UKRAINE CAN BEAT RUSSIA WITH THE ‘RIGHT EQUIPMENT’
▶ Senior US officials vow to ensure Kyiv receives further military aid from West to help it fend off invasion after holding talks with Zelenskyy
The US believes Ukraine can win the war against Russia if it has the “right equipment”, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said yesterday.
Mr Austin, the US Defence Secretary, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Sunday night.
They were the most senior US delegates to visit the city since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
“The first step in winning is believing that you can win. And so they believe that we can win,” Mr Austin said after the meeting.
“We believe that we can win – they can win – if they have the right equipment, the right support.”
At the meeting, Ukraine called for the West to send more powerful weapons to boost troops fighting against Russia in Donbas, where Moscow wants to dislodge the last Ukrainian forces in the southern port city of Mariupol.
Before the session, Mr Zelenskyy said he wanted the US to produce results, in arms and security guarantees.
“You can’t come to us emptyhanded today, and we are expecting not just presents or some kind of cakes, we are expecting specific things and specific weapons,” he said.
The meeting lasted three hours and was “very productive and detailed”, a Pentagon spokesman said.
Mr Zelenskyy was also briefed on a security summit of western allies held in Germany last Tuesday, the spokesman said.
After the talks, Mr Austin said the US hoped the Russian military would be exhausted by its offensive in Ukraine.
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” he said.
Washington is a major donor of money and arms to Ukraine and a key sponsor of sanctions against Russia.
But while several European leaders have travelled to Kyiv to show their support, the US has been slow to send senior officials.
“Many countries are going to come forward and provide additional munitions and howitzers. So we’re going to push as hard as we can, as quickly as we can, to get them what they need,” Mr Austin said in a reference to the meeting in Germany.
US diplomats will begin a gradual return to Ukraine this week and have announced $700 million in military aid.
The trip by two of President Joe Biden’s senior Cabinet members came as fighting continued in Ukraine, casting a long shadow over Easter celebrations in the largely Orthodox Christian country.
At least five people were killed and another 18 wounded yesterday in a Russian rocket attack on railway infrastructure in the central region Vinnytsia.
Russian forces have been widely accused of attacking civilian sites throughout the twomonth invasion, allegations that Moscow denies.
Russia announced a ceasefire around the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol yesterday to allow civilians to leave.
Meanwhile, Moscow plans to stage a referendum in the Black Sea port city of Kherson to justify its occupation of Ukraine, British intelligence officials have said.
They said Moscow hoped to establish a land corridor in southern Ukraine that would link the mainland to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014.
Kherson, which has a population of about 300,000, was one of the first cities to be contested when Russia began its invasion.
“Russia previously held an illegitimate referendum on the accession of Crimea into the Russian Federation in 2014 to retrospectively justify its seizure of the peninsula,” the UK’s Ministry of Defence said on Twitter.
Yesterday, the British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said 15,000 Russian soldiers had been killed since Moscow launched its attack.
“Alongside the death toll are the equipment losses and, in total, a number of sources suggest that to date over 2,000 armoured vehicles have been destroyed or captured,” Mr Wallace told MPs.
He said Russia had “failed in nearly every one of its objectives” in Ukraine.
“In recognition of this failure, the Russian high command has regrouped, reinforced and changed focus to securing Donetsk and Luhansk oblast,” he said.
Mr Zelenskyy’s last face-toface meeting with a top US official was on February 19 in Munich, when he held talks with Vice President Kamala Harris.
While the West has funnelled military equipment to Ukraine, Mr Zelenskyy has emphasised repeatedly that it needs more heavy weapons, including longrange air defence systems, and warplanes.
Speaking from Kyiv’s ancient St Sophia Cathedral, Mr Zelenskyy, said the site had major significance to a nation racked by two months of war.
“The great holiday today gives us great hope and unwavering faith that light will overcome darkness, good will overcome evil, life will overcome death, and therefore Ukraine will surely win,” he said.
But the war cast a shadow over Easter celebrations held by the public.
In the northern village of Ivanivka, where Russian tanks can still be seen on the roads, Olena Koptyl said: “The Easter holiday doesn’t bring any joy. I’m crying a lot. We cannot forget how we lived.”
Victor Lobush, who lives in Kyiv, said Ukraine needed more weapons and urged western nations “not to buy even a drop of the Russian oil”.
“Actions, not words, are needed,” he said.
Mr Wallace siad Ukrainians had been using UK-supplied Starstreak high-velocity and low-velocity anti-air missiles for more than three weeks.
“As we can see from Ukrainians’ requests, more still needs to be done,” he told MPs.
He said Britain would supply Ukraine with “a small number of armoured vehicles fitted with launchers” for the missiles.
The Stormer vehicles would “give Ukrainian forces enhanced, short-range anti-air capabilities both day and night”, he said.
“At the start of this conflict, Russia had committed over 120 battalion tactical groups, approximately 65 per cent of its entire ground combat strength.
“As of now, we assess around 25 per cent of these have been rendered not combat-effective.
“Ukraine is an inspiration to us all. Their brave people have never stopped fighting for their lands.
“They have endured indiscriminate bombardment, war crimes and overwhelming military aggression but they have stood firm, galvanised the international community and beaten back the army of Russia in the north and the north east.
“We anticipate this next phase of the invasion will be an attempt by Russia to occupy further the Donbas and connect via Mariupol the Crimea so it’s urgent that we in the international community ensure Ukraine gets the aid and weapons it so much needs.”
We’re going to push as hard as we can, as quickly as we can, to get the Ukrainians what they need LLOYD AUSTIN US Secretary of Defence