US, Germany send weapons to Ukraine
Russian advance prompts response
KYIV, Ukraine — The Russian military said it used long-range missiles Wednesday to destroy a depot in the western Lviv region of Ukraine where ammunition for NATO-supplied weapons was stored, and the governor of a key eastern city acknowledged that Russian forces are advancing in heavy fighting.
The battle for Sievierodonetsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas area has become the focus of Russia’s offensive.
Russia-backed separatists accused Ukrainian forces of sabotaging an evacuation of civilians from the city’s besieged Azot chemical plant, where about 500 civilians and an unknown number of Ukrainian fighters are believed to be sheltering from missile attacks. It wasn’t possible to verify that claim.
Russian officials had announced a humanitarian corridor from the Azot plant a day earlier, but said they would take civilians to areas controlled by Russian, not Ukrainian, forces.
The Ukrainian governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, told the Associated Press that “heavy fighting in Sievierodonetsk continues.” The Luhansk and Donetsk regions make up the Donbas.
The situation in the city is getting worse, Haidai said, because Russian forces have more manpower and weapons. “But our military is holding back the enemy from three sides at once,” he added.
In the Lviv region near the border with Poland, Russian forces used highprecision Kalibr missiles to destroy the depot near the town of Zolochiv, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said. He also said shells for M777 howitzers, a type supplied by the United States, were stored there. He said four howitzers were destroyed elsewhere and that Russian airstrikes destroyed Ukrainian “aviation equipment” at a military aerodrome in the southern Mykolaiv region.
Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the Zolochiv strike.
While focusing their attacks on eastern Ukraine, where they are trying to capture territory, Russian forces have also been hitting more specific targets elsewhere, using high-precision missiles to disrupt the supply of weapons and destroy military infrastructure. Civilian infrastructure has also been bombarded, though Russian officials have claimed they’re targeting only military facilities.
NATO members are pledging to send more and longer-range weapons to Ukraine.
President Joe Biden said Wednesday the U.S. will send an additional $1 billion in military aid, the largest single cache of weapons and equipment since the war began. That aid will include anti-ship missile launchers, howitzers and more rounds for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems — all key weapons systems that Ukrainian leaders have requested urgently.
Germany is providing Ukraine with three multiple launch rocket systems of the kind that Kyiv has said it needs to defend against Russia’s invasion. Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said Wednesday that Germany will transfer three M270 medium-range artillery rocket systems, along with ammunition.
Germany said the transfer, which echoes similar moves by Britain and the U.S., will include training, and will have “a swift and significant battlefield impact.”
In recent days, Ukrainian officials have spoken of the heavy human toll of the war, with Kyiv’s forces outgunned and outnumbered in the east.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Biden for the new aid package. “The security support of the United States is unprecedented,” he said, reporting on a phone call Wednesday.
Zelenskyy said he will speak at the NATO and Group of Seven summits at the end of the month.