Ukraine’s military said on Thursday that its troops had withdrawn from part of Chasiv Yar in the eastern Donetsk region, a day after Russia announced that its army had taken control of a neighborhood in the strategic city.
“It was impossible to hold the neighborhood after the enemy entered it, because the lives and health of our soldiers were threatened. The defensive positions of our soldiers were destroyed,” army spokesman Nazar Voloshyn told Ukrainian television.
“The command decided to retreat to more protected and prepared positions, but even there the enemy continues to attack”, he added.
Chasiv Jari has high ground that Russian forces can use as a rallying point to continue their offensive towards other Ukrainian cities if they manage to take full control of the city.
Recent Russian efforts to open a new front near the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv have been thwarted, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said delays in US military aid shipments have caused major problems for his country’s military.
“We have 14 brigades without equipment, which do not have the right weapons,” President Zelenskyy said in an interview with the Bloomberg agency. “Shipments are coming, but they are coming slowly, unfortunately,” he added.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Moscow will not declare a ceasefire in Ukraine without seeing “irreversible” actions by Kiev, which are considered acceptable by the Kremlin.
Earlier on Thursday, the Ukrainian military said it shot down 21 of 22 drones that Russia attacked overnight across Ukraine, including the capital Kiev.
At least seven people were injured and residential buildings, shops, sports clubs and a gas pipeline were destroyed, authorities said. A Russian attack on gas infrastructure in the Poltava region on Wednesday killed one person and wounded three others, Ukraine’s energy ministry announced Thursday.
In turn, the Russian defense ministry said on Thursday that it thwarted Ukrainian drone attacks on the Belgorod, Briansk and Tambov regions.
A day ago, the Pentagon announced a two-part aid package for Ukraine, worth just over 2.3 billion dollars.
The initial aid includes missiles and artillery from the US stockpile, worth up to $150 million.
The second part of the package, worth about 2.2 billion dollars, will be used for the purchase of missiles for the “Patriot” defense systems and the advanced “NASAMS” system.
The official announcement of this aid package comes a day after the meeting of US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin with Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov at the Pentagon.
“Ukraine is in a difficult war,” Mr. Austin told his counterpart Umerov before the meeting. “Make no mistake. “Ukraine is not alone and the help of the United States will never waver,” he added.
The new aid package comes a week before NATO’s high-level meeting in the US, an event that has at the top of its agenda increased military support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.
“If the NATO meeting should prove something, it should be help in the long term,” Charles Kupchan, an expert from the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Voice of America./VOA
