Russia-Ukraine war live: Moscow orders more weapons to ‘maintain pace of offensive’ as Kyiv forces plead for arms | Ukraine

Russia attacked the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine with guided bombs on Wednesday, killing at least two people and injured two others, the regional governor said.

The two people were killed when a car was struck in the village of Zolochiv, where a private home was also struck, governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram.

Ten private residences were also damaged but no casualties were reported in a Russian attack on the city of Kharkiv, the city’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said.

The attack on Zolochiv – about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the Russian border – also caused three fires, injuring two people in their seventies, Synegubov said.

The Kharkiv region has come under intense fire this spring as Russian forces attacked civilian and energy infrastructure, and Ukraine says its air defences are increasingly stretched as it desperately waits for more weapons and supplies from allies.

In its attacks in recent weeks, Moscow has begun using new powerful guided aerial bombs to devastating effect.

Ukrainian forces defending the strategic eastern stronghold of Chasiv Yar say they are still waiting for fresh ammunition after the US approved a major military aid package, Reuters reported.

Moscow’s army is advancing west of Avdiivka, a city it captured in February, and its troops have reached the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, another major objective that would allow them to command higher ground and target towns and cities further to the west.

Oleh Shyriaiev, commander of Ukraine’s 225th Separate Assault Battalion that is fighting near the town, said more artillery shells would help his unit hold their positions.

“I hope we receive artillery shells soon,” he said, adding that munitions supplied by allies had made a significant difference on the battlefield in the past.

“I witnessed events a year ago when Wagner was advancing,” Shyriaiev said, referring to the Russian mercenary group that staged a failed mutiny on Moscow last year.

“We received cluster munitions which changed the situation significantly and we managed to successfully counterattack.”

Cluster munitions are banned by many countries but have been used by both sides in the Ukraine conflict. Kyiv has vowed to use them only to dislodge concentrations of enemy soldiers.

More trained troops and long-range weapons would also help Ukraine defend its territory more effectively, Shyriaiev said.

“If we get long-range weapons, our leaders will cut (Russian forces) off from logistics and supplies.”

Ukraine has already received some long-range missiles from its allies, which have been used against Russian airfields, ammunition depots, command posts and troop concentrations.

The US aid package includes $23.2bn to replenish US weapons, stocks and facilities and $11.3bn for current US military operations in the region. The US does not have troops in Ukraine, but the Pentagon has been training Ukrainian troops elsewhere in the region.

The US Senate has unanimously approved legislation to ban imports of Russian uranium, after the House of Representatives passed the bill in December.

Uranium is used to power commercial nuclear reactors that produce electricity.

The US president, Joe Biden, who last week signed a foreign aid bill to provide billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine, is expected now to sign the uranium imports bill into law.

American nuclear power plants imported about 12% of their uranium from Russia in 2022, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

A spokesperson for the national security council had said that Congress imposing the ban “would provide assurance to industry, allies, and partners that the US has made a clear decision to establish a secure nuclear fuel supply chain, independent of adversarial influence, for decades to come”.

Good morning and welcome to our Ukraine blog.

Reuters is reporting that the Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has ordered more, and swifter, delivery of weapons for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

At a meeting with the top military command for Moscow’s fight in Ukraine, the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, who is in charge of the operation, delivered a report to Shoigu, the Russian defence ministry wrote on Telegram.

“To maintain the required pace of the offensive … it is necessary to increase the volume and quality of weapons and military equipment supplied to the troops, primarily weapons,” it cited Shoigu as saying in a statement posted on Telegram.

With Kyiv blaming lack of weapons, Russian forces have made nearly daily tactical advances in recent weeks along the frontline in Ukraine’s southeast. Russia has taken about half a dozen villages in the Donetsk region, while firming up battlefield positions in the Kharkiv region.

In other news:

• Ukraine launched drones on several Russian regions in hours leading to Wednesday morning, Russian officials said, with unofficial Russian news outlets reporting a fire at the Ryazan oil refinery after the attack. Pavel Malkov, governor or the Ryazan region, which shares a border with the Moscow region in its northwestern parts, said that there were no injuries in the drone attacks there.
  Russian Telegram channel Baza, which is close to the security services, reported that the attack sparked a fire at the Ryazan oil refinery. The governors of the Kursk and Voronezh regions in southwest Russia that border Ukraine also reported drone attacks on their territories, saying there was no damage or injuries.

• Russian strikes on Kharkiv, in north-east Ukraine, killed at least one person and injured nine others on Tuesday, the regional governor said. Ukraine’s railway company said the 24-year-old victim was one of its employees.

• A 98-year-old woman in Ukraine has escaped Russian-occupied territory by walking almost 10km (six miles) alone, wearing a pair of slippers and supported by a cane. Lidia Stepanivna Lomikovska became separated from her family and continued alone after they decided to leave the frontline town of Ocheretyne.

• Russian-occupied Crimea has come under Ukrainian attack, the Moscow-installed authorities said, from what they described as US-supplied Atacms missiles.

• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his country needed “a significant acceleration” in deliveries of weaponry. “We are very much counting on prompt deliveries from the United States,” he said. “These supplies must make themselves felt in disrupting the logistics of the occupiers, in making them afraid to base themselves anywhere on occupied territory and in our strength.”

• The International Rescue Committee described a worsening situation in Kharkiv, which lies near the Russian border and is Ukraine’s second-largest city, with an increasingly anxious population. The IRC said recent attacks had caused “extensive damage to civilian infrastructure and led to a sharp increase in casualties among the local population … air raid sirens sound day and night”, with people “experiencing heightened anxiety and distress”.