President Volodymyr Zelensky says the Ukrainian Armed Forces are now capable of inflicting “significant casualties” on the Russians — and other Ukrainian officials have said the influx of Western weapons is changing the battlefield. In his daily video message, Zelensky said the armed forces “are able to inflict significant logistical losses on the occupiers. It is increasingly difficult for the Russian army to hold positions in the occupied territories. Step by step, we are moving forward, cutting off the supply of occupiers and identify and neutralize collaborators’. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said the “timely arrival” of longer-range artillery such as the US HIMARS system helped change the battlefield. “We managed to stabilize the situation. It is complex, intense, but fully controlled. An important factor contributing to the maintenance of our defense lines and positions is the timely arrival of the M142 HIMARS, which conducts surgical strikes on enemy control positions, ammunition and fuel . warehouses,” Zaluzhniy said. CNN has tracked nearly two dozen strikes well behind Russian lines, in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Mykolayiv and Kherson regions, so far this month – some of them causing large explosions and multiple explosions. Zaluzhniy said he thanked General Mark Milley, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, for helping the US and its allies “in the fight for freedom”. Separately, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, told Ukrainian television that “today, we really have a completely different situation than it was a month ago. Now, thanks to the fact that we receive enough weapons from partners us, we have created a certain parity in certain places”. Danilov said Ukraine would like more weapons in the future to tip the balance in its favor “so that we have as many possibilities as possible to end this war as soon as possible.” Speaking about the situation in Donbas, Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk regional military command, said on Monday that “Western weapons are not working at 100% but at 200% because [Russian] warehouses are blown up. Management positions are also being blown up. “ Hayday said that “we can clearly understand that the Russians are really afraid of a further increase in these Western weapons.”
