Artillery makes the difference

In the growing mythology of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invading forces, light-footed infantry armed only with shoulder-fired missiles have repeatedly bloodied Vladimir Putin’s nose, killing ill-prepared and unmotivated Russians in defense of their homes and families. Yet this David-and-Goliath vision (not unlike that of the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan) is only part of the story. As has often been the case in wars like this one, it’s artillery that’s making the difference. And that’s why the U.S. and other nations are putting so much emphasis on providing howitzers to Ukraine forces. Such traditional firepower, supported by drones that allow for pinpoint targeting, will become even more dominant in the next phase of the war, along a 300-plus mile front in Donbas.

Seeking to keep the pressure on Putin, U.S. President Joe Biden is asking Congress for $33 billion in additional aid to Ukraine—and new authority to sell property linked to Putin’s rich friends. In Kyiv, Russia allegedly attacked a residential building just miles from where United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres was visiting sites of mass civilian killings attributed to Russian forces. (The Kremlin has denied that it killed the hundreds of civilians found executed in Bucha and elsewhere.) In the east, where Russia has been making slow advances, the UN is trying to evacuate civilians from the besieged Black Sea port city of Mariupol, where Moscow has been bombing a steel factory in which thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers are sheltering. In the west, following warnings by the U.S. and Kyiv that explosions in Moldova’s Kremlin-aligned Transnistria region may be false-flag events, a Kremlin spokeswoman on Thursday decried the purported attacks as “acts of terrorism.” —David E. Rovella

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The findings of a U.S. House committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection by followers of Donald Trump will be presented to the nation in eight separate public hearings spread out over June, the panel’s chairman said Thursday. The deadly attack, in which rioters including white supremacist groups sought to block the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history, is also the subject of a sprawling criminal probe by the Justice Department.

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