Ukraine faces high losses due to delays in Western arms deliveries, says Zelenskyy 

Ukrainian troops are suffering high losses because Western arms are arriving too slowly to equip the armed forces properly, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN in an interview aired on Sunday.

Russia has been gaining ground in Pokrovsk for months, getting to within 10 kilometres (six miles) of its eastern outskirts. The city lies on the intersection of rail and road routes that supply Ukrainian troops and towns across the eastern frontline and has long been a target for Moscow’s army.

Zelenskyy said the situation in the east was ”very tough”, adding that half of Ukraine’s brigades there were not equipped. ”So you lose a lot of people. You lose people because they are not in armed vehicles … they don’t have artillery, they don’t have artillery rounds,” said Zelenskyy, speaking in English. CNN said the interview had been conducted on Friday.

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Russian shelling killed one person in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk on Sunday, according to local authorities as Moscow’s troops continued their advancement towards the strategic logistics hub.

Two people died in a missile attack on the Ukrainian Black Sea port city of Odesa, local officials said, as Moscow and Kyiv exchanged drone and missile attacks.

The Ukrainian air force said Sunday it shot down 10 of the 14 drones and one of the three missiles Russia launched overnight.

Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said it downed 29 Ukrainian drones overnight into Sunday over western and southwestern regions, with no damage caused by the falling debris. It also said another Ukrainian drone was shot down Sunday morning over the western Ryazan region.

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While Ukraine and Russia regularly launch overnight drone raids on each other’s territory, Ukrainian officials generally do not confirm or deny attacks within Russia’s borders.

The latest attacks came after Ukraine made a new call Saturday on the West to allow it to use the long-range missiles they have provided to strike targets deep inside Russia, as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold back Russian advances in eastern Ukraine.

So far, the U.S. has allowed Kyiv to use American-provided weapons only in a limited area inside Russia’s border with Ukraine.

Kyiv officials argue the weapons are vital to weaken Russia’s ability to strike Ukraine and force it to move its strike capabilities further from the border.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to social media on Sunday to again appeal for a shift in the West’s policy on the use of long-range weapons, noting that Russia had launched “around 30 missiles of various types, more than 800 guided aerial bombs, and nearly 300 strike drones against Ukraine” this week.

With inputs from agencies.