Ukraine needs new weapons and faster deliveries to deal with a “very tough” situation of constant attacks by Russian forces in the eastern region of Donetskdeclared on Sunday the president Volodimir Zelensky.
“The situation is very tough. Bakhmut, Vuhledar and other sectors of the Donetsk region: there are constant Russian attacks. There are constant attempts to break through our defensesZelensky said in his late-night video address.
“Russia wants the war to drag on and exhaust our forces. So we have to make time our weapon. We have to speed up events, speed up supplies and open up new weapons options for Ukraine”, he pointed out.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said on Sunday that its forces repelled an attack near Blahodatne in the eastern Donetsk region, while the private Russian military group Wagner said it had taken control of the village.
A subsequent military statement did not mention Blahodatne.
Zelensky made his latest call to increase arms shipments days after Germany and the United States topped a list of countries agreeing to supply modern tanks.
On Saturday, Zelensky stated that Ukraine needed the US-made ATACMS missile with a range of about 300 km, which Washington has so far refused to supply. A presidential adviser stated that talks were taking place on the supply of long-range missiles and a spokesman for the Ukrainian air force spoke of negotiations on the supply of planes.
In his last statements, Zelensky promised to ensure that “our pressure is greater than the attack capacity of the occupiers” and that meant “maintain the defensive support of our partners”.
“The enemy does not take into account its personnel and despite the magnitude of the losses it maintains the intensity of its attacks,” he said.
“Confronting this requires extraordinary resilience and full awareness on the part of our soldiers that by defending the Donetsk region they are defending the whole of Ukraine,” he said.
Russian bombardments on Khersonin southern Ukraine, left this Sunday at least three dead and six woundedPresident Volodimir Zelensky denounced, while another Russian attack in Kharkiv (east) left one dead, according to the region’s governor.
“The Russian army brutally shelled Kherson all day… A hospital, a post office, a bus station were affected. Two nurses were injured at the hospital. A total of six wounded and three dead are reported, ”the Ukrainian president said in his daily video message broadcast in the evening.
In Kharkiv, the governor of the military administration in the region reported that a Russian strike hit “a four-story residential building” on Sunday.
“Three victims received minor injuries. Unfortunately, an old woman died. (…) The building was partially destroyed and the inhabitants evacuated.wrote Oleg Synegoubov on Telegram.
After the Ukrainian army regained control of Kherson in November, the southern front of the Ukrainian war had been relatively quiet, with fighting concentrated in Donbas.
But clashes intensified last week in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia.
(With information from Reuters)
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