Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – Western nations pledge increasingly advanced weapons to bolster Ukraine’s defenses as troops fight a Russian offensive approaching the capture of a key city in the east .
Germany said on Wednesday it would supply Ukraine with modern anti-aircraft missiles and radar systems, and the United States would unveil a new weapons package later that day that would include high-tech, medium-range rocket systems.
A Kremlin spokesman told reporters Wednesday that the United States was “pouring fuel into the fire.”
Western weapons have been instrumental in Ukraine’s success in preventing the much larger and better-equipped Russian army from thwarting its initial efforts to take the capital and forcing Moscow to change its focus. towards the industrial region of the eastern Donbas.
But as the war drags on and Russia bombs cities in its gradual advance east, Ukraine has repeatedly called for more and better weapons. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has occasionally criticized the West for moving too slowly in sending weapons, and military analysts have said Russia expects to invade the Donbass before any weapons that could change course arrive.
Germany has been especially criticized, both at home and by its allies abroad, for not doing enough.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told lawmakers that the IRIS-T SLM missiles he will send are the country’s most modern air defense system.
“With this, we will allow Ukraine to defend an entire city from Russian airstrikes,” he said.
Scholz said Germany is in talks with the United States to coordinate the supply of rocket systems that Kyiv has requested.
In addition to the rocket systems he has promised, the US package will include helicopters, Javelin anti-tank weapons systems, tactical vehicles, spare parts and more, two senior government officials said on Tuesday. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity to view the package before it was formally presented.
An official noted that advanced rocket systems will give Ukrainian forces greater accuracy in targeting Russian assets within Ukraine.
Moscow considers “negative” US plans to supply more weapons, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday, saying the Kremlin does not trust Kyiv’s assurances that rocket systems will not be used to attack. Russia.
“We believe that the United States is deliberately and diligently pouring fuel into the fire,” Peskov said.
The announcements come as a regional governor said Russian forces now control 70 percent of Sievierodonetsk, a city that is key to Moscow’s efforts to complete the capture of the Donbass, where Russian-backed separatists backed by Ukraine and Ukraine. years and where the separatists were already occupying. strips of territory.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said in a post on the Telegram messaging app that some Ukrainian troops had withdrawn from the city, but later told The Associated Press that the remaining troops were fighting in the streets. .
The only other city in Luhansk that the Russians have not yet captured, Lysychansk, is still “totally” under Ukrainian control, he said, but it would probably be next.
“If the Russians manage to take full control of Sievierodonetsk in two or three days, they will start installing artillery and mortars and bomb Lysychansk more intensely,” Haidai said.
Zelenskyy, meanwhile. he said the country is losing between 60 and 100 soldiers a day in the fighting and another 500 are wounded.
He told the US television channel Newsmax on Tuesday night that “the most difficult situation is in eastern Ukraine and southern Donetsk and Luhansk,” two regions that make up the Donbas.
In southern Ukraine, a regional governor sounded a more positive note, saying Russian troops are withdrawing and blowing up bridges to prevent a possible Ukrainian advance. Vitaliy Kim, governor of the Mykolayiv region, told Telegram on Wednesday that Russia was on the defensive.
“They are afraid of a counterattack by the Ukrainian army,” Kim wrote. He did not specify where the withdrawal took place. Parts of the Mykolayiv region that have been controlled by Russian forces in recent days are near the large Russian-controlled city of Kherson.
Zelenskyy said in his nightly speech that there had been “some success in the Kherson leadership” for Ukraine.
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Jordans reported from Berlin. Associated Press writers Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Ukraine, and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, contributed to this report.
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