During a visit in Kyiv, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that help is on the way to boost Ukraine’s war effort against Russia and that allies “are working hard to meet Ukraine’s urgent needs.”

Stoltenberg said despite the Ukraine’s losses, it was “not too late” for the country to win its defensive war against Russia as long as more weapons arrive there fast.

“Ukraine has been outgunned for months, forced to ration its ammunition… But it’s not too late for Ukraine to prevail,” the NATO secretary general said at a press conference alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Stoltenberg criticized months-long delays in U.S. military aid to Ukraine, adding such delays had “serious consequences on the battlefield.”

The NATO chief acknowledged that the alliance’s member countries have also failed to deliver in good time what they promised to Ukraine.

“The lack of ammunition has allowed the Russians to push forward along the front line. Lack of air defense has made it possible for more Russian missiles to hit their targets, and the lack of deep strike capabilities has made it possible for the Russians to concentrate more forces,” Stoltenberg said.

Stoltenberg was visiting Ukraine when Russia claimed the capture of two Ukrainian villages in the Donetsk region within 24 hours as Kyiv’s munitions and exhausted forces are being depleted on the front.

Ukraine and its Western partners are racing against time to deploy critical new military aid that can help stave off Russian advances across eastern areas, as well as repel drone and missile attacks.

Zelenskyy said new Western supplies have started arriving, but slowly. “This process must be speeded up,” he said, adding “some things have started to arrive” but declined to “go into details.”

Ukraine has been dependent on Western military aid to counter Russia’s larger and more powerful army.

Kyiv’s Western partners have pledged to stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” But essential U.S. military help was held up for six months by political wrangling in Washington, and Europe’s military hardware production has not been able to keep up with demand.

Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law the congressionally approved $95 billion supplemental aid, $61 billion of which is dedicated to Ukraine’s war effort.

Biden said shipments of the package will start “right away,” raising hopes in Kyiv that its critically low stocks of artillery shells would soon be replenished.

Zelenskyy pressed on Ukraine’s need for additional supplies of sophisticated Patriot air defense launch systems to counter Russia’s long-range missile and drone strikes.

The Ukrainian leader said Kyiv had made some progress in obtaining supplies of missiles for the Patriot system, but that it was still working on receiving new launchers that fire the missiles.

Ukraine on Sunday said the situation was deteriorating for its troops in the eastern Donetsk region.

“The Russian army is now trying to take advantage of a situation when we are waiting for supplies from our partners… and that is exactly why the speed of deliveries means stabilizing the front,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian troops, outnumbered by Russian ground forces, are retreating from positions in eastern Ukraine as Russian troops advance westward, Ukrainian Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi said Sunday.

“The situation at the front has worsened,” the top general wrote on the Telegram messaging app, saying the “most difficult” areas were west of occupied Maryinka and northwest of Avdiivka, a strategically important town captured by Russian forces in February.

Ukraine’s eastern front lines in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions have seen fierce clashes in recent weeks as Russian forces seek to grind out gains along the more than 1,000-kilometer front line. Shortages of ammunition and personnel have increasingly hamstrung Ukraine’s defenses, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group.

The institute, however, assessed that despite Russian advances, it is not likely that Kyiv’s defensive lines will collapse.

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.

Source: voanews.com