Ukraine seeking missiles, aircraft from supporters

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine and its Western allies are engaged in “fast-track” talks on the possibility of equipping the invaded country with longrange missiles and military aircraft, a top Ukrainian presidential aide said Saturday.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Ukraine’s supporters in the West “understand how the war is developing” and the need to supply planes capable of providing cover for the armored fighting vehicles that the United States and Germany pledged at the beginning of the month.

However, in remarks to online video channel Freedom, Podolyak said that some of Ukraine’s Western partners maintain a “conservative” attitude to arms deliveries, “due to fear of changes in the international architecture.” Russia and North Korea have accused the West of prolonging and taking a direct role in the war by sending Kyiv increasingly sophisticated weapons.

“We need to work with this. We must show (our partners) the real picture of this war,” Podolyak said. “We must speak reasonably and tell them, for example, ‘This and this will reduce fatalities, this will reduce the burden on infrastructure. This will reduce security threats to the European continent, this will keep the war localized.’ And we are doing it,”

The U.S. and Germany agreed Wednesday to share advanced tanks with Ukraine along with the Bradley and Marder vehicles promised earlier, a decision that led to criticism not only from the Kremlin but from European Union member Hungary.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban asserted Friday that Western countries providing weapons and money to assist Ukraine in its war with Russia have “drifted” into becoming active participants in the conflict. Orban has refused to send weapons to neighboring Ukraine and sought to block EU funds earmarked for military aid.

President Biden’s announcement that the U.S. would send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine reversed months of arguments by Washington that they were too difficult for Ukrainian troops to operate and maintain.

The U.S. decision persuaded German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had expressed concern about a unilateral action drawing Russia’s wrath, to agree to send 14 Leopard 2 tanks from Germany’s stocks

and to allow European countries with tanks to send some of theirs.

Amid news of the coordinated effort, Russia bombarded Ukraine with missiles, exploding drones and artillery shells. The attacks continued Saturday, when Russian missiles struck the city of Kostyantynivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province. The missiles fell in a residential area, killing three civilians, wounding 14

and damaging four high-rise apartment buildings, Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that Ukrainian forces used U.S.-made HIMARS rockets to strike a hospital in the eastern town of Novoaidar, killing 14 people. The town is in Luhansk province, which is almost entirely under the control of Russian forces. The claim could not be immediately verified.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images Ukrainian soldiers carry the casket of their comrade Sergiy Sochenko at his funeral near Rohoziv. Sochenko was killed battling Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk region.