to Ukraine now where Ukrainian forces
are struggling to hold back a wave of
Russian assaults in the East Moscow says
it has captured several hundred square
kilometers of Ukrainian territory since
the beginning of the year keeve says it
is suffering from a lack of soldiers and
delays in deliveries from its Western
allies the shortages have allowed the
Russians to advance in many places like
adiva now they have their sights set on
chazar a Ukrainian Retreat there could
jeopardize the defense of the entire
region our correspondent Nick Connelly
has this
report anything less than break neck
speed is just too risky on these roads
we're heading towards Chiva with Russian
troops now just a few kilometers away
Russian drones overhead are a constant
threat this Ukrainian Commander's unit
has been tasked with shooting them
down a week or two ago was the last time
we downed a drone the last time we got a
Lancet drone was more than 3 weeks ago
the weather's been
good they're flying too high you can't
hit them with our
guns a hedge R and a shallow Dugout are
as much cover as these men have this
counts as a quiet day around here often
enough the shells are much
closer look over there that's where a
shell hit last night and another one
came in about 100 m further it was about
1:30 in the morning the shrapnel came
flying past the crater was pretty small
but there was a lot of
shrapnel not everyone can ignore the
noise the unit's dog spends most of her
time hiding palich tells us they used to
have a cat that showed little sign of
being scared it was only later when the
cat was run over by a car they realized
there was a reason the cat had managed
to say so calm was
DEA out here exposed to drones and
shells and fight with the previous
generations leftover weapons it's hard
to believe that $60 billion worth of us
Aid is now on its
way we'll believe the aid is coming when
we see it for ourselves we can't see or
feel any difference
yet for now we've been withdrawing from
places like
aiva and the Russians have been taking
villages we haven't been able to turn
things around yet
all the talk here is about shells or
rather the lack of them in 2023 regular
Western deliveries allowed Ukraine to
briefly close the gap in Firepower with
Russia no
longer Ukrainian military command says
Russia is outgunning its troops five or
6:1 many here believe the true figure is
closer to 10:1 suddenly there's activity
on the radios I asked whether I
correctly understood that a Russian laet
drone had hit a Ukrainian Target
W yes it was a hit it found its Target
they've got their reconnaissance drones
up there all the time they find a Target
and attack straight
away jessar like bahmut before it has
been flattened by Russian Artillery if
Western help gets here in a hurry
Ukrainian soldiers say they can still
hold on to the
ruins but if Russia manages to take jvr
and The High Ground that surrounds it
many we spoke to believe defending the
remainder of Ukrainian held donet region
could soon be
untenable holding out outgunned by
Russia and under supplied by the West
has come at a
price if the Aid had come on time things
would have been very
different because of the delays many
many good men have
died it's a rare moment of reflection
everyone here is acutely aware of rumors
that Vladimir Putin has ordered his
General to take Chess ofar By Russia's
May the 99th Victory Day holiday if
anyone's going to stop them it's these
soldiers I'm joined Now by Gustaf gresle
a senior policy fellow with the European
Council on Foreign Relations welcome to
DW can you tell us again why chazi viar
is just so
important well it's a hillside from
where you have good view in the more
neighboring valleys so if you command
The High Ground you have permanent
observation and Fire Control options
over a couple of other values uh valleys
and that will make defending them
difficult that would make uh supplying a
Europe Ukrainian forward positions uh
difficult to impossible so if chif would
fall ukrainians would have to withdraw
to uh deeper lines which are much
further away from where they currently
are and would have to give up further
settlements probably on the way uh
that's why it's so contested okay
explain to us how Russia has been taking
advantage of the fact that Ukraine is
still waiting uh for more weapons
deliveries from its allies we we just
heard it in the report there uh that so
many men have been lost but but give us
a sense of how Russia is really sort of
capitalizing on
this well they have a superiority in
Firepower first and foremost the lack of
Ukrainian artillery shells allows Russia
first of all to withdraw heavy equipment
and has been damaged by drones but
drones only damage these equipment and
destroyed um that gets repaired turned
around and sent to the front or it
allows them to fire at Ukrainian
positions at basically unhindered uh
because counter battery fire that is
artillery firing at other artillery uh
has been curtailed on the Ukrainian side
for the lack of shells uh um and finally
blocking fire so if if there is a
Russian attack going on um how many
shells can you throw at the attack to
destroy uh the vehicles uh that are
advancing and destroy the man uh who are
advancing uh if the blocking fire runs
short then of course more Russian
soldiers Will Will Survive the assault
and break into Ukrainian positions uh
and that is that is then a problem of
itself mhm while Ukraine is so low on
ammunition while it's still waiting for
more weapons deliveries what is its
strategy right now I mean is it managing
in any way at all to keep Russia at
Bay well they're trying to contain the
losses as far as they can um the first
batches of eight have already arrived
and we see on the Russian loss counter
that they have done a good work so far
uh but of course even the full us
supplement will only allow Ukraine to to
sort of lower the Gap and and remain an
easy defense but not allow them any sort
of fire priority over the Russians that
also we have to be aware of um the other
problem and the video was actually good
showing that is that Ukraine lacks a lot
of Soviet air defense missiles that have
been serving at the front stas
OAS um these shot down the Russian
reconnaissance drones and did not allow
Russia to recogo Ukrainian their
artillery positions Etc and that is a
huge problem independently of all
Western eight because the West doesn't
have equivalence to these um Soviet uh
missiles the ukrainians now developing
uh their own weapons intercept the
drones other kind of improvised uh
defenses to try to cope uh with this
threat uh we'll see how faster can do
that at scale because it's a huge
problem okay so with the with the delays
you know when the full amount of Western
Aid Western deliveries get there will it
have been too
late I don't think it will be too late
because the war will go on for quite
some time the problem is how long then
will Ukraine have to manage on these
supplies that's the other big question
ukrainians need to plan the war they
need to know how much they can fire
today fire tomorrow fire the next month
or fire the next month from now um and
on this the west and not only the us but
also the Europeans are a bit sketchy
when it comes to promises so often the
promises run late uh often the the aimed
production is not what the real
production then cranks out and that
makes it extremely difficult to really
plan the War uh ukrainians probably will
manage to contain the Russians for the
time being but it's really hard if you
really don't know what's going to come
or not going to come next month Gustaf
Bessel from the European Council on
Foreign Relations thank you so much for
your
time you're welcome