Despite Ukraine having repelled invading Russian in the northern Kyiv area and beyond in the vicinity, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov says the war-torn country needs more weapons supplied to win.
A thread of three Tweets by the minister say Russia “failed to break our defenses…Ukraine won the first round of the war.”
Kyiv now is bracing for an all-out onslaught in the Donbas, consisting of the easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. Russia first invaded the area in 2014 after illegally annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula the same year.
Authoritarian Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin ordered a renewed invasion of the neighboring democratic country on Feb. 24.
As Russia re-groups, Reznikov said “we need” air defense systems “and combat aircraft, long-range artillery missile complexes, multiple-launch rocket systems and heavy artillery tanks and…and anti-ship missiles, reconnaissance and strike drones.”
Otherwise the “the cost of war for Ukraine will increase dramatically,” he said.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Kyiv has called governments to embargo Russian oil and gas – its main source of revenue – and ban Russian vessels from docking at foreign sea ports.
On April 9, the European Union released a fifth package of restrictive measures toward Russia related to the renewed invasion.
It includes sanctions against 217 people and 18 companies, among them tycoon Arkady Rotenberg and Oleg Deripaska.
Putin’s two daughters were also sanctioned as well as state-owned VTB Bank.
As of August there will be a prohibition in place for the “purchase, import or transfer coal and other solid fossil fuels into the EU if they originate in Russia or are exported from Russia….Imports of coal into the EU are currently worth EUR 8 billion per year,” the relevant EU statement said.
