The US will only get directly involved in the war against Russia and Putin’s government if he attacks NATO, US president, Joe Biden has stated.

According to Biden on Wednesday, June 1, the U.S. will not push for the removal of Russian President Vladimir Putin from power, despite saying in March that Putin “cannot remain in power.”

Biden made the statement in an op-ed in the New York Times, where he laid out what his administration will do and will not do in Ukraine.

“We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia,” Biden wrote. “As much as I disagree with Mr. Putin, and find his actions an outrage, the United States will not try to bring about his ouster in Moscow.”

“So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces,” he added.

Back in March, White House officials had to walk back Biden’s call for Putin’s removal saying Biden’s point was that Putin “cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region,” adding that he was not pushing for “regime change.”

In recent months, White House officials have walked back the president’s comments on Putin’s regime, his claim that U.S. troops would be deploying to Ukraine, and his statement that the U.S. military would intervene if China invaded Taiwan. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced that his government will introduce new legislation to implement a ‘national freeze’ on handgun ownership and prevent people from buying and selling handguns anywhere in the country.

‘The day this legislation goes into effect it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns in Canada,’ Trudeau told reporters on Monday, May 30.

The handgun freeze would contain exceptions, including for elite sport shooters, Olympic athletes, and security guards. Canadians who already own handguns would be allowed to keep them.

The new laws would also ban some toys that look like real guns, such as airsoft rifles. Last week Toronto police shot and killed a man carrying a pellet gun. 

“Because they look the same as real firearms, police need to treat them as if they are real. This has led to tragic consequences,” Justice Minister David Lametti told reporters.

Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association, welcomed some of the moves, such as the “red flag” provisions in the case of domestic violence, and said he would like more information on enforcement and resources for measures such as the handgun freeze.

He completely supported a crackdown on fake guns, which he said were a “big challenge.”

“You cannot distinguish between what’s a replica firearm and what’s a real firearm, particularly when these incidences involving replica firearms occur often in very dynamic, quickly evolving circumstances.”

If passed, the freeze on handguns is expected to come into force in the autumn.

Canada’s public safety minister has tabled regulatory amendments in parliament to ensure it can be implemented swiftly, according to a ministry statement.

This comes after the last week’s killing of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas has fed concern about gun violence worldwide. 

In 2020, Canada banned the sale and use of some 1,500 models of assault weapons, like the AR-15 rifle in the wake of a mass shooting in Portapique, Nova Scotia, a move some firearms owners say they are contesting in court. 

A French journalist has been killed after an armored evacuation vehicle in which he was travelling was hit by shrapnel from a Russian shell in the city of Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine.

BFMTV journalist Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, 32, died on Monday, May 30, when shell shrapnel struck the humanitarian aid bus he was travelling in to Lysychansk, Severodonetsk.

News channel BFMTV said in a statement it was “immensely saddened” to announce the death of Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, 32, who had worked for it for six years and was on his second tour of the conflict, adding that the journalist and cameraman was killed on the road to Lysychansk.

“Our reporter was covering the ongoing war. He was the victim of shrapnel while following a humanitarian operation in an armoured vehicle on Monday,” the 24-hour news station said.

“He was accompanied by his colleague, Maxime Brandstaetter, who was slightly injured during this strike, and their fixer, Oksana Leuta, who was unharmed.” Leclerc-Imhoff had been reporting from the easternmost Ukrainian-held city, which has come under intense attack from Russia.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said the reporter “was in Ukraine to show the reality of the war. Onboard a humanitarian bus, alongside civilians forced to flee to escape Russian bombs, he was fatally shot. I share the pain of the family, relatives, and colleagues of Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, to whom I send my condolences.”

France’s new foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, has called for an investigation into Leclerc-Imhoff’s death. “France demands that a probe is carried out as soon as possible and in transparency on the circumstances of this drama,” she said in a statement.

Luhansk’s regional governor, Serhiy Haidai, said on Telegram that the armoured evacuation vehicle came “under enemy fire” as it went to collect 10 people from the area.

Russia will not use tactical nuclear weapons in the war against Ukraine, Russia’s ambassador to Britain has said 

Russian president, Vladimir Putin put his nuclear forces on high alert in late February, soon after the invasion of Ukraine, an act which many military analysts saw as a warning of what was to come.

But since then nuclear weapons haven’t been used against Ukraine even as Putin tries to gain total control over the Donbas region of Ukraine

According to Andrei Kelin, Russia’s ambassador to the UK, Russia has a strict code and it’s military doesn’t use such weapons in conflicts like this.

Kelin said Russia’s use of nuclear weapons will only happen when “the state’s existence is threatened.”

“It has nothing to do with the current operation,” Kelin told BBC One’s Sunday Morning.

 
He also described allegations of war crimes in the Ukranian town of Bucha as “a fabrication” while calling UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss “very belligerent” and inexperienced.

Russian president, Vladimir Putin has lost two more colonels including the country’s ‘best paratroop commander’ after they were killed in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Lieutenant colonel Alexander Dosyagayev, 34, was a commander of an airborne assault battalion of the 104th paratrooper regiment.

Troops from his 104th air assault regiment were reportedly in Bucha, the scene of alleged rape and torture atrocities committed by Vladimir Putin’s forces earlier in the war. His battalion based in Pskov had been recognised as the best in Russia in its extensive combat training and military discipline.

At the military festival ‘Army of Russia-2021’, he was judged the winner of the Winged Infantry category.

‘I was filled with pride that my soldiers and officers showed the result they were striving for,’ he said.

‘This did not help him at a meeting with Ukrainian warriors,’ said a statement from the Kyiv armed forces.

Russian media outlet Mediazona confirmed the death of another colonel killed earlier in the war which has not been announced.

Col Vladimir Ivanov, 41, has been labelled a ‘propagandist’ by the Ukrainian media because he served in the Russian defence ministry’s department of Information and Mass Communication.

It is now established that he died in March.

A friend Yevgeny Poddubniy carried his portrait at a march of the ‘immortal Regiment’ on 9 May commemorating Russians killed in action in multiple conflicts.

Dosyagayev and Ivanov are the 47th and 48th colonels known to have died fighting for Russian forces in Ukraine. The toll of generals is now believed to be ten.

Russian politicians are now demanding an ‘immediate withdrawal’ from Ukraine as 1115 soldiers are fired for refusing to take part in the invasion

Communist deputy Leonid Vasyukevich, 69, a veteran Russian legislator recently issued an appeal to Vladimir Putin to stop military action, bring his troops home, and end the war in Ukraine.

He condemned the use of Moscow’s servicemen in Ukraine, as a Russian court dismissed more than 115 national guardsmen in the first case of soldiers refusing to fight in Ukraine as politicians demanded the army return home.

Members of the National Guard of the Russian Federation, a separate military branch from the Russian army refused to carry out an assignment related to Moscow’s ‘special operation’ in Ukraine.

A military court in Russia’s southern republic of Kabardino-Balkaria found that the defendants ‘arbitrarily refused to perform an official assignment’ and turned down their appeal.

The hearing was held behind closed doors to avoid revealing ‘military secrets,’ according to the Moscow Times.

The veteran local MP told legislators in the Primorsky region that he and his fellow lawmakers were making an appeal to the Russian president.

Putin’s supporters have branded him a ‘traitor’ and he may now face legal action for dishonouring the Russian army.

‘We are backing measures to support families of servicemen killed during the special military operation,’ he told the regional legislator in Vladivostok, Russia’s Pacific capital.

‘We understand that unless our country stops the special military operation, there will be even more orphans.

‘Young men die and are maimed during the operation, even though they could have benefited our country.’

Three months have passed since the start of the war ‘and it is clearly impossible to reach success by a military way’, he said, amid interruptions from the assembly.

If Putin continues his war, it ‘will inevitably lead to an increase in the numbers of killed and wounded servicemen.

‘We demand the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine…’

Throughout his brave speech – the loyalist chairman of the parliament Alexander Rolik tried to halt his outburst.

‘I am warning you…You are abusing the agenda’, he was told. ‘You are violating the order to speak without permission.’

Governor Oleg Kozhemyako accused him and his supporters of defaming the Russian army, and demanded he should be removed from the assembly.

‘These actions discredit the Russian army and our defenders who stand in the fight against Nazism. A traitor,’ stormed the angry governor.

The US is preparing to send advanced, long-range rocket systems that can change the trajectory of the war against Russia , new reports say.

The Biden administration is reportedly planning to send the weapons systems as part of a larger package of military and security assistance to Ukraine, which could be announced as soon as next week.

A Friday, May 27 report by CNN says top Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, have recently begged the US and its allies to provide the Multiple Launch Rocket System, or MLRS. 

The MLRS is a US-made weapon systems that can fire a barrage of rockets hundreds of kilometers — much farther than any of the systems Ukraine already has.

The report adds that another system Ukraine has asked for is the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS, a lighter wheeled system capable of firing many of the same types of ammunition as MLRS.

The MLRS and its lighter-weight version, the HIMARS, can launch as far as 300km, or 186 miles, depending on the type of munition.

Russia has in recent weeks used the long range systems to attack Ukraine in the east, where Ukraine is outmanned and outgunned, Ukrainian officials have said but receiving any of the above named weapons would be a ‘game changer’s for Ukraine, Ukranian officials have said.

The US in the past has refused sending long range weapons and war planes to Ukraine, amid concerns raised within the National Security Council that Ukraine could use the systems to carry out offensive attacks inside Russia, officials said.

The report says the US fears that sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine will be viewed by Russia as a provocation that could trigger some kind of retaliation against the US.

Russian officials have said publicly that any threat to their homeland would constitute a major escalation and have said that western countries are making themselves a legitimate target in the war by continuing to arm the Ukrainians.

Ukraine is already believed to have carried out numerous cross-border strikes inside Russia, which Ukrainian officials neither confirm nor deny. 

Asked this week whether the US would provide the long range weapons systems to Ukraine, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin replied. “I don’t want to get ahead of where we are in the process of resourcing requirements,” 

The report adds that the UK is also still deciding whether to send the systems, but would like to do so in conjunction with the US.

The report adds that as recently as this week, the Pentagon had told Ukraine “we are working on it,” said one irritated Ukrainian official, who added that Ukraine is asking for an update on the decision “every hour.”

“We are in great need of weapons that will make it possible to engage the enemy over a long distance,” Ukraine’s top military commander, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, said Thursday, May 26. 

“And this cannot be delayed, because the price of delay is measured by the lives of people who have protected the world from [Russian fascism].”

Russian president, Vladimir Putin’s warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen Republic, has threatened to launch a military attack on Poland in retaliation for its steadfast support for Ukraine.

Recall, that Warsaw has been one of President Zelensky’s strongest allies since the invasion by Russian forces began. 

Poland has acted as a gateway for thousands of Ukrainian refugees fleeing to the west, and it has also stood up to Russia in the European Parliament by urging a ban on Russian gas and oil imports, The Telegraph reports.

But Poland has now been caught up in the Russian propaganda campaign which seeks to justify its onslaught on Ukraine.

In a video message on Monday, Kadyrov, 45 – who calls himself Putin’s ‘footsoldier’ – said: ‘Ukraine is a done deal. What I’m interested in is Poland.

‘What is Poland trying to achieve? Once Ukraine is done, we can show you what we’re capable of in six seconds if there is an order.’

Kadyrov has frequently criticized the West  on social media over their support for Ukraine.

In his latest directive, he demanded an apology over an act of vandalism in Warsaw earlier this month. 

On the anniversary of the Allies’ victory in 1945, a Ukrainian activist threw red paint over Russian ambassador Sergey Andreev as he attempted to lay flowers at the Soviet military cemetery in the Polish capital.

Kadyrov had warned: ‘You better take away your weapons and your mercenaries and officially apologise to our ambassador.’

Kadyrov’s troops have been accused of war crimes in Ukraine and Kadyrov himself has been known to follow them on excursions, although he has denied taking part in any extrajudicial killings.

Kadyrov has been repeatedly accused by the United States and European Union of human rights abuses, which he denies. 

Tens of thousands of Russian troops are now heading to the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk known collectively as the Donbas.

The Kremlin is seeking a victory there to prevent losing face over its ‘special military operation’. According to Western officials, Russian commanders believe the Donbas represents their best chance of success.