Ukraine sending million-strong force to retake south
Ukraine is sending a million-strong force to retake its southern territory from Russia.
According to an interview with The Times, the nation's defence minister Oleksii Reznikov revealed that President Volodymyr Zelensky had ordered Ukraine's military to retake occupied coastal areas which are vital to the country's economy.
"We understand that, politically, it's very necessary for our country," he told The Times.
"The president has given the order to the supreme military chief to draw up plans. After that the general staff are doing their homework and say to achieve this goal we need XYZ," he said.
UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was key to helping shift the approach from providing Soviet equipment to the NATO standard 155mm artillery, guided multiple launch rocket systems and high-tech drones, he said.
Due to the intensity of the war, stockpiles of Soviet-era weapons are rapidly depleting.
The minister said he was satisfied with the support NATO partners had been delivering but he did express in the interview a concern at the pace of the deliveries, saying: "Each day we're waiting for howitzers, we can lose a hundred soldiers."
UK contribution
Reznikov noted his "great relationship" with Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Armed Forces Minister James Heappey.
He stressed in The Times interview that Ukraine's recent withdrawals from two cities in the Luhansk region, Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, were tactical losses necessary to save lives rather than strategic defeats.
The democratic world had united to defeat Russia and this war would finally end its empire, he said.
In June, the UK it will provide an extra £1bn of military aid for Ukraine, offering equipment enabling the country to go on the front foot to regain lost territory.
The new funding amounts to a 77% increase on the £1.3bn already provided, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson claiming British support was "transforming Ukraine's defences" against the Russian onslaught.
Watch: Ben Wallace visits Ukrainian troops training in UK.
As well as supplying aid, the UK is also training Ukrainian troops.
The UK had already trained more than 22,000 members of the Ukrainian armed forces as part of Operation Orbital, after the illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.
Mr Johnson announced in June the new UK-led training programme for Ukrainian forces, which would take place overseas.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) said the major training programme had the potential to train up to 10,000 troops every 120 days.
Meanwhile, the UK military has assessed that Russian troops are not getting necessary breaks.
The MOD wrote on Twitter that online videos suggested at least one tank brigade in the war was "mentally and physically exhausted" as it had been on active combat duty since the start of the war in February.
"The lack of scheduled breaks from intense combat conditions is highly likely one of the most damaging of the many personnel issues the Russian (defence ministry) is struggling to rectify amongst the deployed force," the MOD said.
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