Dangerous days ahead as Ukraine awaits weapons

Russia seizes advantage on front line while manpower shortage adds to Ukraine’s woes

- Jonathan Eyal

LONDON Ukraine's top military commander has admitted that his troops are losing ground to advancing Russian forces in the eastern part of the country.

"The situation at the front has worsened," General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, wrote in a post on local social media.

This gloomy message was echoed by Mr Jens Stoltenberg, the boss of Nato, the US-led military alliance in Europe.

During an April 29 visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, he blamed lengthy delays in the supply of Western weapons and ammunition for what he termed as "serious consequences on the battlefield".

But although US officials are now rushing through military supplies, fresh Western weapons are yet to make their way to the front lines, where Ukrainian troops are struggling to hold their defensive positions.

And a much bigger Russian military offensive is in the offing, as Russia's armed forces pummel Ukrainian supply and communication lines and lay waste to the country's industrial capacity and electricity grid.

The fiercest battles are raging in Donbas a vast eastern Ukrainian region more than 70 times larger than Singapore - and especially around the strategically important small Ukrainian towns of Chasiv Yar and Krasnohorivka.

These mark the northern and southern corners of the hotly contested region that Russia officially annexed in 2023 but has yet to control entirely.