He acknowledged that Ukrainian forces have been pushed out to the industrial outskirts of the city because of 'the scorched earth method and heavy artillery the Russians are using'.Ībout 12,000 people remain in Severdonetsk, a city with a pre-war population of 100,000. 'There is still an opportunity for the evacuation of the wounded, communication with the Ukrainian military and local residents,' Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Haidai told the Associated Press. The city of Severdonetsk in eastern Ukraine has not yet been blocked off by Russian troops, but they control about 80 per cent of the area and have destroyed all three bridges leading out of it, an official said.
Podolyak published the list amid heavy fighting in Ukraine's east - where Russia has this week issued a 'surrender or die' order to troops defending a key Donbas city - and ahead of a Wednesday meeting in Brussels to discuss weapons supplies.
The US has supplied a little over 100 howitzers to Ukraine so far while the US and UK combined are thought to have sent seven rocket systems. Put in context, 500 new tanks would be more than the UK and Germany have in active service combined, while 1,000 howitzers and 300 rocket launchers is more than the US currently has in active service. The eye-watering shopping list amounts to an army's-worth of Western equipment and goes well beyond both what has been supplied so far and what Ukraine itself has been requesting. Top presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said Monday that Kyiv needs 1,000 howitzers, 300 rocket artillery systems, 500 tanks, 2,000 armored vehicles and 1,000 drones 'to end the war'. and South Korea fighter jets fly over the Korean Peninsula in response to North Korea's missile tests I do not think the Russians have the capacity to achieve those grandiose objectives.'Ĭurrently the aims are restricted to capturing the rest of the Donbas and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, which were already partially under pro-Moscow separatist control. 'They may make tactical gains here and there. 'That said, I do not think he can achieve those objectives.
'I still think he has designs on a significant portion of Ukraine, if not the whole country,' Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said, speaking at an event hosted by the Center for New American Security. The judgement comes as Russian forces inexorably push Ukrainian positions back in the grinding war in the Donbas, although the progress is a far cry from Putin's original grand war aims to capture Kyiv and decapitate the country in four days. Putin likely still wants to capture much if not all of Ukraine but has been forced to narrow his tactical objectives in war, a senior Pentagon official has said today.
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