Ukraine calls for more arms after pushing Russians back

Ukraine said on Tuesday it aimed to liberate all of its territory after driving back Russian forces in the northeast of the country in a rapid offensive, but called on the West to speed up deliveries of weapons systems to back the advance.

Since Moscow quit its main bastion in northeastern Ukraine on Saturday, in  its worst defeat since the early days of the war, Ukrainian troops have recaptured dozens of towns in a stunning shift in battleground momentum.

Fighting is still raging in the northeastern Kharkiv region, deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar told Reuters on Tuesday, saying Ukraine’s forces are making good progress as they are highly motivated and their operation is well planned.

“The aim is to liberate the Kharkiv region and beyond — all the territories occupied by the Russian Federation,” she said on the road to Balakliia, a crucial military supply hub recaptured by Ukrainian forces late last week which lies 74km southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.

In a video address late on Monday, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said the West must speed up deliveries of weapons systems, calling on Ukraine’s allies to “strengthen co-operation to defeat Russian terror”.

Since Russia invaded on February 24, Washington and its allies have provided Ukraine with billions of dollars in weapons that Kyiv says helped limit Moscow’s gains. Russian forces control about a fifth of the country in the south and east but Ukraine is now on the offensive in both areas.

The Ukrainian military reported no fresh advances on Tuesday, saying Russian forces were shelling parts of Kharkiv region it had won back and attacking further south in Donetsk region, which Moscow is trying to seize for separatist proxies.

Ukraine had repelled the Donetsk region attacks, said its general staff report. Denis Pushilin, head of the separatist Donetsk People's Republic, said its forces were repelling Ukrainian attacks, and he believed the situation would improve.

Serhiy Gaidai, Ukrainian governor of the neighbouring Luhansk region, which Moscow has seized, said a major Ukrainian offensive could be expected there on Tuesday.

Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.

A senior US military official said earlier that Russia had largely ceded territory near Kharkiv in the northeast and pulled many of its troops back over the border.

A video issued by Ukraine’s border guards service showed what it said were Ukrainian troops liberating the town of Vovchansk near the border with Russia, burning flags and tearing down a poster saying “We are one with Russia”.

Caution

A Moscow-based diplomat said the advance in Kharkiv region was encouraging but expressed caution over the next steps.

“We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves,” the diplomat said on condition of anonymity. A key question was whether Ukrainian forces could move into Luhansk region.

“So a significant moment but not yet the beginning of the end,” the diplomat said, pointing to the importance of a possible impact on Russian morale in the south around Kherson, where Ukraine’s advance had so far been slow.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said Ukrainian forces had made “significant progress” with Western support to ensure it has the equipment it needs.

Washington announced its latest weapons programme for Ukraine last week, including ammunition for Himars antirocket systems. It previously sent Ukraine surface-to-air missile systems, which can shoot aircraft down.

Zelensky said Ukraine recaptured about 6,000km² of territory, double what officials cited on Sunday. A sliver of Ukraine’s land mass of about 600,000km, it is about equivalent to the combined area of the West Bank and Gaza.

After being pushed back from the capital Kyiv soon after its invasion, Russia refocused on capturing territory adjacent to Crimea in the south which it annexed in 2014 and in Donetsk and Luhansk in the industrial Donbas in eastern Ukraine, which separatists claimed that year.

Zelensky’s adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, spelt out why Ukraine needed more weapons, saying that it needed air defence to protect its civilians and critical infrastructure. “Second, Luhansk-Donetsk liberation will cause a domino effect, collapse ru-frontline and lead to political destabilisation. It is possible. Weapons required,” he wrote on Twitter.

Russia denies targeting civilians, saying that what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine is designed to degrade its neighbour’s military.

No mobilisation

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there was no discussion of a nationwide mobilisation to bolster the operation in Ukraine.

Criticism of Russia’s leadership from online nationalist commentators who have demanded mobilisation is an example of “pluralism”, Peskov told reporters. He said that Russians as a whole continue to support President Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin on Monday said the military operation would continue until achieving its goals but sidestepped a question on whether Putin still has confidence in his military leadership.

Ukrainian officials say Russia responded to Kyiv’s battlefield successes by shelling power stations and other key infrastructure, causing blackouts in Kharkiv and elsewhere. Russia blamed Ukraine for the blackouts.

Shelling around the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant sparked grave concern about the risk of radioactive catastrophe. The UN atomic watchdog proposed creating a protection zone around the nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, and both sides are interested, said International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi.

“We are playing with fire,” he told reporters. “We cannot continue in a situation where we are one step away from a nuclear accident. The safety of the Zaporizhzhia power plant is hanging by a thread.

Reuters