The U.S. Navy has begun to make plans to recover the F-35C fighter jet that crashed Monday after striking the deck of an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. The jet is the most advanced stealth fighter jet in the world and would have made an enticing target for China if it had attempted to recover it from the depths of the Pacific Ocean.
“The U.S. Navy is making recovery operations arrangements for the F-35C aircraft involved in the mishap aboard USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) in the South China Sea Jan. 24.,” said Brenda Way, a spokesperson for the Navy’s Pacific Fleet.
An earlier Navy statement had said that as the F-35 was attempting to land on the aircraft carrier Monday, “It impacted the flight deck and subsequently fell to the water during routine flight operations.”
Seven sailors, including the pilot who was able to eject safely, were injured in Monday’s crash according to the Navy.
The damage to the carrier’s deck was “superficial and all equipment for flight operations is operational,” which enabled the resumption of flight operations, said Lt. Mark Langford, a Seventh Fleet spokesman.
The crash of one of the most advanced fighter jets in the world into international waters had fueled speculation that the U.S. Navy might quickly launch a salvage operation to prevent other foreign powers, especially China, from trying to do the same.
“The race is on now to get the appropriate kind of recovery gear, the deep diving submersibles that actually pull the wreckage up off the bottom of the ocean,” said Steve Ganyard, a retired Marine aviator and ABC News contributor.
Ganyard believes China probably has a general idea of where the jet entered the waters of the South China Sea, making its advanced stealth technology an enticing target for China to launch its own salvage operation.
“The Chinese have it the U.S. Navy has it,” said Ganyard. “Both those countries are going to want to get a hold of this wreckage.”
It is unclear how deep the waters are where the F-35 fell into the Pacific, but the Navy has considerable experience in salvaging wreckage in deep waters. A salvage operation in 2019 in the Philippine Sea was able to recover a C-2A Greyhound aircraft that was three miles under the ocean.
While Monday’s crash marked the Navy’s first F-35C crash at sea, it will not be its first operation to salvage an F-35 aircraft.
Late last year, the U.S. Navy helped the British Royal Navy recover an F-35B fighter from the waters of the Mediterranean after it had crashed on takeoff from the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth.
Monday’s crash occurred while the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson Strike Group was involved in a high-profile naval exercise with the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Group, the USS Essex Amphibious Ready Group, the USS America Amphibious Ready Group and a Japanese Maritime Self Defense helicopter carrier.
The participation of so many air capable and amphibious U.S. Navy ships operating together in the South China Sea highlights the U.S. Navy’s capabilities in a region where China continues to make maritime territorial claims.
Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the war-torn Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, has told Newsweek that any troops withdrawing from the front line city of Severodonetsk in the face of the Russian advance have a fallback plan, and will continue the fight against invading troops.
Speaking with Newsweek by phone from Luhansk on Tuesday, Haidai—a Severodonetsk native who has been leading the evacuation of the region and working with Ukraine’s military command—said Russian troops had captured a “significant part” of the city, one of only two significant settlements in Luhansk Oblast not yet under Moscow’s control.
“The fighting has indeed intensified significantly in recent days because the Russian army threw a lot of forces and equipment in order to capture the entire Luhansk region,” Haidai explained.
“This task is a priority for them, because this is not a particularly large territory and could become low-hanging fruit for the Russian high command that wants to show some victories.”
Victory in Severodonetsk would hand Russia almost full control of the Luhansk Oblast; one of Ukraine’s two most easternmost provinces and a key war goal for the Kremlin.
A Ukrainian Army officer looks towards the sound of nearby Russian shelling while holding a British-made NLAW anti-tank missile on the frontline on May 20, 2022 in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine. John Moore/Getty Images
Taking Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk Oblast would allow President Vladimir Putin to claim victory in the Donbas, which has been split between Ukrainian and Moscow-backed separatist forces since 2014. The region is central to the Kremlin’s narrative of its supposed “de-Nazification” of Ukraine and the “liberation” of the Russian-speaking population there.
The situation is fluid, and it remains unclear how close Russian troops are to seizing total control of Severodonetsk, or how many Ukrainian troops remain inside the city. But the momentum is with the invaders, and Ukrainian troops are preparing fall back positions.
Haidai said on Tuesday that Russian forces were in control of around 70 percent of the city, just hours after saying the invaders had taken around half of the area. The British Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday that “over half of the town is likely now occupied by Russian forces, including Chechen fighters.”
Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Russia’s Chechen Republic, claimed this weekend that Russian forces had already seized the city.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry to request comment.
Regardless, Russian troops appear poised to cement control over the city in the coming hours and days. It remains to be seen if Russian units will be able to cross the river and seize Lysychansk, too, thus completing the conquest of Luhansk.
Haidai said remaining defenders in Severodonetsk are prepared to retreat across the Siverskyi Donets river to the city Lysychansk, which—if the former falls—will be the last Ukrainian-controlled city in Luhansk Oblast.
“I’m constantly in touch with the military command, discussing what are the options for a strategic withdrawal,” the governor explained.
“The neighboring city, Lysychansk, where we could and might need to retreat if push comes to shove, is not far and is on higher ground [than Severodonetsk], so it is strategically much more important. But for Russia, Severodonetsk is a key target because it is a regional center.
“The fighting will continue, our military will not be surrounded, the supply of ammunition will continue, and they will be able to hold their positions and attack the Russian forces from above.
“In terms of positional advantage, their situation will be better than defending from Severodonetsk.”
Ukrainian defenders have maintained access to the city from the west despite the intense Russian assault, Haidai said.
“I do not think that there will be a repetition of Mariupol here,” Haidai said, referring to the port city to the south which was besieged and destroyed by Russian forces.
Mariupol has become synonymous with the death and devastation wrought by Russia’s invasion. Local officials say civilian casualties in the razed city could be as high as 22,000.
They have, however, noted this figure is impossible to confirm given the scale of the devastation and alleged Russian efforts to cover up atrocities including summary executions, torture, rape, and forced relocation—all of which Moscow denies.
“Firstly, Severodonetsk is not surrounded, the troops can strategically retreat,” Haidai said. “Secondly, since part of the city is already occupied by the Russians, it makes no sense for them to shell it with artillery.”
Shortly after Newsweek spoke with Haidai, the governor announced on Telegram that Russian shelling had detonated a nitric acid tank at a chemical plant, releasing dangerous chemicals into the surrounding area.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that the Russian shelling of Severodonetsk was “madness,” given the number of chemical plants in the city. The attacks, he said, included “blind” aerial bombardment.
A photograph shows an explosion in the city of Severodonetsk during heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops at eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas on May 30, 2022, on the 96th day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images
Haidai said only 15,000 of the pre-invasion 120,000 residents of Severodonetsk are still in the city. “And these are mostly people who just want to stay, so it makes no sense for Russia to deport them,” he said.
Evacuation efforts have, however, been paused indefinitely due to Russian shelling. “Yesterday, I stopped the evacuation after our armored car, which was sent to pick up civilians, was shelled by heavy Russian artillery,” Haidai explained.
“Inside there were patrol officers who dealt with the logistics of civilian evacuation; this car was never used for military purposes.
“There was also a group of journalists from France inside, and unfortunately one fragment broke through the windshield and hit the journalist in the neck. Sadly, he died. Therefore, I paused the evacuation indefinitely, but thankfully we have already evacuated most of the civilian population.”
“I feel sorry for every village and every settlement in the Luhansk region that falls under the control of the invaders, and would be distraught if Severodonetsk, the city where I was born, fell in their hands,” Haidai said.
“But from a basic military perspective, the city is not of great strategic importance, since neighboring Lysychansk, as I said, is on a hill, unlike Severodonetsk, so that location will give the military a massive advantage.”
Update, 6/1/22 9:45 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to include more information about the battle for Severodonetsk.
On Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel dedicated his late-night monologue to what he called “Episode 2 of CSI: I Can’t Believe Donald Trump’s Not in Jail Yet”—otherwise known as the Jan. 6 congressional hearings.
Trump’s bizarre decision to “reject the advice” of members of his team and declare victory on Election Night, despite even Fox News saying he’d lost, allegedly came from “an apparently inebriated” Rudy Giuliani.
“Apparently inebriated—which, by the way, is the title of Rudy Giuliani’s biography,” joked Kimmel. “Rudy Giuliani told him to go out and say he won. The way that you can tell Rudy is drunk is his breath smells more like booze than cigars and cat turds for a change.”
The allegation that Giuliani was a drunken mess was backed up by former Trump aide Jason Miller who, when asked whether there was anyone that night who “in your observation had had too much to drink,” replied, “Um… Mayor Giuliani.”
Kimmel couldn’t help but laugh. “OK, so Rudy was drunk. The big question is: What’s Donald Trump’s excuse? He doesn’t even drink! I mean, this testimony from his lawyers, his staffers, his campaign advisers, his own family—there are really only two options here: Either Donald Trump was lying and committed multiple crimes trying to strong-arm an election, or he’s off his freakin’ rocker. I guess it could be both.”
When Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner was asked during his testimony if he’d ever shared his perspective on Giuliani’s drunken plan with the president, he stammered and responded, “Um… I guess… Uh… Yes.”
In response, the alliance plans to discuss how best to protect Ukrainian infrastructure from the deadly strikes, Ambassador Julianne Smith said. Air defenses have emerged as the likeliest delivery in the near future.
“We are now shifting again to air defense,” Smith said in a briefing organized by her office, noting that in previous phases, NATO’s response centered on what Ukraine needed at specific moments of the war, namely munitions and coastal defense. Air defenses will form the “crux of the conversation tomorrow,” the first of two days of meetings at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
The events will include a meeting of the NATO defense ministers, as well as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a gathering of military leaders headed by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
The challenge: The West has few air defense systems available for immediate donation, said Tom Karako, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. For example, Ukraine has asked for the U.S. Patriot missile defense system, but Washington has repeatedly said no due to the relative scarcity of the system, among other reasons.
Other immediate possibilities include the German InfraRed Imaging System Tail,a short to medium-range infrared homing air-to-air missile, or the U.S. Counter-Rocket, Artillery, Mortar system. Israel’s Iron Dome would also fit the bill, but Tel Aviv is expected to nix that proposal.
“There’s nowhere near enough to go around,” Karako said.
The vast majority of the strikes in Ukraine over the weekend were conducted using cruise missiles launched from bombers flying far off in Russian airspace, John Kirby, spokesperson for the National Security Council, told reporters on Tuesday. Ukrainian air defenses were able to shoot down some of the incoming missiles, Kirby said, but noted that “there is no one silver bullet weapon system” to counter the threat.
The U.S. military still has not fully solved the problem of how to protect its own people from missile and drone attacks, particularly in the Middle East. Iranian drones and cruise missiles pose a continuous threat to American personnel and infrastructure.
The West could “MacGyver” together an air defense solution for Ukraine by combining different capabilities, Karako said. But the question is what the different countries will be willing to give up from their own supply.
“We and the Ukrainians are now paying the cost of the last two decades of inattention to air defense and cruise missile defense,” Karako said. “We’ve taken air superiority for granted for way too long and this is what it looks like when you come up against an enemy with lots of air and missile power. Lo and behold air defense is in very high demand.”
Still, Zelenskyy is heaping pressure on G-7 nations to provide air defenses quickly. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said it was “urgent” that those systems make their way to Ukraine.
“There are a range of priority capabilities that this and the next phase of the war would suggest putting a premium on, and certain more advanced air defenses would be among them,” the RAND Corporation’s Barry Pavel said.
Following its successful counteroffensives in the east and south, Kyiv has reshuffled its wish list for weapons as it prepared for Russia to strike civilian targets, POLITICO reported last week, with air defenses shooting to the top of the list.
Kyiv re-upped its urgent request for those capabilities on Monday, according to a congressional aide and Ukrainian adviser, who were not authorized to speak on the record. Foreign Policy first reported the news. Ukraine is specifically pushing the U.S. to speed delivery of two National Advanced Surface-to-Air-Missile Systems that are scheduled to arrive in the next month.
Kyiv has also asked for the C-RAM and the Avenger, a vehicle-mounted mobile, short-range air defense system, according to the congressional aide.
U.S. officials said they are moving equipment to Ukraine as quickly as possible, and noted that Ukraine is already using existing systems to defend against missile attacks. For example, a video on Twitter showed the Ukrainian army shooting down an incoming cruise missile with the shoulder-fired Igla surface-to-air missile system.
Kirby pointed out that the U.S. and Western allies have already provided air defenses to Ukraine, including shoulder-fired U.S. Stinger anti-air missiles and an S-300 missile system from Slovakia. The U.S. also contracted with Raytheon to build eight additional NASAMS, Kirby said, but the Pentagon has said the systems won’t arrive for years.
“We will continue to work with them on additional needs going forward and that would include continuing to talk to them about additional air defense capabilities,” Kirby said. “I don’t have any other announcements to make.”
Lawmakers also called Tuesday for the Biden administration to send more sophisticated weapons to Kyiv immediately following the barrage of Russian missile attacks. Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) urged Biden to send longer-range air defenses and fighter jets.
“Putin’s barrage of strikes on civilian structures in Ukraine today, including a children’s playground and water and electric plants, is proof that Russia is a terrorist state committing acts of genocide,” Risch said in a statement. “Better arming and equipping of Ukraine will help save lives and give Ukraine the capacity to end this war faster. The Biden administration can and must do more to defend Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) urged the West to send longer-range artillery and additional air defense systems.
“Putin must be made to understand such brutal escalation and war crimes will not break the United States’ and the free world’s support of Ukraine,” he said in a statement.
The new correspondence obtained by the committee shows that while Trump was still speaking to his supporters and announcing he was going to the Capitol, Secret Service personnel in charge of transportation and field operations scrambled to try to secure a safe motorcade route for the president and his entourage, two people briefed on the records said. The Secret Service staff members sought D.C. police help to block intersections. But with tens of thousands of protesters in downtown Washington, and D.C. police being dispatched to help Capitol Police with protesters breaking through barricades, D.C. police declined the Secret Service’s request, The Washington Post previously reported.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization dramatically and rapidly alters the landscape of abortion access in the U.S. The court on June 24 ruled 6-3 to uphold a Mississippi law that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, but also to overturn the nearly half-century precedent set in Roe v. Wade that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion. With the Dobbs decision, states have the ability to set their own restrictions, so where people live will determine their level of access to abortion.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, stated that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey [Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 1992] are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
Almost immediately after the decision was released, protests and celebrations outside the court and across the country began — highlighting the patchwork of laws and restrictions that now will take effect. State officials from conservative states said they would move quickly to restrict abortion, while in other states, some officials pledged to keep the right to access.
Here are five key points that will affect access to abortion.
1. Where is abortion still legal?
The Supreme Court ruling means access to abortion will, very shortly, be highly uneven.
Sixteen states plus the District of Columbia have laws that protect the right to abortion. In two other states, courts have ruled that the state constitution establishes that right. Those states are concentrated on the East and West coasts.
On the other end of the spectrum, 13 states have “trigger” laws that would quickly ban nearly all abortions, and at least a half-dozen moved Friday to implement them, including Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and South Dakota. Four more have pre-Roe bans that would again be in effect. Three other states have laws on the books that will ban abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.
Access to abortion is likely to evolve in other states, too. Kansas and Montana, which are among the states that have abortion rights enshrined in their constitutions, could see rollbacks in those protections through a ballot measure in Kansas and a legal challenge by the Montana attorney general. In at least eight states, the right to abortion isn’t explicitly protected or prohibited by state law.
And in Michigan, a 1931 state law bans nearly all abortions, but its enforcement was temporarily suspended by a May court decision. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, has said she will not enforce the law, but questions remain about whether that would also be the case for local prosecutors.
As was the case before the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe decision, people seeking abortion care will also be subject to a variety of restrictions even in states where the procedure is still legal. They include gestational limits outlining the maximum point in pregnancy that someone can obtain an abortion, requirements that patients receive counseling beforehand, waiting periods, and parental notification rules for minors.
2. What can the Biden administration do?
President Joe Biden has said his administration is looking into executive actions to counteract the impact of the ruling. In remarks after the decision, Biden said that it was a “sad day” and that, without Roe, “the health and life of women in this nation is now at risk.”
But in short, without a new law from Congress, he has limited options.
Supporters of abortion rights and Democratic lawmakers in Congress have pushed the administration to make it easier for women to obtain medication abortion, which is available up to 10 weeks of pregnancy and involves taking two pills, assessing whether services could be provided on federal property even in states that ban the procedure, and bolstering digital privacy to protect patients.
Medication abortion has become an increasingly large share of total abortions provided in the U.S. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, the pills accounted for more than half of all abortions in 2020, the first year medication provided the majority.
Under the Biden administration, the Food and Drug Administration has already lifted one major restriction. Now, patients can receive mifepristone, the first drug used in the series, by mail. Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California at Davis School of Law and an abortion legal historian, said that, even as conservative states move to curtail access to medication abortion, the Biden administration could argue that the FDA’s rules and guidelines on mifepristone preempt any state laws that criminalize that method. Attorney General Merrick Garland took this position in a statement he released shortly after the decision was announced: “The FDA has approved the use of the medication Mifepristone. States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy.” Biden reinforced that message in his remarks.
In comments before the justices’ decision was announced, Zeigler said arguing this position is “the biggest thing they could do.” Still, the FDA approach is uncertain, both legally and because a future Republican administration could easily reverse any action that Biden officials take. “If it worked it wouldn’t be permanent, and it may not work,” she added. The Biden administration could also expand the number of pharmacies that can dispense the medication.
3. Will people in states where abortion is illegal be able to access medication abortion?
For now, as a result of the Dobbs decision, states that ban abortions are likely to set limitations or bans on abortion pills as well. But some advocates note that people in those states still may be able to obtain abortion pills and perform a “self-managed” abortion at home, which carries some additional risk if the woman has a complication (though complications are very rare). And abortion pills will still be accessible in states where abortion is allowed.
Packages of the medication used to end an early pregnancy sit on a table inside a Planned Parenthood clinic on Oct. 29, 2021, in Fairview Heights, Ill.
Jeff Roberson / AP
Before Roe was overturned, many states had already enacted restrictions on obtaining abortion pills, including prohibiting the pills from being sent through the mail and not allowing patients to be prescribed the medication via a telemedicine appointment. But people found workarounds — a practice that’s likely to continue. These actions — such as traveling to neighboring states to secure the medication or having it sent to a friend’s house or a post office box in another location — could carry the risk of criminal charges, again depending on the specifics of state laws.
There is also concern among abortion rights activists that the states that outlaw abortion could go even further and criminalize traveling to another state to get an abortion, though this is an untested legal frontier and likely would be tied up in courts.
In his remarks, Biden took a hard-line stance on this question, saying that nothing in the court’s decision prevents a woman who lives in a state that bans abortion from traveling to a state that allows it. Women “must remain free to travel safely to another state to seek the care they need,” he said, adding that his administration “will defend that bedrock right.” He also noted that doctors in the states that continue to allow abortions can provide abortions to women from other jurisdictions.
4. How will this affect doctors’ ability to provide care?
In many states that ban abortions, obstetricians, gynecologists, emergency room doctors, and any type of physician that takes care of pregnant people will likely be targeted by law and could face criminal charges if they provide abortion services.
This will have a severe effect on reproductive health care, Dr. Nikki Zite, an OB-GYN in Knoxville, Tenn., recently told KHN. Tennessee’s trigger law says abortions are permissible only to prevent a death or “to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”
“But exactly how much risk there needs to be is not clear,” Zite said. “Different physicians practicing at different institutions will have different interpretations of that law.”
There are also gray areas the law doesn’t address. In some very early pregnancies, the fertilized egg lodges outside the uterus — most commonly in a fallopian tube — a potentially life-threatening situation called an ectopic pregnancy. If that type of pregnancy proceeds, the woman can bleed to death.
Patients who have a miscarriage also sometimes need to take abortion medication or have dilation and curettage surgery — known as a D&C — to remove tissue that lingers inside the uterus.
“The challenge is that the treatment for an abortion and the treatment for a miscarriage are exactly the same,” Dr. Sarah Prager recently told KHN. Prager is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington in Seattle and an expert on early pregnancy loss.
Doctors may hesitate to perform D&Cs to treat miscarriages for fear someone will accuse them of performing a covert abortion.
“Physicians shouldn’t be fearful for being criminalized for taking care of patients,” said Zite. “I think there’s going to be a myriad of unintended consequences. I think that people will lose their lives. I also think there will be people in horrible situations, like those that strongly desire to be pregnant but have a complication of the pregnancy, that will not be able to make decisions on how that pregnancy ends, and that will be a different kind of devastation.”
5. Could this ruling affect more than just abortion?
Absolutely, according to reproductive health experts. Depending on what is determined to be an “abortion,” states could end up criminalizing — on purpose or by accident — in vitro fertilization and certain forms of birth control, and limiting the training and availability of doctors and other health care providers.
At stake is what is determined to be an abortion. Medically, abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy, by natural means — spontaneous abortion, or miscarriage — or by human intervention with medication or a surgical procedure. But when does a pregnancy begin? Doctors say pregnancy begins when a fertilized egg implants in a woman’s uterus. But many anti-abortion activists say it begins when a sperm and egg unite to form a zygote, which can happen several days earlier. That earlier time frame would mean that anything that interferes with the implantation of that fertilized egg, such as an IUD (intrauterine device), a common form of birth control, could be defined as an abortion. Similarly, in vitro fertilization, which involves removing a woman’s eggs, fertilizing them, and then implanting them back into the woman, could also be construed to involve abortion unless every fertilized egg was implanted.
An opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas that concurred with the decision to overturn Roe raised other questions. He suggested that the court could use the same arguments in the Dobbs case to overturn other key rulings, including those that established the rights to birth control and same-sex marriage. It was not clear that the other justices agreed, and Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the main opinion, said he did not believe the abortion decision affected other issues.
The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists applauded the decision, terming it “momentous.” But others worry that the ruling could have a negative impact on women’s access to care in places that have or enact strict abortion laws. Specifically, doctors and other health professionals may not want to train or practice in areas where they could be prosecuted for delivering medical care.
And this is not just theoretical. In Texas, where abortion after six weeks’ gestation has been effectively banned since September, according to a report in The New England Journal of Medicine, the law “has taken a toll on clinicians’ mental health; some physicians report feeling like ‘worse doctors,’ and some are leaving the state. As a result, clinicians worry that pregnant Texans are being left without options for care and without doctors capable of providing it.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated on June 25 to clarify that Montana’s constitutional protection for abortion is being challenged by the state attorney general, not lawmakers.
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
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