Ukraine hopes for weapons’ deliveries while Russia steps up shelling in the east

Kyiv — Russian forces intensified their assault on the largest city held by Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region in the east on Sunday as Kyiv said it is hopeful longer-range weapons it desperately needs from Western allies will soon arrive.

Slow, solid Russian gains in recent days in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas, comprising the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, point to a subtle momentum shift in the war, now in its fourth month.

Invading forces appear close to seizing all of the Luhansk region, one of the more modest war goals the Kremlin set after abandoning its assault on the capital, Kyiv, in the face of Ukrainian resistance.

Russia’s defence ministry said its troops and allied separatist forces are in full control of Lyman, the site of a railway junction west of the Siverskyi Donets River in the Donetsk.

However, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Malyar, said the battle for Lyman continues, the ZN.ua website reported.

Sievierodonetsk, about 60km northeast of Lyman on the eastern side of the river and the largest Donbas city still held by Ukraine, is under heavy assault.

“The situation has extremely escalated,” said Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of Luhansk.

The shelling is so intense it is impossible to assess casualties and damage, though two people were killed on Saturday and 13 more buildings in the city were destroyed, he said.

Gaidai said on Friday that Ukrainian troops might have to retreat from the city to avoid capture but it is unclear whether they have begun to pull out.

Russian artillery is also pounding the Lysychansk-Bakhmut road, which Russia must take to close a pincer movement and encircle Ukrainian forces, and police said there is “significant destruction” in Lysychansk.

Reuters could not independently verify the accounts.

Rocket launchers

Ukrainian presidential adviser and peace negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak repeated a call for US-made long-range multiple-rocket launchers. US officials have told Reuters such systems are actively being considered, with a decision possible in coming days.

“It is hard to fight when you are attacked from 70km away and have nothing to fight back with ... we need effective weapons,” Podolyak posted on Twitter.

President Volodymyr Zelensky voiced hopes in a late-night video address that Ukraine’s allies will provide weapons, adding that he expects “good news” in the coming days.

Zelensky visited Ukrainian troops on the front lines in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region on Sunday, saying: “You risk your lives for us all and for our country.” 

His adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, said: “The weapons we so desperately need will most likely be delivered soon.”

Ukraine has started receiving Harpoon antiship missiles from Denmark and US self-propelled howitzers, Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Saturday.

Zelensky said the military situation in the Donbas is very complicated, adding that defences are holding up in a number of places, including Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. “It’s indescribably difficult there. And I am grateful to all those who withstood this onslaught,” he said.

Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said if Russian forces were to capture Sievierodonetsk, Ukraine could be expected to launch counteroffensives.

“Putin is now hurling men and munitions at the last remaining major population centre in that [region] ... as if taking it would win the war for the Kremlin. He is wrong,” they said.

In a sign of frustration over Western differences on the war as its economic costs become more evident, Ukrainian deputy prime minister Olga Stefanishyna said Nato has shown itself incapable of mounting a united response. “We have to talk clearly about the catastrophic consequences for the future of all Europe if Ukraine is defeated,” she said on Facebook.

Diplomacy

Pushing diplomatic efforts for a solution to a conflict that has ramifications beyond Ukraine’s borders, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a call on Saturday.

They urged him to lift a Russian blockade of Odesa port to allow Ukrainian grain exports, France said. The Kremlin said Putin told them Moscow is willing to discuss ways to make it possible for Ukraine to resume shipments of grain from Black Sea ports.

Ukraine is a major grain exporter, and the blockage of its exports threatens to result in food shortages in a number countries, including in Africa.

Zelensky said in a television interview he believes Russia will agree to talks if Ukraine could recapture all the territory it has lost since the invasion began on February 24.

Still, Zelensky ruled out the idea of using force to win back all the land Ukraine has lost to Russia since 2014, which includes the southern peninsula of Crimea, which Moscow annexed that year. “I do not believe that we can restore all of our territory by military means. If we decide to go that way, we will lose hundreds of thousands of people,” he said.

Since the Russian invasion on February 24, thousands of people, including many civilians, have been killed and several million have fled their homes, either for safer parts of Ukraine or to other countries.

Reuters