Russia Advances in Battle for E. Ukraine As NATO Warns of Long War
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Russia said on Sunday it seized a village near Ukraine's industrial city of Sievierodonetsk, a prime target in Moscow's campaign to control the country's east, as the head of NATO predicted the war could last for years.
Russia's defence ministry said it had won Metyolkine, as Russian state news agency TASS reported that many Ukrainian fighters had surrendered there.
Ukraine's military said Russia had "partial success" in the area, which is about six kilometers southeast of Sievierodonetsk, Japan Today reported.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said supplying state-of-the-art weaponry to Ukrainian troops would boost the chance of freeing its eastern region of Donbas from Russian control.
After failing to take the capital Kiev early in the war, Russian forces have focused on trying to take complete control of the Donbas, parts of which were already held by Russian-backed separatists before the Feb. 24 invasion.
"We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine," Stoltenberg was quoted as saying.
Russia said on Sunday its offensive to win Sievierodonetsk itself was proceeding successfully.
Britain's Ministry of Defense said on Sunday that both Russia and Ukraine have continued heavy bombardment around Sievierodonetsk "with little change to the front line."
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, wrote in a note that "Russian forces will likely be able to seize Sievierodonetsk in the coming weeks, but at the cost of concentrating most of their available forces in this small area."
The British military assessment said morale for Ukrainian and Russian combat units in the Donbas was likely "variable."
In Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv, northwest of Luhansk, Russia's defense ministry said its Iskander missiles had destroyed weaponry recently supplied by Western countries.
Russian forces were trying to approach Kharkiv, which experienced intense shelling earlier in the war, and turn it into a "frontline city", a Ukrainian interior ministry official said.
In southern Ukraine, Western weaponry had helped Ukrainian forces advance 10 km towards Russian-occupied Melitopol, its mayor said in a video posted on Telegram from outside the city.
Russia has said it launched what it calls a "special military operation" to disarm its neighbor and protect Russian speakers there from dangerous nationalists. Kiev and its allies dismissed that as a baseless pretext for a war of aggression.
Germany on Sunday announced measures that would prepare it for an end to Russian natural gas deliveries. The country, which is seeking to phase out Russian energy imports and worries Moscow could stop deliveries before it is ready, is increasing gas storage inventories and plans for coal-fired power plants to produce more.