RUSKA LOZOVA, Ukraine (Dispatches) -- Russia pummeled positions in the east of Ukraine on Sunday, its defense ministry said, as it sought to encircle Ukrainian forces in the battle for Donbas and fend off a counteroffensive around the strategic Russian-controlled city of Izium.
At a meeting in Germany, the secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) said Ukraine could win the war, calling for more military support and fast-track approval of expected bids by Finland and Sweden to join the alliance.
The president of Finland, which shares a 1,300 km (800 mile) border with Russia, confirmed on Sunday that his country would apply to join NATO, a major policy shift prompted by Russia’s invasion. Sweden’s ruling party followed suit.
Since mid-April, Russian forces have focused much of their firepower on trying to capture two eastern provinces known as the Donbas after failing to take Kyiv.
An assessment by British military intelligence claimed that Russia had lost about a third of the ground combat force deployed in February. Its Donbas offensive had fallen “significantly behind schedule” and was unlikely to make rapid advances during the coming 30 days, the assessment said.
“Russia’s war in Ukraine is not going as Moscow had planned,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
Russia said on Sunday it had struck Ukrainian positions in the east with missiles, targeting command centers and arsenals as its forces seek to surround Ukrainian units between Izium and Donetsk. Reuters was not able to independently confirm the reports.
Izium straddles the Donets river, about 120 km (75 miles) from Kharkiv on the main highway heading southeast.
If Ukraine can sustain pressure on Izium and Russian supply lines, that will make it harder for Moscow to encircle battle-hardened Ukrainian troops on the eastern front in the Donbas.
“The hottest spot remains the Izium direction,” Ukrainian regional governor Oleh Sinegubov said in comments aired on social media.
“Our armed forces have switched to a counteroffensive there. The enemy is retreating on some fronts.”
In Ruska Lozova, a village set in sweeping fields between Kharkiv and Ukraine’s border with Russia, Ukrainian commanders said they believed Moscow was redeploying troops to defend Izium while keeping their opponents pinned down with artillery fire.
But Ukraine’s military also acknowledged setbacks in an update on Sunday morning: “Despite losses, Russian forces continue to advance in the Lyman, Sievierodonetsk, Avdiivka and Kurakhiv areas in the broader Donbas region.”
In western Ukraine near Poland, missiles destroyed military infrastructure overnight on Saturday and were fired at the Lviv region from the Black Sea, Ukrainian officials said.
There was also no let-up on Sunday in Russia’s bombardment of the steel works in the southern port of Mariupol, where a few hundred Ukrainian fighters are holding out weeks after the city fell into Russian hands, the Ukrainian military said.
Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats came out in favor of the country joining NATO on Sunday, paving the way for an application and abandoning decades of military non-alignment.
NATO’s Stoltenberg and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken both expressed confidence that concerns from Turkey about the bids by the Baltic states could be overcome, with Stoltenberg indicating that an accelerated accession process and interim security arrangements would be possible.
As well as losing large numbers of men and much military equipment, Russia has been hit by economic sanctions, while Western states have provided Ukraine with military aid.
Ukraine has deployed many of its new U.S. M-777 howitzers at the front lines and Washington has delivered all but one of the 90 artillery pieces they were due to send, the U.S. embassy in Kyiv said.