At a meeting in Germany, the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) said Ukraine could win the war, calling for increased military support and accelerated approval of expected candidacies from Finland and Sweden to join the alliance.
Ukraine has scored a string of successes since Russia’s invasion on February 24, forcing Russian commanders to abandon an advance on the capital kyiv before making quick gains to drive them out of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.
The invasion of Moscow, which she describes as a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine and protect it from the fascists, has shaken European security. kyiv and its Western allies claim that the assertion of fascism is a baseless pretext for an unprovoked war of aggression.
The President of Finland, which shares a 1,300 km border with Russia, confirmed on Sunday that his country would apply to join NATO, a major policy change prompted by the Russian invasion. The ruling party in Sweden has done the same.
Since mid-April, Russian forces have concentrated much of their firepower in an attempt to capture two eastern provinces known as Donbas after failing to take kyiv.
According to an assessment by British military intelligence, Russia lost about a third of the ground combat force deployed in February. Its Donbas offensive is “significantly behind schedule” and unlikely to make rapid progress over the next 30 days, according to the assessment.
“Russia’s war in Ukraine is not going as Moscow had planned,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Ukraine received a moral boost with victory in the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night, a triumph seen as a sign of the strength of popular support for Ukraine across Europe.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed the victory but said the situation in Donbas remained very difficult and Russian forces were still trying to salvage some sort of victory in a region torn apart by conflict since 2014.
“They don’t stop trying,” he said.
NOWHERE TO BURY ANYONE
Russia said on Sunday it had struck Ukrainian positions in the east with missiles, targeting command centers and arsenals as its forces seek to encircle Ukrainian units between Izium and Donetsk. Reuters was unable to independently confirm these reports.
Izium straddles the Donets River, about 120 km (75 miles) from Kharkiv on the main highway heading southeast.
If Ukraine can keep the pressure on Izium and Russian supply lines, it will be more difficult for Moscow to surround hardened Ukrainian troops on the eastern Donbas front.
“The hottest point remains the management of Izium,” Ukrainian regional governor Oleh Sinegubov said in comments posted on social media.
“Our armed forces have counter-offensiveed this place. The enemy is retreating on some fronts.”
Ruska Lozova, a village in sweeping fields between Kharkiv and Ukraine’s border with Russia, Ukrainian commanders have said they believe Moscow is redeploying troops to defend Izium while keeping their opponents pinned down by artillery fire.
“The Russian attack on Kharkiv was destroyed and they understand that,” said Ihor Obolensky, who commands the National Guard and the volunteer force that captured Ruska Lozova eight days ago. “They have to go for another win and want to hold Izium.”
But the Ukrainian military also acknowledged setbacks in an update on Sunday morning: “Despite the losses, Russian forces continue to advance in the areas of Lyman, Sievierodonetsk, Avdiivka and Kurakhiv in the wider Donbas region.”
In western Ukraine, near Poland, missiles destroyed military infrastructure on Saturday night and were fired at the Lviv region from the Black Sea, according to Ukrainian officials.
Nine civilians were injured in the Russian shelling of the Sievierodonetsk hospital last night, Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the eastern Luhansk region, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ten other civilians were injured in the southern region of Mykolaiv in the past 24 hours, the regional council said, without providing details. These reports could not be independently verified.
Nor was there any letting up on Sunday in Russia’s bombardment of the steelworks in the southern port of Mariupol, where a few hundred Ukrainian fighters are holding out weeks after the city fell to the hands of the Russians, according to the Ukrainian weapon.
In a video posted by a pro-Russian separatist commander, hot munitions are seen cascading down the steelworks.
A large convoy carrying refugees from the ruins of Mariupol arrived in the Ukrainian-held town of Zaporizhzhia late Saturday night, after waiting several days for Russian troops to allow them to leave.
Iryna Petrenko, a 63-year-old woman in the convoy, said she stayed behind to care for her 92-year-old mother, who later died.
“We buried him next to his house because there was nowhere to bury anyone,” she said.
MORE WEAPONS
Both Finland and Sweden have said they see NATO membership as a way to boost their security, although Russia has warned that it would be a mistake for Helsinki to give up its neutrality.
Sweden’s ruling social democrats voted on Sunday in favor of the country joining NATO, paving the way for a candidacy and abandoning decades of military non-alignment.
Mr Stoltenberg and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken both said they were confident that Turkey’s concerns over the Baltic countries’ candidacies could be overcome, Mr Stoltenberg indicating that an accelerated accession process and agreements of temporary security would be possible.
In addition to losing a large number of men and a lot of military equipment, Russia was hit with economic sanctions, while Western states provided military aid to Ukraine.
Ukraine has deployed many of its new US M-777 howitzers to the front lines and Washington has delivered all but one of the 90 artillery pieces they were to send, the US embassy said. United Kyiv.