Ukraine asks for longer-range missiles as it awaits tank deliveries

Ukrainian troops say Russia has numerical advantage as its invasion forces try to surround eastern city.

Paramedics carry a Ukrainian serviceman who stepped on a land mine in the Donetsk region on Sunday. Picture: AFP

Ukraine called on its Western backers to supply longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian-held territory as Russia claimed fresh advances in the months-long battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut.

In his nightly address on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine needed advanced weapons systems such as the US Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, to counteract Russian strikes that were killing civilians.

Mr Zelensky cited a Russian S-300 missile attack on Saturday that Ukraine says killed three people and wounded 14 in the town of Kostiantynivka near Bakhmut. He argued that precision missiles would allow Kyiv to target Russia’s own longer-range weapons that were being used to strike civilian targets in Ukraine.

“It would be possible to stop this Russian terror if we could ­ensure suitable rockets for our military,” he said. “So that the terrorists do not have a feeling of ­impunity.”

Many of the Russian missile launchers that Mr Zelensky says are being used to hit Ukraine are positioned far behind the front lines in Russian-occupied areas. But the US is concerned that Kyiv could ultimately use longer-range American weapons to strike targets inside Russia itself, increasing the risk of the war escalating into a direct clash between the West and Russia.

Ukraine has asked for ­ATACMS on previous occasions, including in the days following a successful autumn offensive that ousted Russian forces from a swath of northeastern Ukraine and emboldened Kyiv to hint at a possible offensive this year to ­retake the Crimean Peninsula from Russia.

US officials in September said Ukraine had asked for long-range missiles in part to strike into Crimea, which Russia is using as a base to launch Iranian-made drones and missiles. But the Biden administration has refrained from supplying ATACMS, which have a range of almost 300km, over fears of escalation.

Ukraine’s calls for more weapons come as the country awaits the delivery of main battle tanks promised by several Western ­allies, and Russia pushes to gain territory in and around Bakhmut, a key immediate target for Moscow’s broader war effort.

Russia is seeking to advance from positions it holds in an eastern district of Bakhmut and push Ukrainian defenders across the river that bisects the city.

From Bakhmut’s central square, the sound of gunfire could be heard from three sides on Sunday — a testament to the progress Russian forces have made in recent weeks.The east side of Bakhmut is now the site of heavy street battles, with territory frequently changing hands and neither side in firm control, according to soldiers here.

Klishchiivka, to the southwest, was now under Russian control, soldiers in the area said, and Ukrainians are fighting to hold on to Ivanivske, due west of Bakhmut. Only one road into Bakhmut, from the northwest, remains ­entirely in Ukrainian control.

“It’s right at the edge of critical, but for now we’re holding it,” Tom, the 24-year-old commander of a Ukrainian tank squadron, said of the situation in Ivanivske, where his team has been fighting in ­recent days. In accordance with Ukrainian military rules, he identified himself only by his call sign.

An influx of Russian troops – many of them convicts who have joined Wagner as well as soldiers recently mobilised by the regular army – has given Moscow a substantial manpower advantage in the Bakhmut area, Ukrainian troops said.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank that produces daily analyses of the war, said on Saturday that exhausted troops from the Wagner Group paramilitary unit that has spearheaded key operations in the battle for Bakhmut are now probably being replaced by soldiers from the regular military. But Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, claimed on Sunday that the unit had captured the village of Blahodatne to the north of Bakhmut, a position that brings Russia closer to surrounding the city from three directions and forcing a Ukrainian withdrawal.

Ukrainian and Western officials have warned that Russia is planning to launch major new ­offensives in Ukraine as early as next month, capitalising on the mobilisation of some 300,000 troops as well as Wagner’s recruitment of thousands of convicts from Russian prisons.

The Russian Defence Ministry on Sunday accused Ukraine of killing 14 people in a strike on a hospital in the Russian-occupied part of Luhansk region.

The Wall Street Journal