KYIV, Nov 30 – NATO allies pledged more arms to Ukraine and equipment to help restore electricity supplies disrupted by Russian strikes, as President Volodymyr Zelensky said his forces were holding back against attempted Russian advances in many areas.
Ukraine’s General Staff said on Wednesday that its forces had repelled six Russian attacks in the past 24 hours in the eastern Donbas region, while Russian artillery relentlessly shelled the right bank of the Dnieper River and the city of Kherson further south.
Ukrainians fled to air-raid shelters on Tuesday after air-raid warning sirens sounded, although the country was later given the all-clear. In the eastern Donetsk region, Russian forces pounded Ukrainian targets with artillery, mortar and tank fire.
Zelensky said the Russian military was also attacking Luhansk in the east and Kharkiv in the northeast, an area Ukraine recaptured in September.
“The situation at the front is difficult,” Zelenskiy said in his late-night video address. “Despite extremely heavy losses, the occupiers are still trying to advance” in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv. And “they’re planning something down south,” he said.
Ukraine regained control of Kherson in the south this month after Russian forces retreated. Reuters could not independently verify reports from the battlefield.
Foreign ministers from the NATO alliance, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, began a two-day meeting in Bucharest on Tuesday to look for ways to keep Ukrainians safe and warm and to contain Kiev’s military during the coming winter campaign.
“We need air defense, IRIS, Hawks, Patriots and we need transformers (for our energy needs),” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters on the sidelines of a NATO meeting, listing various Western air defense systems.