Support from West crucial to Ukraine’s war effort, says Zelenskyy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a rare acknowledgement of setbacks on Sunday, saying 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war and that plans for last summer’s failed counter-offensive had been leaked to Russia.
Mr Zelenskyy said his country’s victory depends on support from the West, and expressed hope that the US Congress would approve a package of military aid.
At a forum marking the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion, he appealed to the West to boost Ukraine’s war chances.
“Whether Ukraine will lose, whether it will be very difficult for us, and whether there will be a large number of casualties depends on you, on our partners, on the western world,” Mr Zelenskyy said.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has been weakened by an ammunition shortage, with a much-needed $60 billion US aid package blocked by political infighting in the US Congress.
“There is hope for Congress, and I am sure that it is going to be positive,” Mr Zelenskyy said.
For months, Ukraine has said that western aid is too slow in coming and that the hold-ups have real consequences as the war against Russia enters its third year.
For the first time, Mr Zelenskyy suggested that Russia had prior information on Kyiv’s much-anticipated but unsuccessful counter-offensive last summer.
“Action plans were on the Kremlin’s table before the counter-offensive actions began,” said the president, who this month sacked the army’s commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
But Mr Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s war losses were much lower than Russia has claimed.
“Thirty-one thousand Ukrainian soldiers have died in this war, not 300,000 or 150,000, or whatever Putin and his lying circle are saying,” he said.
In December, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu said 383,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed or wounded during the war.
The second anniversary of the war was marked around the world with moving tributes.
During a Sunday service in the Vatican, Pope Francis called for intensified efforts to find a “just and lasting peace”.
“There have been so many victims, so many wounded, so much destruction, so much anguish and so many tears over what has become a terribly long period, the end of which we cannot yet foresee,” he said.
But the focus in Kyiv was on shoring up western support.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said earlier on Sunday that half of western military aid to Kyiv was delivered later than promised, causing losses.
Europe has admitted it will fall far short of a plan to deliver more than one million artillery shells to the country by March, instead hoping to complete the shipments by the end of the year.
Such delays meant Kyiv would “lose people, lose territories”, Mr Umerov said.
Mr Zelenskyy urged G7 leaders on Saturday to ensure the fast delivery of weapons, telling them: “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin can lose this war” and “we will win”.
But after a year of static front lines, Russia has in recent weeks been seeking to press its advantage on the battlefield, and this month announced the capture of Avdiivka, a city in eastern Ukraine.
“Despite the difficult situation, our soldiers courageously hold their lines and positions,” Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said on Sunday after visiting frontline positions.
Russia marked the start of the war’s third year with a wave of overnight missile and drone attacks.
Ukrainian authorities said one person was wounded in a missile strike on the eastern city of Kostyantynivka while a railway station, dozens of apartments, shops and administrative buildings were destroyed.
Explosives dropped by a Russian drone killed a 57-year-old man in Nikopol, across the Dnipro River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, occupied by Russia since the early days of the war.
Mr Umerov said Russia had fired more than 8,000 missiles at Ukraine since the start of the invasion, at an average of more than 10 a day.
Visiting the southern city of Mykolaiv, Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s Foreign Minister, pledged another €100 million ($108 million) in humanitarian aid to Kyiv.
“We should not minimise this aid as being in vain. It saves lives every day,” Ms Baerbock said, standing in front of a building destroyed by Russian strikes on the city.
French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday was set to host a summit of European leaders at the Elysees Palace in Paris to try to strengthen western support for Ukraine.
“We want to send Putin a very clear message that he won’t win in Ukraine,” an adviser to Mr Macron said when the summit was announced. “Our goal is to crush this idea he wants tus to believe that he would be somehow winning.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish President Andrzej Duda were among about 20 European leaders set to attend the conference, expected to open with a video address by Mr Zelenskyy.