THREATENING RUSSIAN ADVANCE IN EASTERN UKRAINE
The General Staff source said the Kurakhove region was the most threatening for Kyiv now as Russian forces were advancing there at 200m to 300m a day and had managed to break through in some areas with armoured vehicles backed by anti-drone defences.
The town of Kurakhove is a stepping stone towards the critical logistical hub of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.
Overall Russia has about 575,000 troops fighting in Ukraine at the moment, the Ukrainian General Staff source said, and is aiming to increase its forces up to around 690,000.
Russia does not disclose numbers involved in its fighting, and Reuters could not independently verify those figures.
As Ukraine fights a bigger and better-equipped enemy, Kyiv has sought to disrupt Russian logistics and supply chains by hitting Russian weapons and ammunition depots, airfields, and other military targets well inside Russia.
Ukraine gained a freer hand to do so earlier this month after, according to sources familiar with the matter, President Joe Biden dropped his opposition to Kyiv firing US-supplied missiles at targets deep inside Russia in response to North Korea’s entry into the war.
Last week Ukraine fired US ATACMS and British Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia. One of the ATACMS targets was an arms depot about 110km inside Russia.
Moscow vowed to respond to what it sees as an escalation by Ukraine’s Western supporters. On Thursday (Nov 21), Russia launched a new medium-range ballistic missile into the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, in a likely warning to NATO.
Ukrainian officials are holding talks with the United States and Britain regarding new air defence systems capable of protecting Ukrainian cities and civilians from the new longer-range aerial threats.
The Ukrainian General Staff source said the military had also implemented measures to bolster air defences over the capital Kyiv and planned similar steps for the city of Sumy in the north and Kharkiv in the northeast, both near the front lines.
Russia now occupies a fifth of Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin has said he wants Kyiv to drop ambitions to join the NATO military alliance and retreat from four Ukrainian regions that he partially holds, demands Kyiv has rejected as tantamount to capitulation.
