Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday called for additional air defense systems to be sent to Kyiv to help protect against Russian strikes, adding that a pause in US funding had helped Moscow seize the initiative.
\n\u201cThis year, Russian jets (have) already used more than 9,000 guided aerial bombs against Ukraine and we need the ability to shoot down the air combat aircraft so that they do not approach our positions and borders,\u201d Zelensky said at the start of a virtual meeting led by the United States on helping arm Ukraine.
\nUS Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the meeting would focus on Ukraine\u2019s air defense capabilities.
\nThe meeting comes days after Congress emerged from a half-year of deadlock to approve a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine. President Joe Biden\u2019s administration quickly announced $1 billion in artillery, air defenses and other hardware would soon be heading to Ukrainian front lines.
\n\u201cWhile we were waiting for a decision on the American support, the Russian army managed to seize the initiative on the battlefield,\u201d Zelensky said.
\n\u201cWe can still now, not only stabilize the front, but also move forward achieving our Ukrainian goals in the war,\u201d he added.
\nThe United States hopes its new deliveries of weaponry will help Ukraine rebuild defenses and refit its forces as it recovers from a gap in US assistance, but it does not expect Kyiv to launch large-scale offensive operations against Russian forces in the near term.
\nThe influx of weapons could improve Kyiv\u2019s chances of averting a major Russian breakthrough in the east, just over two years since the start of Moscow\u2019s full-scale invasion, military analysts say.
\nBut it remains unclear how much pressure Kyiv can apply on Russia after months of rationing artillery as its stocks ran low. Kyiv also faces manpower shortages on the battlefield and questions linger over the strength of its fortifications along a sprawling, 1,000-km (621-mile) front line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday called for additional air defense systems to be sent to Kyiv to help protect against Russian strikes, adding that a pause in US funding had helped Moscow seize the initiative. \u201cThis year, Russian jets (have) already used more than 9,000 guided aerial bombs against Ukraine and we need the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":63925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63931,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63908\/revisions\/63931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}