US resumes deliveries of artillery shells and rockets, say officials; Kyiv under heavy bombardment again. What we know on day 1,233
Ukraine said it had arrested a Chinese father and son, both suspected of spying on Kyiv’s Neptune cruise missile programme. Counterintelligence officials detained a 24-year-old former student in Kyiv after they provided him with “technical documentation” related to Neptune production, Ukraine’s SBU said. They later swooped on his father when he visited Ukraine from China to “personally coordinate” his son’s work and smuggle out the documents to the Chinese special services, the SBU said.
A Ukrainian official told Reuters the two men were the first Chinese people arrested for spying since Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion. Kyiv has repeatedly accused China of supplying parts and technologies central to the Russian drone and missile programme. China’s government insists there has been no such trade. The Chinese embassy in Kyiv did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters on the Neptune case and a lawyer for the men could not immediately be found.
The US resumed delivering artillery shells and mobile rocket artillery missiles to Ukraine, US officials told Reuters and the Associated Press on Wednesday, on the instructions of Donald Trump who claimed he did not know who ordered the shipments’ suspension last week. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said 155mm artillery shells and GMLRS (mobile rocket artillery) missiles were being provided. The shipment paused last week included 30 Patriot missiles, 8,500 155mm artillery shells, more than 250 precision GMLRS missiles and 142 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles.
