kiyv: While fighting raged in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia once more shelled the crucial town of Vuhledar, three people were killed in Kherson, southern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials.
Just days after allies agreed to supply Kyiv with heavy battle tanks, president Volodymyr Zelensky declared that Ukraine was facing a challenging situation in Donetsk and needed quicker weapons supplies and new types of weapons.
"The circumstance is very difficult. Russian attacks are ongoing in Bakhmut, Vuhledar, and other Donetsk region sectors, Zelensky declared in a video address late on Sunday.
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Russia wants to prolong the conflict and use all of our resources. Therefore, we must use time as a weapon. Events must move quickly, supplies must be opened up quickly, and Ukraine must have access to new weapons.
According to the regional administration, Russian airstrikes on Kherson on Sunday resulted in the deaths of three people and the injuries of six others.
Kherson was taken over by Russian forces soon after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and they held the city until Ukrainian forces took it back in November. Since it was freed, Russian positions across the Dnipro River have frequently shelled the city.
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According to regional governor Oleh Synehubov, a missile that struck an apartment building later on Sunday in the northeastern town of Kharkiv killed an elderly woman.
In the second-most populous city in the nation, part of a residential building was engulfed in flames in a picture taken at the scene by Reuters. On Saturday, Russia charged the Ukrainian military with deliberately hitting a hospital in an area of eastern Ukraine that was under Russian control and killing 14. The allegations received no response from Ukraine.
Russian forces shelled Bakhmut, the centre of Moscow's offensive in the eastern Donetsk region, as well as Vuhledar to the southwest, where fighting has gotten worse recently, according to a statement from Ukraine's General Staff late on Sunday.
Colonel Mykola Salamakha of Ukraine, a military analyst, claimed to Ukrainian Radio NV that Russian forces were launching waves of assaults on Vuhledar. "From here, we practically have control over the entire Russian logistics rail network. The town has been turned into an incredibly potent defensive hub, and it is located on an upland, he said. "This is a repetition of the events in Bakhmut, where successive waves of Russian troops were routed by the Ukrainian military."
The casualties on Sunday occurred three days after at least 11 people were killed in missile attacks that Kyiv perceived as the Kremlin's response to the allies of Ukraine's promise to provide battle tanks.
Germany and the US announced last week that they would send Ukraine dozens of tanks to help push back Russian forces after weeks of negotiations, clearing the way for other nations to follow suit.
According to Kyiv's ambassador to France, 321 heavy tanks had been pledged to Ukraine by a number of nations, but it might take months for them to show up on the front lines.
As both sides in the conflict are anticipated to launch spring offensives in the upcoming weeks, Ukraine is eager to accelerate the delivery of heavy weapons. A senior aide to Zelensky claimed on Saturday that discussions about Ukraine's requests for long-range missiles were also ongoing between Kyiv and its allies. Additionally, Ukraine has requested US F16 fighter jets.
Zelensky claimed that as part of his effort to bar Russian athletes from competing at the Olympic Games in Paris, he had written to French President Emmanuel Macron. Allowing Russia to participate in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, according to him, would amount to demonstrating that "terror is somehow acceptable."
In his nightly video address, Zelensky stated: "The International Olympic Committee's attempts to bring Russian athletes back to the Olympic Games are attempts to tell the whole world that terror is somehow acceptable."
He said: "The Olympic movement and terrorist states definitely should not cross paths," alluding to the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin held during the Nazi regime.
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It must not be permitted for Russia to "use (the Games) or any other sporting event as propaganda for its aggression or its state chauvinism," he said. The Olympic Council of Asia recently suggested that Russian and Belarusian athletes be given the opportunity to compete in Asia, and the International Olympic Committee said last week that it welcomed the idea.
In order to repel a belligerent West and "denazify" the nation, Russia claims to have started its "special military operation" in Ukraine. The invasion, according to Ukraine and its allies, was an unprovoked act of aggression.