Russian forces have entered a suburb of the city of Chasov Yar in Ukraine's Donetsk region, an adviser to the Moscow-appointed head of the occupied part of the region said today, quoted by Reuters, BTA reported.
The agency notes that it has not been able to verify the credibility of this information through independent sources at this time. The Ukrainian armed forces, for their part, denied that the Russian army had advanced into the city, but said that there was fighting in the area.
"The situation is very difficult, the fighting continues, but (the Russian troops) are not (in Chasov Yar). Don't believe the Russian messages,'' said the spokesman of the Ukrainian Eastern Command Andriy Zadubynny. Chasov Yar is located about 10 kilometers west of Bakhmut and is an important staging post for Ukrainian troops in the area. The city is strongly fortified.
In this background, Kiev called on Western countries to provide weapons to Ukraine. After the death of rescuers in a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the West's hesitation to provide military aid to his country as completely unacceptable, DPA reported. "A new air defense system can radically change the situation," Zelensky said in his evening video address.
He said he was grateful to any country looking for ways to help Ukraine. At the same time, he said: "It is completely unacceptable that so many countries in the world are still thinking about how to counter terror, even though only a few political decisions are needed."
Ukraine is calling for more air defense systems, such as the American "Patriot," to better protect its cities from Russian attacks that occur almost daily, DPA recalls. Stronger air defense of Kharkiv and the region of the same name, as well as the Sumy region and the southern regions, is an "absolutely urgent necessity," Zelensky said.