Kyiv officials says the war-torn nation is losing up to 200 troops each day, as the war intensifies in Ukraine’s east
Russian fighters remain on the offensive in the east of Ukraine, where heavy artillery and multiple rocket launches are forcing Ukraine’s forces to retreat.
A senior Ukrainian official says between 100 and 200 Ukrainian troops are being killed on the frontline every day, according to reports from the BBC.
“Our demands for artillery are not just some kind of whim … but an objective need when it comes to the situation on the battlefield.”
PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR Mykhaylo Podolyak
The focus of the war recently switched to the east after Russia pulled back from the region around Ukraine’s capital.
“Kyiv is incredibly frustrated with the slow pace. The Americans just delivered another batch of howitzers, very accurate and long-range ones, but they’re also undersupplied and are struggling to hold their own,” says Ben Aris, who leads bne IntelliNews.
In the key battleground city of Severodonetsk, around 10,000 civilians remain trapped inside—around a tenth of its pre-war population.
But senior officials say Kyiv is not ready to resume peace talks with Moscow.
“I think time is on Ukraine’s side. President Zelensky said they have enough men to hold it [Severodonetsk], but they don’t have enough men or weapons to push back.”
Ben Aris, bne IntelliNews.
Meanwhile, according to one of his top advisors, Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny will remain in prison as long as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is in power.
It’s believed Navalny’s team are interested in dialogue with the Ukrainian Government.
President Putin has also compared himself to Peter the Great—a Russian monarch from the late 17th century.
“One thing that Putin has done very effectively that makes it hard to amount to an internal coup, is that his underlings are placed in multiple departments and areas of the administration that are constantly competing with each other,” says Alasdair McCallum, who is a PhD scholar with Monash University.
The President says Peter the Great’s conquest of Sweden is similar to his own “special military operations” in Ukraine.
“A problem here is what you might call the ‘first mover problem’. Who is going to be the first one to initiate a coup given the potentially severe consequences and likelihood of failures?” McCallum says.
