RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (Dispatches) --
Russia pounded eastern Ukraine on Tuesday as the Pentagon chief promised to “keep moving heaven and earth” to get Kyiv the weapons it needs to repel the new offensive even as Moscow warned such support risked starting World War III.
Two months into the devastating conflict, Western arms have been flowing non-stop into Ukraine — but its leaders have said they need more support fast.
Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said that more military help was on the way, as he convened a meeting of officials from around 40 countries at the United States’ Ramstein Air Base in Germany to pledge more weapons. Germany announced it cleared the way for delivery of anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine.
He said he wanted officials to leave the meeting “with a common and transparent understanding of Ukraine’s near-term security requirements because we’re going to keep moving heaven and earth so that we can meet them.”
Moscow says its focus for now is the Donbas, the mostly Russian-speaking industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has been beset by separatist conflict since 2014.
The current war has spread devastation around Ukraine, leaving thousands of civilians dead and pushing millions to flee the country. It has raised food prices and energy costs worldwide and upended the post-Cold War security balance in Europe.
In its latest assessment of the fighting, the British Defense Ministry described Russian advances and heavy fighting in the Donbas, with one town, Kreminna, reportedly falling after days of street-to-street fighting.
In Mariupol, the besieged city seen as crucial to the fight for the east, authorities said Tuesday that the Russian forces hit the Azovstal steel plant with 35 airstrikes over the past 24 hours. The plant is the last known redoubt of Ukrainian fighters in the city, and some of the civilians sheltering there were wounded in the strikes, officials said.
“Russia has drastically intensified strikes over the past 24 hours and is using heavy bunker bombs,” Petro Andryushchenko, advisor to Mariupol mayor, told The Associated Press by phone. “The number of those wounded will be clear once the rubble is cleared.”
Beyond Mariupol, local officials said at least nine people killed and several more wounded by Russian attacks on towns and cities in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s General Staff also said Russian forces shelled Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city that lies outside the Donbas but has seen significant attacks as Moscow seeks full control of the region. Ukrainian forces struck back in the Kherson region in the south.
Russia said its forces pummeled Ukraine with missiles, aircraft and artillery overnight, killing at least 560 Ukrainian fighters and destroying dozens of armored vehicles, rocket systems and other military equipment.
Russian aircraft struck 87 different military installations while rockets and artillery rained down on Ukrainian positions, destroying S-300 missile systems, a Tochka U short-range ballistic missile system, BUK-M1 and Osa-AKM missile systems.
“About 500 enemy personnel, 59 armored vehicles, artillery guns and cars were destroyed, as well as more than 60 militants of the nationalist ‘Donbas’ group in the Donetsk People’s Republic,” the defense ministry said.
With the potentially pivotal battle for the east underway, the U.S. and its NATO allies are scrambling to get artillery and other heavy weaponry to that area in time to make a difference.
German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said her government decided on Monday to clear the delivery of Gepard self-propelled armored anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine, though she didn’t give details. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has faced mounting pressure, including from within his governing coalition, to approve sending
heavy weapons such as tanks and other armored vehicles to Ukraine.
Austin noted Tuesday that more than 30 allies and partners have joined the U.S. in sending security assistance to Ukraine and more than $5 billion worth of equipment has been committed.
Amid the talk of arms shipments, diplomatic efforts to seek an end to the fighting also continued. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday and called again for a ceasefire. The UN chief was scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin later.
But Lavrov noted the Western promises of weapons to Ukraine and said that “if this continues, then of course the negotiations will hardly have any kind of result, but I repeat once again that we are committed to a negotiated solution.”
A day earlier, Lavrov warned weapons from Western countries “will be a legitimate target,” and accused NATO of “pouring oil on the fire” with its support for Ukraine, according to a transcript of his televised remarks on the Foreign Ministry’s website.
Lavrov also warned against provoking World War III and said the threat of a nuclear conflict “should not be underestimated.”
Speaking to Russian media, Lavrov accused NATO of fighting a proxy war by supplying military aid to Ukraine.
“NATO, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war,” Lavrov said.
He warned that the risks of nuclear conflict are now “considerable”.
When asked about the importance of avoiding a third world war, Lavrov said: “I would not want to elevate those risks artificially. Many would like that. The danger is serious, real. And we must not underestimate it.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has cited NATO’s expansion and the risk that Kyiv could join the alliance as reasons for his military operation.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the Russian minister’s reference to nuclear conflict was not constructive.
“A nuclear war cannot be won and it shouldn’t be fought,” Kirby told CNN during an interview from Germany, where he was traveling with Austin. “That kind of rhetoric is clearly not called for in the current scenario. What is called for is Mr. Putin ending this war.”
Russia’s operation has worried several countries in eastern Europe that fear they could be next. Those concerns grew in Moldova after a Russian commander said that securing southern Ukraine would open the way to the Moldovan separatist region of Trans-Dniester. On Tuesday, police said explosions knocked down two powerful radio antennas at a facility close to the Ukrainian border, the second series of explosions reported in the region in as many days.
Washington has warned previously that Russian forces could launch “false-flag” operations to create a pretext for invading the territory of other nations. Russian officials have rejected such charges.
Elsewhere, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi visited the Chernobyl nuclear plant to deliver equipment, conduct radiological assessments and restore safeguards monitoring systems after tanks and troops churned up highly contaminated soil there in the early hours of Russia’s invasion in February. His visit comes on the anniversary of the disaster at the plant in 1986, the world’s worst nuclear accident.
In the largest ground conflict since World War II, Britain said it believes 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began — far above the 1,351 deaths acknowledged by Moscow. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said 25% of the Russian combat units sent to Ukraine “have been rendered not combat effective.”
Ukrainian officials have said about 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed as of mid-April.
The West hopes that boosting arms supplies will help remaining fighters repel Russia’s offensive.
On returning from the trip, Austin told journalists in Poland that Ukraine can win the war against Russia if it has the right equipment.
“We believe that we can win, they can win if they have the right equipment, the right support,” he said.
Mike Jacobson, a U.S. civilian expert in field artillery, predicted that western military aid to Ukraine would lead to a “war of attrition” in which Ukraine could halt Russian advances.