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Ukraine Says It’s Wrapping up Preparations for Counteroffensive

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov talks to media during an Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at Ramstein Air Base, southwestern Germany, on April 21, 2023. (AFP)
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov talks to media during an Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at Ramstein Air Base, southwestern Germany, on April 21, 2023. (AFP)
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Ukraine Says It’s Wrapping up Preparations for Counteroffensive

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov talks to media during an Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at Ramstein Air Base, southwestern Germany, on April 21, 2023. (AFP)
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov talks to media during an Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at Ramstein Air Base, southwestern Germany, on April 21, 2023. (AFP)

Ukraine is wrapping up preparations for a counteroffensive against Russian forces and is largely ready for it to go ahead, Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Friday.

"As soon as there is God's will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it," he told an online news briefing.

He gave no date for when the counteroffensive would start but said: "Globally speaking, we are to a high percentage ready."

Kyiv hopes its planned counteroffensive will change the dynamics of the war that has raged since Russia invaded Ukraine 14 months ago.

Russia holds swathes of Ukrainian territory in the east, south and southeast. Ukraine's military said in its latest daily report on the war that Bakhmut, a small city in the east, remained the focus of fighting.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said this week that Kyiv's foreign allies and partners had delivered almost all their promised combat vehicles to Ukraine.

Reznikov said Ukraine had received a lot of modern equipment, including arms that would serve as an "iron fist", and that training on some Western equipment was continuing.

Thousands of Ukrainian troops have been training in the West to use different military assets on the battlefield in a combined way.

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Iran Says It Will Respond to Reimposition of UN Sanctions

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei. (Iranian Foreign Ministry)
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei. (Iranian Foreign Ministry)
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Iran Says It Will Respond to Reimposition of UN Sanctions

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei. (Iranian Foreign Ministry)
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei. (Iranian Foreign Ministry)

Iran will react to any reimposition of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear program, the country's foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday, without elaborating on what actions Tehran might take.

A French diplomatic source told Reuters last week that European powers would have to restore UN sanctions on Iran under the so-called "snapback mechanism" if there were no nuclear deal that guaranteed European security interests.

The "snapback mechanism" is a process that would reimpose UN sanctions on Tehran under a 2015 nuclear deal that lifted the measures in return for restrictions on Iran's nuclear program.

"The threat to use the snapback mechanism lacks legal and political basis and will be met with an appropriate and proportionate response from Iran," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told a press conference, without giving further details.

The 2015 deal with Britain, Germany, France, the US, Russia and China - known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - states that if the parties cannot resolve accusations of "significant non-performance" by Iran, the "snapback mechanism" process can be triggered by the 15-member UN Security Council.

"The European parties, who are constantly trying to use this possibility as a tool, have themselves committed gross and fundamental violations of their obligations under the JCPOA," Baghaei said.

"They have failed to fulfill the duties they had undertaken under the JCPOA, so they have no legal or moral standing to resort to this mechanism."

Western countries accuse Iran of plotting to build a nuclear weapon, which Tehran denies.

The United States pulled out of the deal in 2018 under the first administration of President Donald Trump, who called the agreement "weak".

Trump, whose second presidency began in January, has urged Tehran to return to nuclear negotiations on a new deal after a ceasefire was reached last month that ended a 12-day air war between Iran and Israel that destabilized the Middle East.

When asked if Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi would meet with Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, Baghaei said no date or location had been set for resuming the US-Iran nuclear talks.