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Austin: US Will Provide $2.3 Billion More in Military Aid to Ukraine

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (R) welcomes Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov (L) to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 02 July 2024. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (R) welcomes Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov (L) to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 02 July 2024. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
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Austin: US Will Provide $2.3 Billion More in Military Aid to Ukraine

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (R) welcomes Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov (L) to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 02 July 2024. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (R) welcomes Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov (L) to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 02 July 2024. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday that the US will soon announce an additional $2.3 billion in security assistance for Ukraine, to include anti-tank weapons, interceptors and munitions for Patriot and other air defense systems.

The announcement came as Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov met with Austin at the Pentagon. And it marks a strong response to pleas from Kyiv for help in battling Russian forces in the Donetsk region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russia had dropped more than 800 powerful glide bombs in Ukraine in the last week alone. And he urged national leaders to relax restrictions on the use of Western weapons to strike military targets inside Russia. In particular, he said Ukraine needs the “necessary means to destroy the carriers of these bombs, including Russian combat aircraft, wherever they are.”

Ukraine is expected to get "good news" in its quest for more air defence systems at a NATO summit in Washington next week, a senior US State Department official said on Tuesday.

"We hope we'll be able to get to the summit and make some new announcements on air defense," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"You've heard that the Ukrainians are keen to secure additional Patriots or similar systems. And I think we'll have some additional good news for them on that front."

Ukrainian officials have been urging their allies for months to supply more air defense systems to defend against frequent missile and drone attacks from Russian forces following Moscow's 2022 invasion.

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Attempts to Cross the English Channel on Small Boats Leave 4 Migrants, Including a Child, Dead

Pas-de-Calais prefect Jacques Billant (L) holds a press conference in Boulogne-sur-Mer on October 5, 2024, following the death of four migrants who attempt to cross the English Channel. (AFP)
Pas-de-Calais prefect Jacques Billant (L) holds a press conference in Boulogne-sur-Mer on October 5, 2024, following the death of four migrants who attempt to cross the English Channel. (AFP)
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Attempts to Cross the English Channel on Small Boats Leave 4 Migrants, Including a Child, Dead

Pas-de-Calais prefect Jacques Billant (L) holds a press conference in Boulogne-sur-Mer on October 5, 2024, following the death of four migrants who attempt to cross the English Channel. (AFP)
Pas-de-Calais prefect Jacques Billant (L) holds a press conference in Boulogne-sur-Mer on October 5, 2024, following the death of four migrants who attempt to cross the English Channel. (AFP)

French authorities said four migrants, including a 2-year-old child, died Saturday in two separate incidents as they attempted to cross the English Channel toward Britain.

France's Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau deplored a “terrible tragedy" on X, saying that the child “was trampled to death in a boat."

“The smugglers have the blood of these people on their hands,” Retailleau added, saying his newly-appointed government is to “intensify the fight against these mafias who make money from these deadly crossings.”

Saturday’s deaths come as a series of shipwrecks made 2024 the deadliest in recent years on the English Channel. Last month, 12 people died after a boat carrying migrants ripped apart in the English Channel. About two weeks later, eight migrants died in a similar crossing attempt.

In a news conference, the prefect of the Pas-de-Calais, Jacques Billant, said rescuers found the 2-year-old child dead onboard a migrant boat that had called for assistance Saturday morning.

Fourteen other migrants picked up on board the rescue boat were brought back to France to be interviewed by the border police and a 17-year-old was brought to a hospital in the port city of Boulogne-sur-Mer as he suffered from burns to his legs, Billant said.

Other people on the migrant boat who refused to be rescued continued their journey toward Britain, he said.

“To make money and with no regard for human life, networks of smugglers put people at ever greater risk,” including families with children, “literally leading them to accident and death,” Billant said.

Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor Guirec Le Bras, said the child, who appears to have been crushed in a jostling on the boat, was born in Germany from a 24-year-old Somalian mother.

In a separate incident, Billant, the prefect, said rescuers found three migrants dead and saved several others as they fell off a small boat overloaded with 83 passengers amid “panic and stampede."

Those dead “were probably crushed" and “have choked ... and drowned in the 40 centimeters (16 inches) of water at the bottom of the inflatable boat,” he said.

They were two men and a woman, the three of them aged about 30, he said.

Migrants that rescuers took care of Saturday came from Eritrea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran, Ethiopia, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Kuwait and Iraq, Billant listed.

The prosecutor said investigations have been open on both incidents.

Europe’s increasingly strict asylum rules, growing xenophobia and hostile treatment of migrants have been pushing them north.

Before Saturday's events, French authorities said at least 46 migrants had died while trying to cross to the UK this year.