Ukraine Contact Group Meets Today Amid Accusations Of Ukr Corruption

08:00 ET 13:00 BST: US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin will today convene the fourth meeting of the Ukraine Contact Group.

• The previous session of the group, designed to coordinate military aid to Ukraine, was held at NATO HQ in Brussels, on June 15, and attended by 45 countries.
• Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley will brief the media following the conclusion of the meeting.
• Opening remarks and Milley's presser will both be livestreamed on the Pentagon website: https://www.defense.gov/News/Live-Events/
• The event comes as White House Strategic Comms Spox John Kirby warned yesterday that United States intelligence has “ample evidence” that Russia will attempt to annex additional Ukrainian territory and install “illegitimate” proxy officials.
• Kirby said that Russian annexation effort will likely be focused on Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk and drew comparisons with Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
• Also on the agenda, will be accusations from some elements within the Western alliance that military aid is being misappropriated.
• Among them Ukrainian-born US House Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) who wrote to US President Joe Biden voicing concern over a lack of oversight on military aid, fueling fears that appetite for maintaining the Ukraine war effort may be dwindling within the GOP ahead of the midterms.
• In response to what Ukraine calls a "Russian smear campaign," Kyiv has created a special commission to oversee Western aid.
• The Commission said in a statement: “... Russian propaganda... in foreign countries, actively promotes the idea that Ukraine improperly uses the weapons provided by international partners. Ukraine must prove to the whole world that the procedures for transportation, distribution at the front, and the use of international material and technical assistance are transparent and devoid of corruption or other negative factors.”