Russian armoured assaults ramp up pressure on Ukraine's east, army chief says
Ukraine's army chief said on Saturday the situation on the eastern front had deteriorated in recent days with Russia intensifying its armoured assaults and battles raging for control of a village west of the devastated city of Bakhmut.
The statement by Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi more than two years since Russia's invasion evoked the increasingly grim mood in Kyiv as vital U.S. military aid that Kyiv expected to receive months ago remains stuck in Congress.
Syrskyi said he travelled to the embattled area to stabilise the front as Russian assault groups using tanks and armoured personnel carriers took advantage of a period of dry, warm weather that was making it easier for them to manoeuvre.
«The situation on the eastern front in recent days has grown considerably more tense. This is linked primarily to the significant activisation of offensive action by the enemy after the presidential elections in Russia,» he wrote on the Telegram app.
Since President Vladimir Putin won a new term in a stage-managed mid-March election, Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukraine and unleashed three massive aerial strikes on its energy system, pounding power stations and substations.
The slowdown in military assistance from the West has left Ukraine more exposed to aerial attacks and more outgunned on the battlefield. Kyiv has made increasingly desperate appeals for supplies of air defence missiles in recent weeks.
Moscow's forces, Syrskyi said, were taking significant losses during their attacks in the east, but were
