Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a dual appeal to Donald Trump and the US Congress for more air defence munitions including Patriot missiles after Russia battered Ukraine with waves of ballistic missiles. The Ukrainian president said the Russian missiles represented Vladimir Putin's “last major advantage on the battlefield” and neutralising them would force the Russian ruler to negotiate.
Russia used 30 ballistic missiles against Ukraine in a massive strike on Sunday, and only 11 of them were shot down, according to Ukraine's air force. Zelenskyy also said Moscow's troops launched two nuclear-capable Oreshnik missiles. Ukraine's only means to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles is US-made interceptors shot by the Patriot air defence system. Throughout four years of war, Kyiv has been short of these interceptors. The US is supposed to be providing them through the European-financed Purl initiative, but the Iran war and Donald Trump's antipathy to Ukraine have threatened supplies.
Ukraine also has the similar SAMP/T interceptor system produced by France and Italy, but Ukrainian authorities say it needs upgrades to shoot down ballistic missiles. In his letter to Trump and the US Congress, seen by Reuters, Zelenskyy pitched missile defence as a tool to force the Russian president to the negotiating table. “As long as Putin still has even one meaningful advantage in conventional weapons, he will avoid conventional diplomacy. Today, his ballistic missiles remain exactly that – his last major advantage on the battlefield … Ukraine is ready to purchase the number of Patriot systems and interceptor missiles we need … The current pace of deliveries through the Purl programme is no longer keeping up with the reality of the threat we face.”
Russia's defence ministry has returned to proclaiming the capture of Ukrainian villages at a time when senior analysts concur that Ukraine holds the initiative on the frontline. Moscow's defence ministry said its troops have taken control of Hraniv in the Kharkiv region on the border with Russia and Vozdvyzhivka in Zaporizhzhia. Ukraine's 14th army responded that Hraniv was under the control of the Ukrainian military with the Russians taking “significant losses in personnel and equipment”. DeepState, a reputable Ukrainian war blog, said Russian servicemen had briefly entered Vozdvyzhivka this month but were evicted or killed. The 14th Army also denied the capture of one of two villages the Russian military claimed to have seized in Sumy region.
Ukraine's Window of Opportunity
Ukraine has a six-month window to seize the initiative from Russia and strengthen its hand for peace talks, Brig Gen Andriy Biletsky of Ukraine's Third Army Corps has told a Reuters interviewer. “I believe the next six to nine months are a turning point,” Biletsky, who heads one of Ukraine's most respected fighting forces, said in an undisclosed bunker in the Kharkiv region. “More precisely, I think the next six are the most critical.” The general said he believes Russia's army is exhausted and incapable of making major breakthroughs – “The lack of personnel no longer allows them to advance the way they did, for example, a year ago.”
Ukraine's military can push Moscow to abandon its designs on the last part of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine that it does not yet occupy. “We need to define those directions where we can improve our positions, take some strategic points, and then speak with the Russians from a position of strength – not weakness – about a truly stable truce,” said Biletsky, a rightwing political leader who founded the Azov Battalion and now commands tens of thousands of troops. “From a military point of view, this is realistic.”
Assessing the military situation, John Helin of the Finland-based Black Bird conflict-analysis group agreed fatigue was a problem for Russian forces, while Ukraine's war effort is still hampered by a manpower shortage. “It does seem like, four or five months into this year, it's much more likely that the Russians will get exhausted before the Ukrainian problems come to a breaking point,” Helin told Reuters. On Monday, the US-based Institute for the Study of War said Kyiv's forces were now “actively challenging the positional character of the war” and could soon be capable of staging limited mechanised assaults.
Russian Casualties and International Reactions
Nearly half a million Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine since the start of Vladimir Putin's invasion more than four years ago, according to a new estimate from Anne Keast-Butler, head of the British electronic intelligence agency GCHQ. Keast-Butler said Russia was “going backwards on the battlefield” inside Ukraine for the first time since late 2022. Russian casualties, killed and wounded, have been estimated by the west to be running at about 30,000 a month during April. This month, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said that, of those, 15,000 to 20,000 a month were killed.
Pope Leo has decried what he called a “sharp intensification” of the war in Ukraine, telling pilgrims at his weekly audience at the Vatican that he wanted to express closeness to civilians killed in recent attacks. “I am following with concern the war in Ukraine,” Leo said in comments reported by Reuters. “War does not solve problems, but aggravates them. It does not build security, but multiplies suffering and hatred … Where missiles and drones fall, hopes also fall, homes and places of worship are destroyed, and innocent lives are shattered.”
The port of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea was attacked by more than 20 Ukrainian drones early on Wednesday, with Ukraine also using Storm Shadow missiles, said the city's governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev. He added that buildings including a regional office of the central bank were damaged. The Storm Shadow, produced by France and Britain, is the most advanced western-made cruise missile available to Ukraine, and has recently been making more frequent appearances on the battlefield. On Monday, Ukraine's military said it used Storm Shadows to destroy a Russian command-and-control and communications post in Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region.
