Sides weigh next moves during winter stalemate
Kremlin spokesman says arms from West will not stop Russia
KYIV, Ukraine — Fighting remained largely deadlocked Monday in eastern Ukraine where Russian shelling killed five civilians over the past day, according to Ukrainian officials, as the warring sides sized up their needs for renewed military pushes expected in coming weeks.
The casualties included a woman who was killed and three others who were wounded by the Russian shelling of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city in the country’s northeast, regional Gov. Oleh Syniyehubov said Monday.
Russia’s troops seized large areas of the northeastern Kharkiv region in the months following its invasion of its neighbor last February. But Ukrainian counteroffensives that began in August snatched back Russian-occupied territory, notably in Kharkiv.
Those successes lent weight to Ukraine’s arguments that its troops could deliver more stinging defeats to Russia if its Western allies provided more weaponry.
Kyiv last week won promises of tanks from the United States and Germany.
Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Monday hinted at the prospect of more upcoming pledges, saying that “any activity aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s defense powers is under consultation with our NATO partners.”
But such a move could encounter some familiar political obstacles.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, after demurring for weeks over sending Germany’s Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, looks set to dig his heels in over providing fighter jets. Germany would not have the key role in aircraft deliveries that it did with the Leopards, which are German-made and require German export approval.
Scholz, who is on a trip to South America, said he regretted the emergence of the discussion on aircraft.
He said in Chile on Sunday that a serious debate is necessary and not a “competition to outdo each other … in which perhaps domestic political motives are in the foreground, rather than support for Ukraine.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said keeping up the pace of allies’ support is crucial.
“The speed of supply has been, and will be, one of the key factors in this war. Russia hopes to drag out the war, to exhaust our forces. So we have to make time our weapon,” he said.
With the war approaching its one-year mark and draining both sides’ resources, the Western call for weapons for Kyiv is spreading beyond NATO. The alliance’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, on Monday called for South Korea to send direct military support to Ukraine too. South Korea is a growing arms exporter with a well-equipped, U.s.-backed military.
France and Australia announced Monday plans to jointly produce and send several thousand 155-millimeter artillery shells to Ukraine.
With more talk of military aid from Ukraine’s allies, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted Western weapons won’t stop Russia.
“Ukraine keeps demanding new weapons and the West is encouraging those demands,” Peskov said Monday. “It’s a deadlock. It results in a significant escalation and makes NATO countries increasingly involved in the conflict.”
Meanwhile, Britain’s former prime minister, Boris Johnson, has said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin made a veiled threat to fire a missile at him, a claim that the Kremlin on Monday dismissed as a lie.
Johnson recounted the exchange, which he said took place when he was prime minister in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, in an interview for a BBC documentary. He said it came during a phone call during which he had attempted to dissuade Putin from invading, arguing that doing so would lead to more sanctions and an increased NATO presence near Russia’s border.
“He threatened me at one point and said, you know: ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you but with a missile it would only take a minute,’ or something like that,” Johnson said. He added that Putin’s threat had been “jolly,” seeming to suggest that he had not taken it seriously.
“From the very relaxed tone that he was taking, the sort of air of detachment that he seemed to have, he was just playing along with my attempts to get him to negotiate,” Johnson said.