Zelensky says that the lack of planes slows down his counteroffensive | Calls on the West to make military aid reach Ukraine faster

2023-09-09 01:30:31

The president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, admitted this Friday that the air superiority exhibited by Russia is slowing down Kiev’s counteroffensive, and called for more speed in the arrival of military aid from Western countries and to apply greater sanctions against Moscow.

“If we are not in heaven and Russia is, they are stopping us from heaven. They are stopping our counteroffensive,” the president said at a conference in kyiv. In addition, he said that there are “processes that are increasingly complicated and slow” for the imposition of sanctions on Moscow, stressing that if Western countries were to more quickly deliver long-range munitions to bomb Russian defenses, rear and logistics, then the Ukrainian army would advance faster.

Ukraine has also been complaining for months about the slowness of negotiations on the delivery of F-16 fighter aircraft, when the country only has a small and aging fleet of aircraft manufactured in Soviet times. After months of hesitation, several dozen of these American aircraft will be delivered by European countries, but their arrival on the battlefield will take months, taking into account the training deadlines for the crews.

In terms of combat, this Friday there was a Russian missile attack against Zelensky’s hometown, Krivii Rih, which caused damage to 10 buildings. A police officer died from the impact, which injured at least 52 other people, some of them in serious condition after being rescued from the rubble. “The missile hit an administrative building. According to preliminary information, there is one death,” said Sergei Lisak, head of the Military Administration of the Dnipropetrovsk region.

On Wednesday at least 17 people were killed and more than thirty were injured in a Russian attack on the central market of Kostiantinivka, in the Donetsk province of eastern Ukraine. The incident was condemned by Zelensky through his Telegram account. “A normal market. Stores. A drugstore. People who had done nothing wrong. “Many injured,” said the president. And he added that those who “still try to temporize with Russia, it means that they close their eyes to this reality.”