Russia is gaining ground in eastern Ukraine, where local troops are being forced to withdraw on several fronts.
Russian military forcesoutnumber Ukraine in numbers and firepower, with relentless heavy artillery bombardment causing lethal effects in a much larger area. more delimited compared to the first phase of the war.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky assured that Russia is burning cities to ashes and the deaths of Ukrainian civilians are increasing.
His adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, denounced on Wednesday that the army Russian is using in Ukraine “the most powerful” non-nuclear weapons that exist, as long-range mobile rocket launcher systems capable of carrying thermobaric warheads.
Ukraine calls for superior weapons
Podolyak appealed to his ally s to provide Ukraine with MLRS long-range rocket launchers, after suggesting that they have so far not done so for fear of an escalation of the conflict.
The M95 MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System or Multiple Launch Rocket System) is a launcher of guided and unguided projectiles and missiles with a range of hundreds of kilometers
These devices would allow Ukrainians more easily attack targets inside Russia, such as barracks, air defenses, fuel depots or artillery, something that many abroad view with concern.
US media say that the government of Joe Biden plans to send this type of weaponry to Ukraine, more powerful than the one it has provided up to now a.
BBC Defense Correspondent Jonathan Beale highlights that the delay in the delivery of weapons from the West to Ukraine and the time it takes to train Ukrainian forces for their use are factors that “could make a difference”.
Meanwhile, he assures, Russia still has much larger reserves of artillery ammunition.
And he assures that a senior official of a NATO country described as “criminal” that the West has a more limited stock of these weapons.
On the verge of losing Luhansk
In any case, at the moment Ukraine is losing ground and Russia is advancing, especially in the Donbas, in the east of the country.
There, Moscow not only controls part of the self-declared Donetsk republics and Luhansk, which were already under the control of the pro-Russians before the war, but is advancing beyond its borders.
The Russian army already controls the 95 % of Luhansk province, the largest administrative division eastern Ukraine, as confirmed by both Ukrainian military authorities and pro-Russian militias.
In their attempt to completely take over this region, Putin’s troops are trying to surround the cities of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, considered the last Ukrainian bastion of Luhansk.
In Severodonetsk, most of their 30, inhabitants have been evacuated and Russian forces have taken two-thirds of its perimeter, according to local authorities.
The head of the Severodonetsk district administration, Roman Vlasenko, assured that Putin’s soldiers intend to take over the center of the city from three different fronts, but the locals have rejected them twice.
Indicated to the BBC that the Ukrainian forces need weapons more heavy to repel Russian attacks.
He assured that the Russian troops do not have a special numerical advantage there, but they have heavier weapons.
Vlasenko explained that weapons are arriving at the front in many areas, but “so that the counteroffensive is quick and effective, we need more”.
The governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, mentioned the possibility of withdrawing from the little territory they have left in the region to avoid being surrounded by the Russian army.
Russian advances in Donetsk
Meanwhile, in the neighboring province of Donetsk, Russia has made significant progress since its invasion last 23 February.
Moscow troops and pro-Russian militias took control of Limán, in the north of this region, according to several reports.
Limán is a small city, with less of 30. inhabitants, but has a great strategic importance.
This is a major road junction less than 30 kilometers from Sloviansk, a town in more of 100. inhabitants that is the main faith knot regional railway.
Russian “Frankenstein Forces”
Russian forces have suffered significant losses since the invasion began.
The UK Ministry of Defense estimates that, in the first three months of its operation in Ukraine , Russia has suffered a death toll similar to that of the Soviet Union in nine years of war in Afghanistan.
It has also lost significant amounts of weaponry.
As a result, Moscow has tried to combine some of its decimated units, forming up to fight in the east what some analysts call “Frankenstein forces”.
Although Ukraine has managed to drive Russian forces away from Kharkiv, Russian units continue to b bombing parts of the city, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
This think tank
- stated that the Russian troops withdrawn from the area around Kharkiv are being redeployed in the Donetsk region.
In the south of Donetsk, Russia maintains full control of the port city of Mariupol.
The siege of Mariúpol, which lasted more than two months, ended on 20 of May.
Experts believe that the fall of the city may allow Russian units to join the fight in other towns such as Zaporizhia, where bombing continues.
On the other hand, Ukraine reported that ten people died this Friday and 35 were injured after Russian cruise missiles hit the national guard barracks in a firing range in the Dnipro region, north of Zaporizhia.
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