Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Friday that he would strengthen troops deployed on the eastern front with reserves, ammunition and equipment after he visited two key Ukrainian-held sites in the Donetsk region.
Russian forces are advancing in the Donetsk region at the fastest rate since the early days of the 2022 invasion, and the defence ministry in Moscow on Friday claimed control of two new settlements there.
But Syrskyi said Ukrainian forces were continuing to repel Russian advances after he paid a visit to units near the towns of Pokrovsk and Kurakhhove.
“Based on the results of the work, all necessary decisions have been made to strengthen the units with reserves, additional ammunition, weapons, and military equipment,” he said on social media.
“We continue to restrain the enemy and inflict heavy losses in terms of their manpower and equipment.”
The war against Russia has reached a critical juncture.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to target Ukraine’s “decision-making centres” with its new ballistic missile in response to Kyiv using Western-supplied missiles to strike back inside Russia.
Ukraine should consider lowering the age of military service for its soldiers to 18 from 25, a senior U.S. administration official has suggested, putting pressure on Kyiv to bolster its fighting forces in the conflict with Russia.
Speaking to reporters, the official said Ukraine was not mobilizing or training enough new soldiers to replace those lost on the battlefield.
“The need right now is manpower,” he said. “The Russians are in fact making progress, steady progress, in the east, and they are beginning to push back Ukrainian lines in Kursk. Mobilization and more manpower could make a significant difference at this time as we look at the battlefield today.”
Russian forces are making gains in Ukraine at the fastest rate since the early days of the 2022 invasion, taking an area half the size of London over the past month, analysts and war bloggers said this week.
In April Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed into law legislation to lower the mobilization age for combat duty from 27 to 25, expanding the number of civilians the army could mobilize to fight under martial law, which has been in place since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Team Bharatshakti
(With inputs from Reuters)
