Ukraine said it held off Russian forces in the eastern industrial region of Donbas, and Western military officials said Moscow’s campaign had failed to make the territorial gains it had envisioned.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not going the way the Kremlin had hoped, Western leaders said on Sunday, as two European countries made moves to join the NATO alliance against Russia’s wishes. Finland’s prime minister said the Nordic country is seeking membership in NATO after Russia’s unprovoked war, and Sweden’s governing party backed its membership bid, which could bring about an application in a matter of days. On the battlefield, Ukraine said it held off Russian forces in the eastern industrial region of Donbas, and Western military officials said Moscow’s campaign had failed to make the territorial gains it had envisioned. Ukrainian servicemen patrol in a recently retaken village, north of Kharkiv, east Ukraine, Sunday, May 15, 2022. (mstyslav chernov/AP)
“Russia’s war in Ukraine is not going as Moscow had planned. They failed to take Kyiv,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on a video link with the media. “They are pulling back from Kharkiv, and their major offensive in Donbas has stalled. Russia is not achieving its strategic objectives.
“Ukraine can win this war,” Stoltenberg said. The Russian Army has lost as much as a third of the combat strength it committed to the Ukraine invasion in February and is failing to gain substantial territory, Britain’s Defense Ministry said in an intelligence update on Sunday.
“Under the current conditions, Russia is unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days,” the ministry said on Twitter. In the Donbas, Russian forces over the weekend struck a chemical plant and nearly a dozen high-rise buildings in the city of Siverodonetsk, the regional governor said. A Ukrainian firefighter works inside a destroyed cultural center in Derhachi, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, May 15, 2022. (Bernat Armangue/AP)
Russian troops also were planning to make another try at crossing the Siverskiy Donets River, after suffering losses two days ago to Ukrainian forces that destroyed a pontoon bridge over the strategically key river in the Donbas, the governor said.
