KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has called on allies to speed up arms supplies as Russia ramps up its attacks on towns and cities across eastern Ukraine, sending waves of troops aimed at breaking through established lines. Strict protection of Ukraine.
“Russia hopes to prolong the war, exhausting our forces,” Zelensky said on Sunday in his nightly address. “So we have to make time our weapon. We must accelerate events, speed up supplies and open up new necessary weapons options for Ukraine.”
Kiev’s request for international allies to send more advanced weapons has become all the more urgent amid fears that Moscow plans to launch a major offensive in the coming weeks, a year after Russia launched it. full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Military experts and allies say Ukraine will also launch an offensive to push Russia away from occupied areas in the east.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense on Monday said Moscow was “likely to remain open to the possibility” of announcing another “partial mobilization” of men with military experience to the country’s war effort. Ukraine. In September, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin announced such first call up out of about 300,000 reservists, a move that prompted widespread protests.
According to Ukrainian officials, Russia is currently “overwhelming” Ukrainian positions in the east. Serhiy Haidai, head of the military junta in Luhansk region, said on national television on Sunday night: “They simply threw bodies and numbers at our positions and gradually advanced towards us. front.
As the war developed, so did the type of military assistance that Ukraine’s allies were willing to provide to Ukraine. It was at first small arms, such as the Javelin and NLAW anti-tank weapons, that helped stop the Russian forces and then repel them from Kyiv and other northern cities. Then the focus turned to artillery to help Ukraine match Russian supplies that would allow it to gain an advantage in the east, until July.
The emergence of precision missile systems, such as the US-made HIMARS, helped Ukraine set the stage for two of its most successful operations, retaking Kharkiv in the northeast, and later the city of Kherson in the south.
Last week, after months of debate, the United States and some European countries announced that they will send battle tanksarmored vehicles and other weapons to help Ukraine continue the offensive.
However, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz over the weekend reiterated that Berlin will not send fighter jets to Ukraine. The comments came hours after Mykhailo Podolyak, Zelensky’s top adviser, said Negotiate “quickly” has begun among the allies to provide military aircraft and long-range missiles that Kiev says it urgently needs.
Podolyak said that long-range missiles are important “to significantly limit the key tool of the Russian military” by destroying arsenals. Colonel Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said last week that the F-16 fighters would play a dual role in Ukraine, as part of the air defense force and as a “strike force.” attack the enemy”.
“The fact that we are not talking about fighters is something I made clear very early on, and I am making it clear here as well,” Scholz said in a tank announcement last week. He recalled the feelings in an interview with the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel published on Sunday.
Even if the US doesn’t send its own planes, European countries with American-made jets could decide to send Ukraine their planes, though Washington would have to approve those deals. .
