Ukraine given long-range Storm Shadow missiles by UK

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky says his army needs more time before beginning a counter-offensive against Russian forces.

A woman is overcome with grief during the funeral of Ukrainian serviceman Valerii Sosnovskii who died near Bakhmut. Picture: AFP

Ukraine said it needs more time before beginning a counter-offensive against Russian forces as Britain pledged to send Storm Shadow missiles to help Kyiv.

The decision means Britain is the first country to provide longer-range missiles to Kyiv, which has been training a new contingent of forces and stockpiling Western-supplied munitions and hardware.

Analysts say such steps will be key to reclaiming territory captured by Russia, although the timing of the counter-offensive remains unknown.

“Mentally we’re ready,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the BBC. “In terms of equipment, not everything has arrived yet. With (what we have) we can go forward and be successful. But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable. So we need to wait. We still need a bit more time.”

The head of Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, accused Mr Zelensky of being “dishonest”. Ukraine’s counter-offensive “is in full swing”, Mr Prigozhin said.

Kyiv has spent months preparing to claw back ground in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south.

Separately on Thursday the US envoy to South Africa accused the country of having covertly provided arms to Russia, despite its professed neutrality in the Ukraine war. Ambassador Reuben Brigety said the US was “confident” weapons and ammunition had been loaded onto a Russian freighter that docked at a Cape Town naval base in December.

“The arming of the Russians is extremely serious, and we do not consider this issue to be resolved, and we would like SA to (start) practising its non-alignment policy,” Mr Brigety said.

South Africa hit back against the charge, with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesman Vincent Magwenya calling the envoy’s statement “a counter-productive public posture” undermining “the spirit of co-operation” between the countries.

“While no evidence has been provided to date to support these allegations, the government has undertaken to institute an independent inquiry to be led by a ­retired judge,” he said.

The missiles pledged by the UK have a range of 250km and have been used by British and French forces in the Gulf, Iraq and Libya.

“The donation of these weapons systems gives Ukraine the best chance to defend themselves against Russia’s continued brutality,” British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said.

His Ukrainian counterpart Oleksiy Reznikov said late last month that Kyiv’s preparations were “coming to an end” and his forces were ready “in a global sense”. But he also said that Abrams tanks promised by the US would not be able to take part in the offensive because they would not arrive in Ukraine until the end of this year.

Ukraine has, however, ­received hundreds of other tanks, aircraft, munitions and arms from its Western allies. Since the start of Russia’s invasion, Kyiv has received more than $US150bn ($224bn) in aid, including $US65bn in military assistance.

Ukraine is counting on the success of its planned counter-offensive, as that could determine how much aid the West will be willing to donate in the future.

Some voices are calling for peace talks with Russia, but in the BBC interview Mr Zelensky rejected any possibility of land concessions. “Why should any country of the world give (Russian President Vladimir) Putin its territory?” he said.

Russia was “counting on” a “frozen conflict”, he warned.

A senior Ukrainian military ­official said earlier this week that Russian forces had dropped back from some areas near Bakhmut after limited counter-attacks by Kyiv’s forces around the eastern city. Mr Prigozhin, whose forces are on the front line of the battle for Bakhmut, acknowledged that some Ukrainian units were successfully breaking through in some areas.

AFP