KYIV, UKRAINE (AP) — Four months of brutal fighting in Ukraine appears to be testing the morale of troops on both sides, prompting defections and rebellions against officers’ orders, British defense officials said Sunday. The NATO chief warned that the war could drag on for “years”.
“Combat units on both sides are engaged in heavy fighting in the Donbas and are likely to experience variable morale,” the British Ministry of Defense said in its daily assessment of the war.
“Ukrainian forces are likely to have suffered from defections in recent weeks,” the assessment said, but added that “Russian morale will most likely remain particularly problematic.”
He said “cases of entire Russian units refusing orders and armed clashes between officers and their troops continue to occur.”
Separately, Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate published what it said were intercepted phone calls in which Russian soldiers complained about frontline conditions, poor equipment and general understaffing, according to a report by the Institute for the War Study.
In an interview published Sunday in the German weekly Bild am Sonntag, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said “nobody knows” how long the war might last. “We have to be prepared for it to last for years,” he said.
He also urged allies “not to weaken support for Ukraine, even if the costs are high, not only in terms of military aid, but also because of rising energy and food prices.”
In recent days, Gazprom, the Russian gas company, has cut supplies to two major European customers: Germany and Italy. In the case of Italy, energy officials are expected to meet this week on the situation. The head of Italian energy giant ENI said on Saturday that with additional gas bought from other sources, Italy should survive the coming winter, but warned Italians that “restrictions” affecting gas use might be necessary.
Germany will limit the use of gas for electricity production amid concerns about a possible shortage caused by a reduction in supplies from Russia, the country’s economy minister said on Sunday. Germany has been trying to fill its gas storage facilities before the cold winter months.
Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Germany would try to offset the move by burning coal, a more polluting fossil fuel. “That’s bitter, but it’s just necessary in this situation to reduce gas use,” he said.
However, Stoltenberg emphasized that “food and fuel costs are nothing compared to what Ukrainians on the front line pay daily.”
Stoltenberg added: Furthermore, if Russian President Vladimir Putin were to achieve his goals in Ukraine, such as when he annexed Crimea in 2014, “we would have to pay an even higher price.”
Britain’s Defense Ministry said both Russia and Ukraine continued to carry out heavy artillery shelling on axes north, east and south of the Sieverodonetsk pocket, but with little change to the front line.
Lugansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said via Telegram on Sunday: “It is a very difficult situation in Sievierodonetsk, where the enemy in the city center is conducting round-the-clock aerial reconnaissance with drones, adjusting fire, adjusting quickly to our changes.”
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Sunday that Russian and separatist forces took control of Metolkine, a settlement just east of Sievierodonetsk.
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled south from Kyiv to visit troops and hospital workers in the Mykolaiv and Odessa regions along the Black Sea. He handed out awards to dozens of people at each stop, shaking their hands and thanking them over and over for their service.
Some time after Zelenskyy left Mykolaiv, “the enemy carried out fire damage against units of the Defense Forces with cannon and rocket artillery in the areas of the Pravdyne, Posad-Pokrovskoe and Blahodatne settlements,” according to the report. of the Ukrainian army on Sunday.
In other strikes in the south, Ukraine’s southern military operational command said Sunday that two people were killed in the shelling of the Galitsyn community in the Mykolaiv region and shelling of the Bashtansky district continues.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the seaborne missiles destroyed a plant in the city of Mykolaiv where Western-supplied howitzers and armored vehicles were stored.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has expressed concern “that a little bit of Ukraine fatigue is starting to set in around the world” and has called for support for Ukraine’s efforts to try to push back the Russian invasion.
“It would be a catastrophe if Putin won. He would like nothing more than to say, ‘Let’s freeze this conflict, let’s have a ceasefire,'” Johnson said on Saturday, a day after a surprise visit to Kyiv, where he met with Zelenskyy and told him offered continuous aid and military training.
Western-supplied heavy weapons are arriving on the front lines. But Ukraine’s leaders have insisted for weeks that they need more weapons and they need them sooner.
On Sunday, Pope Francis, despite having lamented the arms buildup, added his own warning to those who might lose focus on Ukraine, which he says deserves to defend itself.
“And let’s not forget the Ukrainian people martyred at this moment,” Francis told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square. He encouraged them to ask themselves: “What did I do for the Ukrainian people today?”
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Sylvia Hui contributed from London, Frank Jordans from Berlin, and Frances D’Emilio from Rome.
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