To overcome Russia, Ukraine begged for more weapons

Fierce fighting continued to rage in eastern Ukraine with Russian troops on the verge of sieging a major industrial city, bringing sharp rebukes from the west from Volodymyr Zelenskiy for not doing enough to help Kyiv win the war.

When the Ukrainian military reported on Thursday that 40 cities in the Donbas region were under Russian bombardment, Luhansk Governor Sergiy Gaiday described the fighting outside Sievierodonetsk, a key military goal for Russia, as "very difficult", saying Russian troops were shelling the city from the outskirts. with mortar.
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, delivers a speech from Kyiv to the audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
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"The coming week will be decisive," Gaiday said in a video posted on Telegram, adding that he believed Russia's goal was to "conquer the Luhansk region no matter what the cost".

"There has been a large number of shootings," he added.

Having failed to capture the Ukrainian capital or its second city, Kharkiv, after attacking in February, Russia is trying to take full control of the Donbas, which consists of two eastern provinces that Moscow claims in the name of the separatists.

Russia has deployed thousands of troops to the region, attacking from three sides in an attempt to encircle the Ukrainian forces holding out in Sievierodonetsk and its sister, Lysychansk. Their fall would put the entire province of Luhansk under Russian control, the Kremlin's main war objective.

“The robbers opened fire on more than 40 cities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, destroying or damaging 47 civilian sites, including 38 houses and a school. As a result of this shooting, five civilians died and 12 were injured," the joint task force of the Ukrainian armed forces said on Facebook.
Gaiday said police in Lysychansk were collecting the bodies of those killed for burial in mass graves. About 150 people have been buried in a mass grave in one Lysychansk district, he added.

Families of people buried in mass graves will be able to buy them back after the war, and police are issuing documents allowing Ukrainians to secure death certificates for their loved ones, Gaiday said.

Zelenskiy said in a speech late Wednesday that Russian troops were "severely outnumbered" in parts of the east and echoed a plea from his foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba to the World Economic Forum in Davos for more weaponry from the west.

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