President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday called for massive reinforcements to areas along the 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) front line in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have made steady advances in recent months.
Zelensky issued his appeal after Russia’s Defense Ministry said its troops had captured two new front-line villages – one in the Donetsk region, the epicenter of the 33-month-old war, the other in the Zaporizhia region in the south. Was in.
The president was speaking in his nightly video address after discussions with Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrsky. He said much depends on Ukraine’s Western allies providing critical weapons on time.
Zelensky said, “Donetsk directions require significant reinforcement. This especially includes arms supplies from our partners.”
“This is a direct relationship: the greater the firepower and technical capability of our military, the more we can destroy Russia’s offensive capability and protect the lives of our soldiers.”
The main thing, he said, is to boost Ukraine’s long-range capabilities, partly by boosting domestic weapons production.
The United States, the largest supplier of military aid to Ukraine, on Monday announced its latest military aid package, worth about $725 million. But Ukraine is concerned about the continued flow of arms under President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to end the war quickly.
Analysts and war bloggers say Russian forces are advancing at the fastest pace in the east since the early days of the February 2022 offensive.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had captured the village of Romanivka, south of the embattled city of Kurakhov in the Donetsk region. It also said Moscow’s forces took control of Novodarivka, just over the border in the Zaporizhia region.
The Ukrainian Army General Staff stated that Russian forces had launched 38 attacks near Kurakhov, but made no mention of Romanivka. It said nothing about Novodarivka falling into Russian hands, but mentioned the village as one of the areas under Russian attack.
Zelensky, in a post on his Telegram account, quoted Commander Sirsky as saying that conditions were difficult around Kurakhov and Pokrovsk, another target of the Russian advance northward.
But he also spoke of “fairly good” results in the defense of the Zaporizhia region.
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