiv\u2019s top general visited the frontline town of Bakhmut where Ukrainian defenders were holding out against constant attacks. Washington and its NATO allies are scrambling to dissuade China from providing military aid for Moscow\u2019s war, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316475,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-316443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n