Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – Up to 200 Ukrainian soldiers are killed every day in Russia’s military attack, according to an adviser to the Ukrainian president, and only increasingly advanced Western armaments will push back the Russian offensive. casualties and strength. Moscow at the negotiating table.
Mykhailo Podolyak told the BBC in an interview on Thursday that the daily loss of between 100 and 200 Ukrainian soldiers was the result of a “total lack of parity” between Ukraine and Russia, which has “thrown away virtually everything it is nuclear at the forefront. ”in its attempt to advance into the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine and beyond.
Recently, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, raised the daily death toll by up to 100, but Podolyak said it had increased. Ukrainian officials have noted the growing losses in emphasizing their demand for more Western weapons, which have been critical of the country’s unexpected success in curbing Russia’s larger and better-equipped forces.
After a failed attempt to invade Kyiv in the early days of the war, Russia shifted its focus to the Donbas region from mines and coal factories. But his progress there has been slow.
Podolyak said the delivery of state-of-the-art artillery systems would not only reduce the number of deaths in Ukraine, but would help its forces recover the occupied territory.
“There is something really important that our partners need to understand, and that is until Russia suffers a serious military defeat, there will be no possible form of dialogue, and they will continue to be able to try to take parts of our country,” he said. to say. .
Podolyak also addressed Western fears that Western rocket launchers in the hands of Ukrainian forces would be used to hit targets inside Russia and potentially escalate the conflict to a wider conflagration, saying “it will not happen.” .
STREET BATTLES
The slogan in the Donbas continued on Friday, with a Ukrainian governor saying that forces are fighting “for every house and every street” in Sievierodonetsk, the recent focus of the clashes.
Sievierodonetsk is in the last pocket of the Lugansk region that has not yet been claimed by Russia.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai told the Associated Press that Ukrainian forces maintain control of the industrial area on the outskirts of the city and some other sections, and thorough block-by-block fighting continues.
Zelenskyy said Thursday afternoon that while the situation in the Donbas is static, Ukrainian forces had advanced into the southern Zaporizhzhia region, where Ukrainian troops have been able to “ruin the occupiers’ plans.” He gave no details.
BRITTANY calls the trial of its citizens a “farce”
The British government has said Russia must take responsibility for the “mock trial” of two Britons and a Moroccan man who were sentenced to death for fighting Russian forces in Ukraine.
The British Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner and the Moroccan Brahim Saadoun were convicted by a court headed by pro-Moscow separatist authorities in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, which is not internationally recognized.
Separatist authorities argued that the men were “mercenaries” who were not entitled to the usual protections granted to prisoners of war.
The families of Aslin and Pinner have said the two men have been members of the Ukrainian army for a long time. Saadoun’s father told a Moroccan online newspaper that his son is not a mercenary and has Ukrainian citizenship.
Government Minister Robin Walker said on Friday that it was “an illegal court in a sham government”, but that the UK would use “all diplomatic channels to argue that these are prisoners of war who should be treated accordingly”.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is due to speak with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba later on Friday about the case. The United Kingdom has not announced any plans to speak with Russian officials, and does not recognize the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic and will not officially contact the authorities there.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that so far the ministry has not received any specific appeals against men in Britain and, as such, “we can come to an unequivocal conclusion that so far the fate of these citizens was of no interest to London. “
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Karmanau contributed from Lviv, Ukraine. Associated Press writers Jill Lawless in London and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed.
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