The story goes on under the ad “We expected more courage. “We were expecting some bold decisions,” said Andriy Jermack, Zelensky’s chief of staff, at the Washington-based Atlantic Council in a live video on Friday. U.S. and Ukrainian officials believe the Russian operation has already failed in some respects, given the strong Ukrainian resistance and heavy Russian casualties, and Russia signaled on Friday that its targets may be curtailed. However, Yermak’s statements reminded that Ukraine remains inhumane, armed and is facing more disasters every day. The Pentagon announced Friday that Russia has begun mobilizing military aid for a possible mission to Ukraine. By issuing a general statement of continued military support, while continuing to deny Ukraine’s demands to send it Soviet-era fighter jets, impose a no-fly zone over Russian aircraft over Ukraine, and accelerate the flow of heavier Weapons, Yermak said, NATO “is simply trying to ensure that it does not provoke Russia into a military conflict” with the West, calling the alliance’s inaction “appeasement”. The story goes on under the ad “We need very specific things. “But we have to remind you repeatedly,” he said. Yermak says Ukraine needs NATO to ‘close our skies’ to Russian air force and provide “Real-time intelligence” as well as more anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons – some of which are now in short supply in the West. He also called for more long-range artillery, rocket launchers and small arms. “Without it,” said Yermak, “our war will not be able to endure.” Far from an expected rush to completely occupy a country with a much weaker army, Russia on Friday appeared to have lost at least partial control of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson in the Black Sea, according to defense officials, the first of a handful. . of the middle cities he struggled to occupy in the five weeks since the invasion began. Ukrainian forces, reinforced by armed civilians, repelled Russian origins in other parts of the country. The Pentagon said Friday that Ukraine had made “incremental” progress against Russia outside the northern city of Chernihiv and that other attacks were under way in the western suburbs of the capital, Kyiv. A senior US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, said Russian troops, stationed outside Kyiv for weeks, had begun deploying defensive positions instead of giving priority to a advance. The story goes on under the ad While Russia’s goal in the invasion initially seemed to be to occupy Kiev, the Kremlin is now stressing its intention to take control of the Donbass region in the east, where Ukrainian troops have been fighting two breakaway regions since 2014. Moscow has recognized the region. as two separate “democracies”. “The combat potential of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been significantly reduced, which … makes it possible to focus our main efforts on achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbass,” said Sergey Rudskoy, head of the Russian Main Operations Directorate. General Staff. she said in a speech Friday. The renewed focus on Donbass could be a life-saving measure, as the Russians fail to achieve their biggest goals, such as the occupation of Kiev and the beheading of the Ukrainian government. The Russians have made modest gains in the east, and their focus now may be to expand separatist-controlled territories and declare victory. It could also be designed as a ploy to allow besieged Russian troops to rest. The story goes on under the ad It is unclear whether Russian troops will be withdrawn from elsewhere to reinforce Donbass, the US defense official said, but there are indications that they have changed the way they fight elsewhere. “It seems that the Russians are not currently pursuing a ground offensive against Kyiv,” he said. “They are digging inside. “They are establishing defensive positions.” Rudinsky also issued the first death toll in Russia since early March, saying 1,351 soldiers had been killed and 3,825 wounded. NATO estimated on Wednesday that 7,000-15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in four weeks of fighting in Ukraine, according to a senior Allied military official. The story goes on under the ad The official, speaking on condition of anonymity under NATO ground rules, said the assessment was based on a number of factors, including information from Ukrainian officials, published by the Russian side and open sources. By comparison, Russia lost about 15,000 troops in a decade of war in Afghanistan after its invasion in late 1979. Among the most recent Russian casualties, according to a Western official and a Ukrainian journalist, was Colonel Yuri Medvedev, commander of the 37th Motorized Rifle Brigade, who was attacked and wounded by troops under his command after suffering casualties outside the Kyiv. Troops ran into a tank in Medvedev, injuring both of his legs after their unit lost almost half of its men, according to a Facebook post by journalist Roman Tsimbalyuk. Although Tsimbalyuk said the colonel had been hospitalized, a senior Western official said he believed Medvedev had been killed. Russia’s bombing of Ukraine’s population centers and other targets continued, with a senior defense official saying Moscow was making 300 trips over Ukraine a day – up from a week ago. On Friday, the Ukrainian Air Force also claimed that Russian missiles had hit a command center in Vinnytsia, in central Ukraine, causing “significant” damage to some buildings. The story goes on under the ad The southern port of Mariupol remained under heavy Russian attack and cut off from food, water and humanitarian aid. Matilda Bogner, head of the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, told in a press conference on Friday that her agency had received “growing information” and satellite images of mass graves in Mariupol. A mass grave found appears to contain about 200 bodies, he said, although it remains unclear how many of the dead were civilian victims of the war. Bogner said the UN human rights office had also documented 22 cases of disappearances or violent detentions of Ukrainian officials in Russian-controlled territories, 13 of which have since been released. Several journalists in Russian-occupied areas in the southeast have disappeared or been killed. In his remarks Friday, Germak expressed gratitude to the United States and other Western countries, as did Zelensky in the numerous video speeches he has given to Western legislatures and other audiences. But like Zelensky, Germak stressed that Ukraine is the West’s front line against further Russian aggression that NATO must stop for its own security. The story goes on under the ad Biden, in Poland, has backed an additional $ 1 billion he had previously announced to help millions of Ukrainians who have fled violence in neighboring countries and beyond, as well as millions displaced and suffering inside the country. The United States is also committed to providing more than $ 2 billion in military equipment under Biden, including Stinger portable anti-aircraft missiles and Javelin anti-tank weapons. As Russia’s offensive began in late February, the State Department called on countries to which it had previously sold these weapons to share. those with whom they could be saved Ukraine. The United States has promised to quickly issue the necessary exemptions for transportation to another country and to fill its arsenal with weapons shipped from its own stockpile. But as the need in Ukraine has grown, some of these weapons, especially the Stingers, have become increasingly scarce. The missile production lines, which first became operational in 1981, were recently shut down and “we are exploring options for faster replenishment of US stocks and replenishment of depleted Allied and Partner stocks,” said Defense Department spokeswoman Jessica R. Maxwell. “It will take time for the industrial base to revitalize… for production to resume,” Maxwell said in an email. Among the options for rapid production, he said, were the addition of additional workers to the production line and the development of alternatives to obsolete components. Mike Nachshen, senior international communications director at Raytheon Missiles and Defense, which produces the Stingers, said they “recognize the urgent need to strengthen stocks” and work with government and industry “to speed up production schedules so we can deliver extra units this critical combat capability as soon as possible ”. The story goes on under the ad The government is considering invoking the Production Defense Act, which gives the emergency executive power to control domestic industries and speed up the production of certain critical items. Both Biden and President Donald Trump have called for action to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. The U.S. promise to supply US-made defense supplies to other nations in Ukraine is of particular importance to countries along NATO’s east, which are concerned about defending their own front line in possible confrontation with Russia. In particular, Ukraine has requested supplements for the Russian-made S-300 air defense system already in its arsenal, whose missiles fly higher and farther than the short-range Stingers. Slovakia and Bulgaria – which, like Ukraine, are former members of the Soviet-era Warsaw Pact – also have the system, as does Greece.
