Volodymyr Zelensky Issues Dire Warning About Front Line

Russia will step up the assault it launched last week in the Kharkiv region by the border, Volodymr Zelensky has said as he issued a warning about the lack of air defenses for his forces to protect Ukraine.

Russia’s launch of an offensive in the border area on May 10 has resulted in its biggest territorial gains in 18 months. The Ukrainian president told AFP that Moscow’s troops had advanced up to six miles along the northeastern border.

In his first interview since the offensive started, Zelensky said that it may only be Russia’s “first wave” of a wider push, although he added that his forces had the situation “controlled.”

“We have to be sober and understand that they are going deeper into our territory,” he told the agency, adding that regarding air defense, Ukraine only has “about 25 percent of what we need to defend Ukraine.”

He said that Ukraine needs 120 to 130 F-16 fighter jets or other advanced aircraft to achieve air “parity” with Russia.

Last year, the U.S. gave the green light for its allies to supply Kyiv with the aircraft which are a step up from the Soviet era MiG planes Ukrainian pilots have been relying on, but there have been delays in their arrival.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen this week said that instead of a previous prediction it would be weeks, revised it to “months” before Kyiv gets the first batch of the fighter jets, amid concerns over whether they might arrive too late to make a difference to the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched his Ukraine invasion in February 2022, has said that the aim of the operation in Kharkiv is to create a buffer zone around the border, while experts have assessed that Russia intends to take advantage of the continued wait for U.S. military aid passed by Congress.

“The lack of U.S. aid for six months and the current delay in its delivery is a huge opportunity for the Russians,” Ukraine analyst and combat veteran (2014-2015) Viktor Kovalenko, told Newsweek.

“They realize that Ukraine lacks air defense missiles and artillery shells, so they are focusing on ruining energy infrastructure with missile and drone strikes and by making small but consistent ground advances in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions.”

In his interview, Zelensky also accepted there were issues with staffing and “morale” in Ukraine’s army whose struggles to recruit may be helped by a mobilization law that came into effect on Saturday.

Passed last month by lawmakers, the legislation lowers the age at which men can drafted from 27 to 25 and tightened punishments for those who avoid the draft. “We need to staff the reserves,” said Zelensky, “a large number of [brigades] are empty.”

It comes as the toll on Russian equipment continues to mount, according to Kyiv’s figures. In its update on Saturday, Ukraine’s defense ministry said that over the previous day, Russia had lost 13 Tanks, 43 Armored Combat Vehicles (ACVs) and 36 artillery pieces. It takes Kyiv’s estimate of Russian losses since the start of the war to 7,560 tanks, 14,595 ACVs and 12,639 artillery pieces.