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KYIV — Ukrainian forces are pulling back along parts of the frontline under fierce Russian pressure; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed the difficult situation on a lack of weapons for his soldiers.
That’s likely to increase pressure from Kyiv during next week’s NATO Washington summit for its allies to speed up arms deliveries.
“This is not a stalemate, but a problematic situation,” Zelenskyy told Bloomberg on Thursday. “A problem can be solved if there are tools and desire. We have the desire, but the tools have not arrived. We have brigades without weapons. We have 14 brigades that do not have the appropriate weapons that have already been voted on and talked about.”
He added that weapons “are coming slowly, unfortunately. Today we need to protect what we have. We will launch offensive action when we are ready. When the weapon arrives … and it is not there yet.”
Ukrainian Army Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi also pointed to the lack of well-trained and motivated troops as a key problem. However, Zelenskyy argued that the situation with troops “is much better than it was three months ago.”
Ukrainian frontline open-source investigators from the Deep State project spotted Russian troops advancing in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. Kremlin forces managed to gain ground over the past two weeks after they launched a new offensive against the coal-mining town of Toretsk.
“The active line of the front has grown,” Syrskyi said in a statement earlier this week.
“Fighting with the enemy continues near Toretsk. The occupiers unsuccessfully attacked 18 times near the nearby villages of Pivnichne and New York. As of this morning the enemy launched 30 attacks near the same settlements,” Nazar Voloshyn, a Ukrainian army spokesperson, told POLITICO.
Two days ago, Ukrainian forces had to withdraw to the other side of a canal running through the outskirts of the key town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region.
“It was impractical to hold the Canal neighborhood where the enemy entered because the positions of our troops there were destroyed, so it was decided to move to more protected and better-prepared positions,” Voloshyn told Ukrainian TV on Thursday.
The Ukrainian position was made untenable thanks to pulverizing attacks by Russian glide bombs, the press service of King Danylo’s 24th mechanized brigade told POLITICO on Friday.
Russians have been pounding Ukrainian positions with glide bombs, dropping 111 in the last day in addition to more than 4,000 artillery strikes, the general staff reported on Friday.
If Chasiv Yar is captured, Russian forces will be able to launch an offensive against the next series of Ukrainian strongholds guarding their last foothold in the Donetsk region.
Russians have been storming Chasiv Yar for more than six months and, despite the retreat, they have still not taken the town, Voloshyn added. He said that Ukrainian troops have prepared defenses on the other side of the canal.
