KHARKIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials pleaded Tuesday for more weapons as the U.S. and other Western defense ministers met in Germany amid Russian warnings that the threat of nuclear war “should not be underestimated” if NATO nations keep arming the embattled country.
Speaking on Russian TV after U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said, following a visit to Kyiv, that the U.S. wanted Russia permanently “weakened,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Washington of escalating tensions.
“I would not want to elevate those risks artificially. Many would like that. The danger is serious, real. And we must not underestimate it,” Lavrov said. “NATO, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war.”
Russia expanded its assault on southern and eastern regions of Ukraine overnight, saying it killed 500 “enemy personnel” — a claim that could not be verified — as Ukraine cited fresh attacks on civilians as well as military sites. Moscow said it hit military targets in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, where routine bombings in residential zones have made civilian funerals a part of everyday life.
“Russian troops have launched an offensive in all directions,” said Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Arestovych said that Russians were zeroing in on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in the east in the Donetsk area and Kryvyi Rih — Zelenskyy’s hometown — in the south, near Kherson.
The British Defense Ministry said Tuesday that Russians had also overtaken the city of Kreminna, in the Luhansk region, though Ukraine did not confirm the city’s fall.
In the central Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, regional officials said two missiles struck Tuesday, killing at least one person.
In Kherson, which was the first city of note to fall to Russian fighters early in the war, Russia has scheduled a vote this week on the creation of a so-called independent Kherson People’s Republic.
The move, which Zelenskyy called a “sham referendum,” would follow a long-term Russian strategy of fomenting unrest in the eastern region of Donbas, where pro-Russia separatists have already declared breakaway republics in Luhansk and Donetsk. Moscow cites “liberating” ethnic Russians as among its motivations in launching its invasion of a neighboring nation the size of Texas.
The war, now in its third month, has left mass graves and rubble in cities and towns across Ukraine, including Kyiv and the southern port of Mariupol, which Russia claimed victory over last week even as a group of holdout Ukrainian troops remain holed up in a sprawling steel plant. On Tuesday, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said a new mass grave — the third to be named, this time in the village of Staryi Krym — was discovered in the region.
Kyiv, the capital city, which has largely been spared attack over the last month as Russia shifted its offensive south and east, imposed a nightly curfew this week amid increasing concerns about further violence. And in the southern city of Odesa, authorities Tuesday reported an explosion that damaged a bridge over the Dniester River, cutting off rail connections between parts of the historic Black Sea city and Romania.
In an overnight video address, Zelenskyy said Ukraine — which has lost around 3,000 troops compared to unconfirmed estimates of up to 15,000 deaths among the Russians — would keep fighting to “make the occupiers’ stay in our land even more intolerable” by depleting Russian resources.
Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, have dismissed the Russian warnings of nuclear conflict.
“Russia loses last hope to scare the world off supporting Ukraine,” Kuleba tweeted. “Thus, the talk of a ‘real’ danger of WWIII. This only means Moscow senses defeat.”
The war also continued to spill Tuesday into neighboring Moldova, where local officials in Transnistria, a pro-Russia breakaway enclave, said two radio towers were damaged in explosions. The incident followed reported explosions a day earlier in the region’s capital, Tiraspol.
Ukraine’s intelligence agency has described such attacks as “planned provocation” by Russian intelligence. Last week, a senior Russian military official told state media that Russia wanted control of southern Ukraine in order to have a land corridor to Transnistria.
As international officials gathered in Germany, Austin described Ukraine as “fighting a war of necessity to defend its democracy, its sovereignty and its citizens.”
“Russia’s invasion is indefensible, and so are Russian atrocities,” said the Pentagon chief, who met with other Western defense officials for a summit at the U.S. air base in Ramstein.
Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered a bleaker assessment. “Time is not on Ukraine’s side,” he said. “The outcome of this battle, right here, today, is dependent on the people in this room.”
Representatives from more than 40 countries, including major European nations as well as Turkey and Israel, attended the gathering in person. South Africa and Japan participated virtually.
The summit’s agenda focused on accelerating the supply of arms to Ukraine. Germany, one of the group’s key members, announced Tuesday that it will for the first time send air-defense tanks to Ukraine. Berlin had previously said it would not transfer heavy weapons. In addition, Canada said it would send an unspecified number of howitzers, rockets, hand grenades and rifles.
Ukrainian leaders, who did not succeed in earlier attempts to secure a NATO-enforced no-fly zone to prevent Russian attacks, have redoubled their efforts on asking for more and deadlier armaments.
“We say again and again: weapon, weapons, weapons! We need weapons to keep standing and defending the values of humankind,” Lesia Vasylenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, tweeted Tuesday.
The U.S., which announced an additional $300 million in aid to Ukraine on Monday, has so far pledged billions in materiel and humanitarian assistance.
Also on Tuesday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is scheduled to arrive in Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lavrov, the foreign minister. Guterres, who says he wants to negotiate a cease-fire, faces difficult prospects in a war that has raged without pause through multiple rounds of negotiations. Guterres is to travel Thursday to Kyiv to meet Zelenskyy.
The war has resulted in a refugee crisis unseen since World War II, with 5.2 million people fleeing Ukraine. More than 8 million have been internally displaced. In an estimate released Tuesday, the U.N. said 8.3 million Ukrainians could become refugees.
Kharkiv, which lies about 25 miles from the Russian border, has been among the hardest-hit cities, with near-daily shelling since fighting began Feb. 24.
On Tuesday, a road on Kharkiv’s outskirts was full of hundreds of people lined up before the boarded-up, skeletal husk of a half-constructed church, where aid workers with the Noah’s Ark Church organization were distributing food.
“Please don’t push. There’s enough food for everyone. Be calm, praise God and glory to Ukraine,” said one man in a cap and sunglasses who stood at the gate to manage the crowd.
Inside were pallets loaded with bags of potatoes and onions and boxes of apples. To the side were plastic bags with various toiletries and cleaning products. There were also items that reflected the difficulty of maintaining a semblance of ordinary life in a city pummeled daily by Russian forces: cleaning products, matches, small candles.
“There’s a lot of need right now. Some of these people have been lining up since 4 a.m,” said Andrey Varakuta, a 30-year-old aid worker. “We do this three times a week. Every time we do it, more and more people show up.”
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(Bulos reported from Kharkiv and Kaleem from London.)
