Russia-Ukraine war ‘may last longer’ than expected: Dutch PM in Kiev

Nearly five months into a military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte warns in Kiev that the war “may last longer” than the West originally expected. 

On Monday, the Dutch prime minister paid a visit to the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the ongoing war might last longer than what the West had expected.

“This war may last longer than we all hoped or expected. But that does not mean we can sit back and passively watch how it unfolds,” Rutte told Zelensky during their meeting.

“We have to stay focused and continue to support Ukraine in every way,” Rutte further said on his first visit to the Ukrainian capital since the beginning of the war.

He also pledged that the Netherlands would supply Ukraine with more long-range artillery and an aid package for 200 million euro ($201 million).

Since the onset of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, the United States and its European allies have unleashed a flood of advanced weapons into Ukraine and imposed waves of unprecedented sanctions on Moscow.

Russia has time and again said the Western flood of weapons will not force Moscow to end the operation before achieving its objectives. The Kremlin has also warned that the unprecedented sanctions against Russia, plus the flow of arms into Ukraine, would only prolong the ongoing war.

Zelensky, who has repeatedly been asking for more weapons from the West, praised his meeting with Rutte as being “constructive,” and welcomed the decision to provide more weapons to his country.

Russian forces hit 2 Ukrainian hangars storing US-made artillery weapons in Donetsk region

The Russian Defense Ministry said the destroyed hangars were located in the vicinity of the industrial city of Kostyantynivka.

Ukraine hopes to outnumber the Russians both technologically and in quantities of artillery. Kiev heavily relies on its Western allies to support and fulfill their promises to regain the Donbas, composed of two breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk that Moscow has vowed to “liberate.”

On July 3, Moscow said its forces and their allies had taken full control of Luhansk after capturing the final Ukrainian holdout of Lysychansk.

Separately on Monday, Russia’s defense ministry announced that its missiles destroyed ammunition depots in Ukraine's central Dnipro region, saying the depots used to supply rocket launchers and artillery weapons.

The ministry added that it also hit deployment points for Ukrainian troops and their allied foreign fighters in the Kharkiv region.

On Sunday, it announced that it had destroyed two Ukrainian army hangars housing US M777 howitzers.

Meanwhile, the Russian military said that its forces managed to shoot down two Su-25 fighter-bombers and a MiG-29 fighter jet in eastern Ukraine.

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