Austin

RPM Living’s Marketing Team Named Department of the Year for Superior Performance and Talent

AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–As the first multifamily management company to be recognized in the Public Relations and Marketing Excellence Awards, RPM Living’s Marketing team has been awarded 2022 Department of the Year. The annual PR and marketing industry awards identify leading agencies and corporate departments who delivered quantifiable business results for their respective clients.

RPM’s Marketing team is structured like an in-house agency, but has the added benefit of industry knowledge, giving it an advantage over other management companies and agencies. Comprised of agency-trained internal and external experts, the team’s unique approach and expertise allows them to develop strong brands that elevate and enhance the 450+ communities RPM manages and set them up to be successful right out of the gate.

With a large role in securing new business opportunities, RPM’s Marketing team has directly supported the explosive growth of RPM Living, becoming the fastest growing multifamily company two years in a row, helping the organization grow from the 42nd to the 7th Largest Multifamily Manager on the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) Top 50 Apartment Manager List, the authoritative industry leader.

In the past year alone, the department has launched multiple programs and processes that directly impact performance, including a customized marketing BI dashboard to provide proprietary data that guides strategic business decisions, a complete CRM platform for RPM’s entire portfolio of properties that streamlines the leasing and retention process, and complete branding and digital services which brought previously outsourced services in-house for a more strategic solution at a lower cost.

The team is led by Chief Marketing Officer Alexis Vance and Senior Vice President of Marketing Lindsay Jacobs, who have been able to attract high-caliber candidates in one of the most competitive job markets to build out an industry-leading marketing team. Over the past two years, the team has grown from a handful of associates to nearly 40 team members and experienced 15+ internal promotions.

“Our innovative, results-oriented team is strategically creative and creatively strategic,” says Alexis Vance. “Years of experience, truckloads of talent, and a lot of fun has allowed us to support the organization during a time of immense growth and really do things differently in the multifamily industry.”

To learn more about RPM, visit RPMLiving.com. For more information on the Public Relations and Marketing Excellence awards visit bintelligence.com/pr-excellence.

About RPM Living

RPM Living is a full-service multifamily management company offering an innovative and personalized approach to real estate services including management, investment and development. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, RPM is ranked #7 on the NMHC Top 50 Largest Apartment Manager list, managing more than 100 clients, nine regional offices and 112,000 units, with an owned portfolio of $3 billion. Founded by Jason Berkowitz in 2002, the firm has grown to over 2,500 associates nationwide spread across over 35 markets, all of whom share the collective vision to enhance clients’ investments through customized solutions and exceptional resident-centric service. To learn more about RPM, visit RPMLiving.com.

About Business Intelligence Group

The Business Intelligence Group was founded with the mission of recognizing true talent and superior performance in the business world. Unlike other industry award programs, these programs are judged by business executives who have experience and knowledge. The organization’s proprietary and unique scoring system selectively measures performance across multiple business domains and rewards those companies whose achievements stand above those of their peers.

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Tesla’s Musk eyes potential investment in Mexican border state -sources

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MEXICO CITY, Oct 24 (Reuters) – Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) Chief Executive Elon Musk is considering investing in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, which borders Texas, two people with knowledge of the matter said on Monday.

Musk recently held a meeting in the state with Nuevo Leon Governor Samuel Garcia along with other local officials and Ken Salazar, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, one of the sources said.

Musk is looking in particular at Santa Catarina, a municipality on the outskirts of state capital Monterrey, one of Mexico’s biggest and wealthiest cities, the person added. The sources did not detail what Musk’s potential investment may entail.

A spokesperson for the Nuevo Leon government declined to comment. Neither Tesla, the U.S. embassy, nor a representative for Santa Catarina immediately responded to requests for comment.

Musk’s visit to Nuevo Leon was originally reported by Mexican media. Several outlets published photos of Musk apparently from the visit, including one in which he appears with Garcia’s wife, Mariana Rodriguez.

Garcia posted several of the media articles on his Instagram account, in one case tagging Rodriguez’s account and writing, “Look, look,” without further comment.

Tesla, based in Austin, Texas, has its own lane at the U.S.-Mexico border crossing in Nuevo Leon to facilitate trade for local suppliers, the state government said in August.

Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon and Dave Graham in Mexico City
Editing by Matthew Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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For His 3rd Term, Xi Jinping Surrounds Himself With Loyalists

Credit…Social Media, via Reuters

HONG KONG — Thousands of posters condemning China’s top leader have appeared on college campuses in New York, Barcelona, Stockholm, Tokyo and elsewhere over the past few days as Chinese students and dissidents spread the message of a lone protester in China.

The posters — paper pasted onto just about everything — have one common theme: Oust the “despotic traitor,” Xi Jinping.

Those words first appeared in Beijing on Oct. 13. As Mr. Xi, China’s top leader, was expected to coast to a third term during the Communist Party congress, someone whose identity has not been confirmed, managed to hang a banner on a busy bridge calling for Mr. Xi’s dismissal. On Sunday, that third term was confirmed.

The protest slogans on the banner also included “Elections, Not Dictatorship” and “Citizens, Not Flunkies.”

The appearance of such strong dissent before an important Communist Party meeting, in a heavily policed city, astonished the whole country. The protester was taken away by police, and online discussions were quickly censored.

Dissidents, however, then found ways to amplify the message overseas. The protest slogans on the Beijing bridge have popped up on bulletin boards, poles and bus stations at more than 200 colleges across at least 20 countries, as many international Chinese students said they were saluting the protester and fighting Mr. Xi’s autocracy.

“I used to be surrounded by a deep powerlessness over political resistance, but the Beijing protester inspired me, showing there are ways to fight,” said Xintong Zhang, 24, a Chinese student at the University of Toronto, who sobbed when seeing the protester’s banner on social media. She later put up dozens of “Dictator Out” posters around campus at dawn.

Compared with other autocracies such as Russia, Iran and Myanmar, China is regarded by many human rights organizations as even less hospitable to free speech and government protest. Under Mr. Xi, opposition and criticism is heavily suppressed with a mix of state security, online censorship and the threat of severe punishment. No independent media and civil society organizations remain 10 years into his rule. Freedom House, a U.S. pro-democracy group, has ranked China last in internet freedom for eight consecutive years.

Ms. Zhang said many Chinese — especially her peers, who started high school after Mr. Xi came to power — did not know how to fight authoritarianism whether at home or abroad.

“Now we have the Beijing protester, and I can look up to him,” she said. “I know I should speak out and how to do it.”

Some of the new activists are concerned that even outside China, there are risks that come with opposing the Chinese government.

A student at the University of Texas at Austin who posted anti-Xi posters on campus said that he was worried about being targeted and harassed by nationalist Chinese students. The student, who is surnamed Zhou, declined to be identified by his full name, citing the same reason.

Ms. Zhang said she worried about being harassed by other Chinese students, assuming the majority were nationalists. As a result, she wore a mask when putting up posters to avoid being identified.

She found most of her posters had been torn down and some had been left half hanging from bulletin boards. “I felt heartbroken but then relieved,” she said. “It’s okay if they tore down my posters as long as I keep posting until the party congress finishes.”

The overseas anti-Xi slogans gained traction after they were collected and shared by pro-democracy Instagram accounts run by anonymous volunteers, mostly Chinese citizens living abroad.

“A brave man should have an echo,” one of the groups, Citizens Daily CN, posted on Instagram.

— Zixu Wang and Amy Chang Chien

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Alex Jones Set To Testify In Trial Over Sandy Hook Hoax Lies

By Associated Press

and Newsy Staff
September 22, 2022

A jury will decide how much money conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay to the families of victims after he was already found liable for damages.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones appeared in court Thursday in Connecticut as he and his lawyer try to limit damages he must pay for promoting the lie that the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax.

More than a dozen family members of some of the 20 children and six educators killed in the shooting also showed up to observe his testimony in Waterbury Superior Court, which is about 20 miles away from Newtown.

Jones was expected to be the first witness called, but there was a delay as the court dealt with Wi-Fi issues in the courthouse.

Jones has been in Connecticut this week in preparation for his appearance. He held a news conference Wednesday outside the courthouse, bashing the proceedings — as he has on his Infowars show — as a “travesty of justice” and calling the judge a “tyrant.” He made similar comments on his way into the courthouse Thursday, indicating he may invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and not answer some questions.

“This is not really a trial,” he said. “This is a show trial, a literal kangaroo court.”

Several victims’ relatives, meanwhile, have given emotional testimony during the trial about being traumatized by people calling the shooting fake, including confrontations at their homes and in public, and messages including death and rape threats. The plaintiffs include an FBI agent who responded to the shooting and relatives of eight of the victims.

Judge Barbara Bellis last year found Jones liable by default for damages to plaintiffs without a trial, as punishment for what she called his repeated failures to turn over documents to their lawyers. The six-member jury only will be deciding how much Jones and Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company, should pay the families for defaming them and intentionally inflicting emotional distress.

Bellis began the day going over with Jones the topics he cannot testify about — including free speech rights, the Sandy Hook families $73 million settlement earlier this year with gun maker Remington (the company made the Bushmaster rifle used to kill the victims at Sandy Hook) or the percentage of Jones’ shows that discussed Sandy Hook.

“This is not the appropriate forum for you to offer that testimony,” Bellis said. Jones indicated that he understood.

Bellis said in court on Wednesday that she was prepared to handle any incendiary testimony from Jones, with contempt of court proceedings if necessary.

Jones also was found liable by default in two similar lawsuits over the hoax lies in his hometown of Austin, Texas, where a jury in one of the trials ordered Jones last month to pay nearly $50 million in damages to the parents of one of the children killed. A third trial in Texas is expected to begin near the end of the year.

When Jones faced the Texas jury last month and testified under oath, he toned down his rhetoric. He said he realized the hoax lies were irresponsible and the school shooting was “100% real.”

“I unintentionally took part in things that did hurt these people’s feelings,” testified Jones, who also acknowledged raising conspiracy claims about other mass tragedies, from the Oklahoma City and Boston Marathon bombings to the mass shootings in Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida, “and I’m sorry for that.”

Jones had portrayed the Sandy Hook shooting as staged by crisis actors as part of gun control efforts.

Testimony at the current trial also has focused on website analytics data run by Infowars employees showing how its sales of dietary supplements, food, clothing and other items spiked around the time Jones talked about the Sandy Hook shooting.

Evidence, including internal Infowars emails and depositions, also shows dissention within the company about pushing the hoax lies.

Jones’ lawyer Norman Pattis is arguing that any damages should be limited and accused the victims’ relatives of exaggerating the harm the lies caused them.

The relatives have testified that they continue to fear for their safety because of what the hoax believers have done and might do.

Jennifer Hensel, whose 6-year-old daughter Avielle Richman was among the slain, testified Wednesday that she still monitors her surroundings, even checking the back seat of her car, for safety reasons. She said she is trying to shield her two children, ages 7 and 5, from the hoax lies. A juror cried during her testimony.

“They’re so young,” she said of her children. “Their innocence is so beautiful right now. And at some point there are a horde of people out there who could hurt them.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Officials: 8 Injured In Chicago Apartment Building Explosion

By Associated Press
September 20, 2022

The explosion at the three-story, 36-unit apartment building in the South Austin neighborhood occurred shortly before 9:30 a.m., officials said.

At least six people were rushed to hospitals after being injured when an explosion Tuesday tore through the top floor of a Chicago apartment building, officials said.

The explosion at the three-story, 36-unit apartment building in the South Austin neighborhood occurred shortly before 9:30 a.m., officials said. At least 10 ambulances were on the scene, according to the Chicago Fire Department, which requested help searching the structure.

“Requesting manpower for searches in structure,” the department tweeted.

Photographs and video posted on the Chicago Fire Department’s twitter page shows that much of the top floor of the four-story brick apartment building on the city’s West Side was destroyed by the blast. Scores of bricks and other debris had fallen onto the street, crushing at least one car and seriously damaging two others.

pic.twitter.com/IKAkwhJICS

— Chicago Fire Media (@CFDMedia) September 20, 2022

Several people who lived in the building said they were home when the explosion rocked the entire building.

“I was asleep, and all of a sudden there was a loud booming,” Lawrence Lewis, who was asleep at the time, told WGN television. “I woke up to my windows gone, my front door blown open. I just saw smoke, and I ran out of the house. I was asleep. I’m shook up right now.”

No cause of the explosion had been determined. The department said in a series of tweets that the Chicago police bomb squad and agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on their way as well.

The Fire Department said conditions of three victims range from serious to critical.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Detroit Auto Show Returns After 3 Years, Focus On Electric Vehicles

President Biden announced $900 million to install EV chargers along 53,000 miles of U.S. highways, as the show returned after a COVID-19 hiatus.

The Detroit Auto Show is back after a three year pit stop due to COVID.

The big focus this year is electric cars.

American Road Trip is going to be fully electrified, whether you’re driving coast-to-coast along I-10. Or on I-75 in Michigan. Charging stations will be up and easy to find as gas stations are now.

President Biden helped jump-start the electric fanfare, announcing $900 million to install EV chargers along 53,000 miles of U.S. highways across 35 states.

They’ll need to be built quickly. EV sales are shocking analysts. They’re up 60% in the first quarter of the year. They account for about five percent of the sales, but they only make up one percent of the 250 million cars on the road.

But sales are kicking into overdrive. EV sales are expected to make up 30% of all car sales by the end of the decade, almost half by 2035 and the majority of sales in less than 30 years.

Whether you prefer a sports car, truck, or SUV, there’s an electric version of everything.

The big auto makes, like GM, are focusing on electric and pledging to only sell electric cars by the middle of the next decade.

One of the big deterrents, though, is cost.

The average gas-powered car costs about $48,000 while the average EV costs about $66,000.

GM is trying to get cars into middle-class driveways, unveiling its new fully electric Equinox for just $30,000.

“We really think this is going to be a key point for EV adoption,” Equinox EV Chief Engineer Matt Purdy said. And we’re going to see that we’re priced right in the right segment with the right vehicle.”

All of the big automakers are betting big on electric.

GM is spending $7 million on new electric battery planes in Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. Ford is writing a $11 billion check for EV plants in Tennessee and Kentucky, that will employ 11,000 people. Meanwhile, Telsa is building a new plant in Austin, Texas. And Stellantis is dropping more than $2 billion on a battery plant in Indiana.

Ford basically split its company in half — half gas, half electric — and it’s already paying off.

Last month, its EV sales jumped 307%, driven by its electric F-150 pick-up and Mustang models. It will sell 600,000 EVs this year and two million annually in just four years.

Not to be left out in the dark, Stellantis, which owns Jeep, announced its new hybrid Jeep Grand Cherokee.

But not everything is electric. This year, they will also debut the Farwell Edition of the Chrysler 300, which is a large gas-powered sedan.

Source: newsy.com

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Sandy Hook Witnesses Testify About Alex Jones’ Hoax Claims

A jury will decide how much money conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay to the families of victims after he was already found liable for damages.

A sister of a teacher killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre and an FBI agent who responded to the school shooting became overwhelmed with emotion Tuesday as they described what it has been like to be accused of being crisis actors by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and others.

Carlee Soto Parisi and FBI agent William Aldenberg were the first witnesses to testify as a Connecticut jury began hearing evidence in a trial to decide how much money Jones owes for spreading the lie that the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown that killed 20 first graders and six educators didn’t happen.

Soto Parisi said she has been hounded, both in Connecticut and after she moved to North Carolina, by those who believe she was acting. Some of the hoax believers went online and posted photos of grieving women, including an Associated Press photo of a distraught Soto Parisi outside Sandy Hook Elementary School after the shooting, saying they were the same actor.

“I frequently got threatening emails and messages on all social media,” she testified, crying at times. “And it got to a point where they would use the gun emoji. And I spoke with cops in Connecticut and my husband ended up having to speak with cops in North Carolina, because we were scared for our lives.”

Aldenberg also broke down as he described being among the first law enforcement officers to enter the two classrooms where 20 children died. He described watching as the phone next to Vicki Soto’s body lit up with messages from those trying to reach her.

“Was what you saw in that school fake?” asked attorney Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

“No,” Aldenberg said. “It’s awful. It’s awful.”

He also testified about how he and others in the community and law enforcement were targeted with threats and conspiracy theories, including one that claimed he was an actor who also pretended to be the father of a victim.

“It’s one of the worst things that ever happened, if not the worst thing that ever happened here, what happened to them,” Aldenberg said. “And people want to say this didn’t happen? And then they want to get rich off of it? That’s the worst part.”

The trial in Waterbury, less than 20 miles from Newtown, was attended by more than a dozen family members of victims, including David Wheeler, the father who conspiracy theorists had claimed was the same person as Aldenberg. Wheeler nodded his head as Aldenberg apologized for what Wheeler had to endure because of their resemblance.

Jones did not attend the trial on Tuesday. He is expected in court next week. Jones and his Infowars brand are based in Austin, Texas.

The Sandy Hook families and Aldenberg say they have been confronted and harassed for years by people who believed Jones’ false claim that the shooting was staged by crisis actors as part of a plot to take away people’s guns.

Some say strangers have videotaped them and their surviving children. They’ve also endured death threats and been subjected to abusive comments on social media. And some families have moved out of Newtown to avoid harassment. They accuse Jones of causing them emotional and psychological harm.

“You know, you can say whatever you want about me, I don’t care,” Aldenberg said. “Just say what you want. I’m a frigging big boy. I can take it. But then they want to make profits, they want to make millions and millions of dollars. They want to destroy people’s lives. Their children got slaughtered. I saw it myself, and now they have to sit here and listen to me say this.”

It’s the second such trial for Jones, who was ordered by a Texas jury last month to pay nearly $50 million to the parents of one of the slain children. Jones was not at the trial Tuesday and is expected to attend next week.

A jury of three men and three women along with several alternates will decide how much Jones should pay relatives of eight victims and Aldenberg. Judge Barbara Bellis found Jones liable for damages without a trial last year after he failed to turn over documents to the families’ lawyers.

The judge also sanctioned Jones on Tuesday for failing to turn over analytic data related to his website and the popularity of his show. She told his lawyers that because of that failure, they will not be allowed to argue he didn’t profit from his Sandy Hook remarks.

In opening statements, Jones was described by Mattei as a bully and by his own attorney as a crank in a town square who should be ignored.

Mattei showed jurors data indicating how Jones’ audience increased as he spread lies about the shooting. He also showed them photos and videos of things Jones had said, and told the panel they already had the tools from their own life experiences to decide what to do in this case.

Jones’ attorney, Norm Pattis, argued that his client has espoused a number of conspiracy theories over the years, something he has a Constitutional right to do.

Pattis told the jury that although Jones is liable for damages, any award should be minimal and alleged the families were overstating the harm they say Jones caused them.

On his Infowars web show on Tuesday, Jones portrayed himself as the victim of unfair show trials.

“How am I handling it? We’re at war. This is total tyranny,” he said. “I’ll tell you this, we can appeal this for years. We can beat this.”

The trial is expected to last about a month and feature testimony from more victims’ relatives. Jones also will be testifying, Pattis said.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Damages Trial Set To Begin For Alex Jones In Sandy Hook Hoax Case

By Associated Press

and Newsy Staff
September 12, 2022

A jury will decide how much money conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay to the families of victims after he was already found liable for damages.

A month after losing one nearly $50 million verdict, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is set to go on trial a second time for calling the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a hoax and causing several of the victims’ families emotional and psychological harm.

A six-member jury with several alternates in Connecticut will begin hearing evidence Tuesday on how much Jones should pay the families, since he already has been found liable for damages to them. The trial is expected to last about four weeks.

Last month, a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay $49.3 million to the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, one of 26 students and teachers killed in the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Jones’ lawyer has said an appeal is planned.

The Connecticut case has the potential for a larger award because it involves three lawsuits — which have been consolidated — that were filed by 15 plaintiffs, including the relatives of nine of the victims and a former FBI agent who responded to the school shooting.

Jones, who runs his web show and Infowars brand in Austin, Texas, also faces a third trial over the hoax conspiracy in another pending lawsuit by Sandy Hook parents in Texas.

The families and former FBI agent William Aldenberg say they have been confronted and harassed in person by Jones’ followers because of the hoax conspiracy. They also say they have endured death threats and been subjected to abusive comments on social media.

Some of the plaintiffs say strangers have videotaped them and their surviving children. And some families have moved out of Newtown to avoid threats and harassment.

“I can’t even describe the last nine and a half years, the living hell that I and others have had to endure because of the recklessness and negligence of Alex Jones,” Neil Heslin, Jesse Lewis’ father, testified during the Texas trial.

The Connecticut lawsuit alleges defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and violations of the state Unfair Trade Practices Act. The families claim when Jones talked about Sandy Hook, he boosted his audience and raked in more profits from selling supplements, clothing and other items.

The families have not asked for any specific amount of damages, some of which may be limited by state laws. There are no damage limits, however, under the Unfair Trade Practices Act.

In all the Connecticut and Texas cases, Jones and his lawyers repeatedly failed to turn over records as required to the families’ attorneys. In response, judges handed down one of the harshest sanctions in the civil legal world — they found Jones liable for damages by default without trials.

In a reversal from what he said on his show for years following the shooting, Jones now says he believes the massacre was real. But he continues to say his comments about the shooting being a hoax involving crisis actors to encourage gun control efforts were protected by free speech rights.

During a deposition in the case in April, a defiant Jones insisted he wasn’t responsible for the suffering that Sandy Hook parents say they have endured because of his words.

He also has said the judges’ default rulings against him — finding him liable without trials — were unfair and suggested they were part of a conspiracy to put him out of business and silence him.

“If questioning public events and free speech is banned because it might hurt somebody’s feelings, we are not in America anymore,” he said at the deposition. “They can change the channel. They can come out and say I’m wrong. They have free speech.”

At the Texas trial, however, Jones testified that he now realizes what he said was irresponsible, did hurt people’s feelings and he apologized.

Judge Barbara Bellis, who found Jones liable for damages, will oversee the trial. She is the same judge who oversaw Sandy Hook families’ lawsuit against gun maker Remington, which made the Bushmaster rifle used in the school shooting. In February, Remington agreed to settle the lawsuit for $73 million.

The trial is expected to be similar to the one in Texas, with victims’ relatives testifying about the pain and anguish the hoax conspiracy caused them and medical professionals answering questions about the relatives’ mental health and diagnoses.

Jones also will be testifying, said his lawyer, Norman Pattis.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Blinken Visits Kyiv and Announces More Military Aid for Ukraine

Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said during a visit to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, on Thursday that he would notify Congress that the United States intends to send another $2 billion in long-term military support to Ukraine and 18 other countries that are at risk of Russian invasion.

Separately, President Biden has approved a further $675 million in military support for Ukraine, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said, as the United States seeks to bolster Ukraine’s defenses and its efforts to reclaim territory lost to Russia.

The combined aid makes for a total of $13.5 billion in assistance to Ukraine from the Biden administration since Russia’s invasion in February.

Mr. Blinken’s visit to Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry was his second since the Russian invasion began. The State Department did not publicly disclose his travel in advance for security reasons.

His visit came as Mr. Austin met with allied defense ministers at a monthly gathering of the Ukraine Contact Group, which aims to coordinate the flow of military aid to Ukraine. The arrival of Western equipment, particularly longer-range HIMARS missile systems, has enabled Ukrainian forces to attack Russian military infrastructure behind the front lines and supported a counteroffensive in the south — although some military experts argue that the aid so far is insufficient to turn the war decisively in Ukraine’s favor.

“Ukrainian forces have begun their counteroffensive in the south of their country, and they are integrating the capabilities that we all have provided to help themselves to fight and reclaim their sovereign territory,” Mr. Austin said at the start of the meeting, at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

“This contact group needs to position itself to sustain Ukraine’s brave defenders for the long haul,” he said. “That means the continued and determined flow of capability now.”

Russian forces are struggling to capture new territory but show no sign of backing down from the invasion, which has resulted in tens of thousands of casualties on both sides, according to U.S. estimates, and left vast areas of eastern and southern Ukraine in ruins. On Wednesday, President Vladimir V. Putin delivered a defiant address that whitewashed the war’s huge toll and his army’s faltering performance, proclaiming to an economic conference in Russia’s far east: “We have not lost anything, and will not lose anything.”

In Germany, Mr. Austin said that the new package of weapons included air-launched HARM missiles designed to seek and destroy Russian air defense radar; guided multiple-launch rocket systems known as GMLRS; howitzers and other artillery; armored ambulances; and small arms.

The State Department said the $2 billion package, which will be drawn from pools of money already authorized by Congress but whose specific allocation Congress must approve, would be divided roughly in half between Ukraine and 18 other nations. They are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

The money will be used “build the current and future capabilities” of Ukraine’s armed forces and those of the other countries, including by strengthening their cyber and hybrid warfare capabilities, specifically to counter Russian aggression, the State Department said.

The money will also help integrate non-NATO members with the alliances’s military forces.

On Thursday afternoon, Mr. Blinken met with Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba. Earlier, he visited the U.S. Embassy and a children’s hospital that is treating children injured in Russian attacks.

Mr. Blinken was also introduced at the hospital to Patron, a Jack Russell terrier that Ukrainian forces have credited with helping unearth hundreds of Russian land mines. Mr. Blinken declared the dog “world famous.”

— Michael Crowley and Matthew Mpoke Bigg

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U.S. Unveils $2B In Additional Military Aid For Europe

By Associated Press

and Newsy Staff
September 8, 2022

Pending approval from Congress, about $1 billion will go to Ukraine and the rest will be divided among 18 neighboring countries.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unscheduled visit to Kyiv on Thursday as the Biden administration announced major new military aid worth more than $2 billion for Ukraine and other European countries threatened by Russia.

In meetings with senior Ukrainian officials, Blinken said the Biden administration had notified Congress of its intent to provide $2 billion in long-term Foreign Military Financing to Ukraine and 18 of its neighbors, including NATO members and regional security partners, that are “most potentially at risk for future Russian aggression.”

Pending expected congressional approval, about $1 billion of that will go to Ukraine and the rest will be divided among Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, the State Department said.

It will go to help those countries “deter and defend against emergent threats to their sovereignty and territorial integrity” by enhancing their military integration with NATO and countering “Russian influence and aggression,” the department said.

Foreign Military Financing, or FMF, allows recipients to purchase U.S.-made defense equipment, often depending on their specific needs.

The financing comes on top of a $675 million package of heavy weaponry, ammunition and armored vehicles for Ukraine alone that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced earlier Thursday at a conference in Ramstein, Germany.

That package includes howitzers, artillery munitions, Humvees, armored ambulances, anti-tank systems and more.

Austin said that “the war is at another key moment,” with Ukrainian forces beginning their counteroffensive in the south of the country. He said that “now we’re seeing the demonstrable success of our common efforts on the battlefield.”

“The face of the war is changing and so is the mission of this contact group,” Austin told the meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which was attended by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Ukraine’s defense minister as well as officials from allied countries.

Germany and the Netherlands will provide training in demining to Ukrainian soldiers as well as demining equipment, the countries’ defense ministers said on the sidelines of the meeting with Austin. The training will be carried out in Germany. The two countries previously joined forces to send howitzers to Ukraine.

Thursday’s contributions bring total U.S. aid to Ukraine to $15.2 billion since President Biden took office. U.S. officials said the new commitments were intended to show that American support for the country in the face of Russia’s invasion is unwavering.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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