The situation for Ukraine's troops on the eastern front has "significantly worsened in recent days", according to the country's armed forces commander.
As Kyiv faces a shortage in ammunition and awaits further Western military aid, with a package from the U.S. currently held up in Congress, Oleksandr Syrsky spelled out problems for his forces in a Telegram post on Saturday.
He said that since the re-election of Vladimir Putin in a ballot widely seen as fraudulent, Russian troops have stepped up their offensives in the Lyman and Bakhmut directions in the Donetsk region, using assault groups and armored vehicles.
He said that near the city of Pokrovsk, Russian forces were trying to break through Ukrainian defenses using dozens of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles and were aided by warm and dry weather in which the vehicles can "pass freely."
"The army of the Russian Federation uses new units on armored vehicles and periodically achieves tactical success," he wrote, according to a translation of the post in Ukrainian. Syrsky said Ukraine was trying hard to "strengthen the most problematic defense areas with electronic warfare and air defense."
He added that achieving technical superiority over the enemy with high-tech weapons "will give us the opportunity to defeat a larger enemy and create conditions for seizing the strategic initiative."
Officials in Ukraine and its allies and analysts have said the lack of U.S. aid is having an impact on the battlefield while President Volodymyr Zelensky said this month his country "will lose the war" if Congress does not approve further aid. A bill that includes $60 billion in aid for Ukraine has been blocked in Congress for months.
"The stark reality is that more and more Ukrainians are dying by the day as the Ukraine aid package remains stalled in Congress," said Wayne Jordash, managing partner of Global Rights Compliance, which is assisting the Ukrainian Office of the Prosecutor General to investigate Russian war crimes.
"There's no question that battlefield successes correspond to the type of weapons and the volume of weapons which have been provided by the West. Ukraine is fast running out of supplies to defend itself," Jordash told Newsweek.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's Ministry of Defense denied earlier reports that Russian forces had captured the village of Bohdanivka in the Bakhmut district of Donetsk Oblast.
The Institute for the Study of War think tank said positional fighting continued in nearby Chasiv Yar on Friday, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline.
"At night, enemy assault groups made their way to the northern outskirts," of the town which was under the control of Ukrainian forces, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on Telegram. "A battle is ongoing, the enemy does not stop the assaults," the post added.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Brendan Cole is a Newsweek Senior News Reporter based in London, UK. His focus is Russia and Ukraine, in particular ... Read more
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