Zelensky appeals for more weapons amid increasing Russian attacks
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Transcript
00:00 Ruin and rubble. Not much is left standing in Avditka.
00:05 Its location, overlooking Russian-held Donetsk some 20 kilometers away,
00:10 makes it a strategically important town.
00:13 It's been under near constant Russian shelling as the Russian army tries to encircle the town.
00:19 For the 1,500 or so residents that remain, life is bleak.
00:24 You know what I want to say to Putin? He's a bastard. And I want to tell all those in Donetsk that they're scum.
00:31 They don't know where and what they're firing at. There are people here, Russians.
00:36 President Volodymyr Zelensky is warning that Russia has been intensifying its attacks along the eastern front line,
00:44 near the cities of Donetsk, Kupyansk and Avditka, but that Ukrainian soldiers were holding their own.
00:52 Russia is already losing soldiers and equipment in Avditka faster and on a larger scale than in Bakhmut.
01:00 Withstanding their pressure is extremely difficult.
01:04 The more Russian forces are destroyed near Avditka, the worse the overall situation will be for the enemy, for the rest of the war.
01:12 Ukrainian officials continue to press their Western allies for aid and weapons to counter Russia's aggression.
01:19 The EU's defence ministers reaffirmed their support for Kiev at a meeting in Brussels,
01:25 but warned that the bloc could miss its goal of supplying Ukraine with a million artillery shells by next March.
01:32 It doesn't mean that we already have one million shots ready by March.
01:37 So maybe we will not have one million by March, but it will depend on how quickly the orders come to the industry
01:47 and how quickly the industry reacts.
01:51 Kiev has often complained that its forces don't have enough shells to keep pace with Russia,
01:56 whose troops have been firing up to four times more munitions.