Russian forces are getting closer to Severodonetsk every day. The capture of this city of some 100,000 inhabitants located in eastern Ukraine before the war is essential for them to fully control the Donbass, a mining basin already partly occupied by pro-Russian separatists supported by Moscow.
For its part, Ukraine badly needs mobile units capable of sending several rockets simultaneously, to have equal weapons against the firepower of Russia, while kyiv thanked France for welcoming “wounded of Ukrainian war within its hospitals, and in particular within the hospitals of the armies”, according to the French ministry of the Armies.
The fighting with Russian forces has reached the outskirts of Severodonetsk, where the situation is “very difficult”, the governor of the region, Serguiï Gaïdaï, announced on Wednesday May 25. “Russian troops have advanced to be so close that they can fire mortars” on Severodonetsk, Serguii Gaïdaï said on Telegram, adding that the city “is simply being destroyed”.
He accused the Russian military of bombarding the city “constantly”, including using Smertch and Tornado multiple rocket launchers. According to him, the bombs also target the Azot factory, where civilians are taking refuge in air-raid shelters. “The situation in the city is very difficult. Yesterday, there was already fighting on the outskirts” of Severodonetsk, continued Serguiï Gaïdaï, who estimated that “next week will be decisive”.
Ukraine badly needs mobile units capable of sending several rockets simultaneously, to have equal weapons against the firepower of Russia, insisted Wednesday in Davos the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba.
“The battle for Donbass is very similar to the battles of World War II,” Dmytro Kuleba told reporters after a series of talks in Davos with government officials and business leaders. He explained that “some villages and towns no longer exist” in this region of Ukraine, which has suffered intensive bombing in recent days. “They were reduced to rubble by Russian artillery fire, by Russian multiple rocket launchers.”
Russia is better equipped than Ukraine for a number of heavy weapons. But according to Dmytro Kuleba, the greatest imbalance concerns launchers capable of sending several rockets simultaneously. kyiv asked Washington for it, and it is “really the weapon that we badly need”, assured the minister.
In certain regions of eastern Ukraine, where the Russian offensive has been concentrated for weeks, “the enemy is clearly superior in terms of equipment, in number of soldiers”, for his part recognized on Wednesday evening the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But, he immediately added in his daily video message, the Ukrainian forces and both who defend the country “are resisting the extremely violent offensive of Russian troops in the east”.
kyiv thanked France for welcoming “Ukrainian war wounded in its hospitals, and in particular in army hospitals”, according to a press release published Wednesday evening by the French Ministry of the Armed Forces.
During a telephone exchange with his new French counterpart Sébastien Lecornu, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov “thanked France for the care it offers to Ukrainian war wounded”, according to this press release. The first two Ukrainian soldiers were received at the Percy military hospital, in the Paris region, the French minister’s office told AFP. The Ukrainian minister “recalled the important needs of the Ukrainian armed forces to be able to maintain their effort in the face of Russian offensives, while the conflict could last”, adds the press release.
The Ukrainian army has published the first images of the dozen Caesar howitzers donated by France and now active against the Russian army, without specifying where they are mobilized. A dozen more howitzers are to be supplied to kyiv by the Netherlands and Germany.
