Ukraine will be armed with depleted uranium anti-tank rounds that can aid its troops in piercing Russian tanks, said the Pentagon. The controversial 120mm anti-tanks shells will be used to boost the performance of 31 M1A1 Abram tanks the US will give Ukraine in the fall. The US is looking to aid Kyiv in dismantling Russian lines in eastern, northeastern and southern regions amid a simmering counteroffensive by the Ukrainians. The rounds, developed by the US during the Cold War, have previously destroyed Soviet tanks, including the decades old T-72 tanks dispatched by Moscow in the continuing war. The 46th drawdown of military equipment from the Department of Defence includes additional air defence equipment, artillery rounds and anti-tank weapons, and was announced shortly after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Ukrainian counterpart and foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba on Wednesday. “We want to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs not only to succeed in the counteroffensive but has what it needs for the long term to make sure that it has a strong deterrent, strong defence capacity so that, in the future, aggressions like this don’t happen again,” Mr Blinken said in a statement before the two leaders met. The UK had also announced in March that it would give depleted uranium rounds to Ukraine, leaving Russia fuming and falsely claiming they had provided nuclear components. On Thursday, Russia snapped at Washington and called the latest military aid of depleted uranium a “criminal act” beyond just escalation. “It is a reflection of Washington’s outrageous disregard for the environmental consequences of using this kind of ammunition in a combat zone. This is, in fact, a criminal act, I cannot give any other assessment,” said Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov. He also reiterated previous warnings by Russia about the risk of a nuclear war, because of what he called Western “pressure” on Moscow. “Now this pressure is dangerously balancing on the brink of direct armed conflict between nuclear powers,” he said. Russia has deployed hypersonic missiles to thermobaric weapons on civilian targets in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine which has continued for more than 20 months now. Officials in Moscow have never taken responsibility for explaining using ballistic Kinzhal missiles, a barrage of which was fired on Ukraine in March this year. The missile has a range of up to 2,000km (about 1,250 miles) and flies at 10 times the speed of sound, making it hard to intercept. In April this year, the British defence ministry said Russia is likely handing over thermobaric multiple launch rocket systems to its elite airborne forces, suggesting its use in the continuing war. Thermobaric weapons, fired using the multiple launch rocket systems, are considered to be some of the most brutal war weapons in existence. “The highly destructive TOS-1A, which Russia designates as a ‘heavy flamethrower’, is typically operated by Russia’s specialist Chemical, Biological and Radiological Protection Troops in Ukraine, and has not previously been formally associated with the VDV,” the ministry had said. Russia had admitted to using the flamethrower weapon in March last year. Also known as vacuum bombs, they suck in oxygen and generate a powerful explosion that can have a devastating impact on victims – especially in an enclosed space. In another attack, Russia used cluster bombs which killed a child and two adults hiding in a pre-school in northeastern Ukraine. While the depleted uranium rounds retain some radioactive properties, they can’t generate a nuclear reaction like a nuclear weapon would, RAND nuclear expert and policy researcher Edward Geist said. The Pentagon has defended the use of the munitions. The US military “has procured, stored, and used depleted uranium rounds for several decades, since these are a longstanding element of some conventional munitions,” Pentagon spokesman Marine Corps Lt Col Garron Garn said in a statement in March. Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary UN nuclear watchdog report seen by AP says Iran slows its enrichment of near-weapons-grade uranium Ukraine war: US send depleted uranium to Kyiv after blast near Russia military base Greek shipper pleads guilty to smuggling Iranian crude oil and will pay $2.4 million fine

Dillon Danis fans couldn't get enough of the hilarity that ensued from this unexpected twist

An Obama-era White House email transmitting then-vice president Joe Biden’s schedule to his son, Hunter Biden, was sent during planning for a Biden family gathering to mark the one-year anniversary of Beau Biden’s death, The Independent has learned. The communications between an aide for the then-vice president and his youngest and sole surviving son are part of a House Oversight Committee request for Obama-era records sent to the National Archives. The oversight committee chairman, Representative James Comer, said in a letter to the archives released on Thursday that it was “concerning” to the Republican-led panel that Hunter Biden was a recipient of a 26 May 2016 email showing that the then-vice president was scheduled to speak with then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko the next day. Republicans have spent the last several years insinuating — without evidence — that then-vice president Biden abused his authority to help Hunter Biden’s business interests. One long-running but oft-disproven allegation states that Mr Biden ordered the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor to disrupt an investigation into a Ukrainian energy firm that employed his son on its board. In reality, the decision to push for the prosecutor’s sacking was official US policy driven by the prosecutor’s failure to pursue corruption cases, and it was supported by the EU, the IMF, World Bank and other stakeholders. In his letter to the Archives, Mr Comer has asked for unredacted copies of four emails that had been released in redacted form pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request. The Independent reviewed copies of the emails that have been publicly available on a website hosting the contents of a hard drive purportedly abandoned by Hunter Biden at a Delaware computer shop. According to the redacted versions of the emails, certain information was blocked out because it contained personal information about the then-vice president’s schedule. But the unredacted versions purportedly from Hunter Biden’s computer show that following the call with Mr Poroshenko, the then-vice president returned home to Delaware. The day of the call — and Mr Biden’s trip home — was 27 May 2016, nearly one year to the day since Mr Biden’s eldest son, then-Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, passed away after a long battle with brain cancer. Mr Biden’s public schedule from those days is available on archives of the Obama White House website, and they reveal that he had no public events for the period of 28 May 2016 to 30 May 2016. But another email from the purported Hunter Biden laptop, dated 30 May 2016, shows that the then-vice president’s staff coordinated movements of 23 Biden family members to and from a private memorial gathering that day, the exact anniversary of Beau Biden’s death. Hunter Biden, who was not present for the gathering, wrote in his recent memoir Beautiful Things that he spent that weekend in Monte Carlo for a meeting of Burisma’s board. But the younger Biden’s children — the then-vice president’s grandchildren — were listed as attending the gathering, which would have provided a reason for Hunter Biden to be kept aware of his father’s schedule. The day after the gathering, 31 May 2016, was also Memorial Day. That day, Joe Biden resumed his public schedule when he commemorated his late son at a ceremony to rename Delaware’s National Guard headquarters in Wilmington as the Major Joseph R “Beau” Biden III National Guard/Reserve Center. The late Delaware attorney general was an Iraq war veteran who had served a Major in the Army National Guard’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps. The White House and a representative for Mr Comer did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent. Read More Hunter Biden lawyer asks to withdraw from case after special counsel named to investigate president’s son Prosecutors in the Hunter Biden case deny defense push to keep gun charge agreement in place Trump and Hunter Biden legal blockbusters rock Washington – but offer a contrast Hunter Biden lawyer asks to withdraw from case after special counsel named in probe Prosecutors in the Hunter Biden case deny defense push to keep gun charge agreement in place Hunter Biden’s lawyer fight to keep plea deal

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