The Wall Street Journal reports:

The war in Ukraine has turned into a grinding artillery contest where Russia is steadily gaining ground thanks to its overwhelming advantage in firepower. As the U.S. and allies gather Wednesday to discuss fresh military aid to Kyiv, Ukraine’s fate will largely depend on how fast and in what quantities these heavy weapons arrive.

Without a broad and rapid increase in military assistance, Ukraine faces a defeat in the eastern Donbas region, Ukrainian officials warn. That would pave the way for Russia to pursue its offensive to Odessa and Kharkiv after regrouping in coming months, they say, and potentially all the way back to the capital, Kyiv, after that.

Western officials and analysts question whether Russia has the wherewithal to achieve this, even if it makes further gains in the Donbas area. They say Russia’s military has been severely battered in the war, and might lack the manpower and equipment to advance beyond the Donbas region soon.

Yet Russia still enjoys a significant superiority over Ukraine in artillery and armor. Ukrainian forces estimate that they have one artillery piece per 10 to 20 Russian ones on the front lines, with each of these guns allotted only a fraction of the ammunition at the Russian gunners’ disposal. As a result, every day that Western heavy-weapons supplies are delayed is measured in hundreds of Ukrainian casualties, they say. [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports:

Ukraine has called on the west to supply 300 rocket launchers, 500 tanks and 1,000 howitzers before a key meeting on Wednesday amid concern in some quarters it is pushing its demands for Nato-standard weapons to the limit.

The maximalist request was made publicly by Mykhailo Podolyak, a key presidential adviser, on Twitter on Monday where he argued that Ukraine needed “heavy weapons parity” to defeat Russia and end the war.

That would require, he said, 300 of the multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) – vastly more than seven or so committed thus far by the US and UK – and greater than the 60 or more that other advisers have previously said would meet its needs.

Podolyak’s full list also included “1,000 howitzers” of the Nato 155mm standard, several times more than what has been dispatched so far. The US, the leading arms supplier, had delivered 109 by the end of May.

A special meeting of defence ministers takes place on Wednesday in Brussels, which will be chaired by Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, to discuss future weapons donations, the third such meeting since the war began. Ben Wallace, his UK counterpart, is among those scheduled to attend.

It comes at a time when Ukraine’s military is struggling to resist an intense Russian artillery-led assault on its eastern Donbas region and losing, on some days, 200 soldiers killed in action in the heaviest fighting in Europe since the end of the second world war. [Continue reading…]