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Oleksandrs war lasted only a week. The 36-year-old, a Ukrainian electrician working in Gdansk, hurried back to join up after Russia invaded and was deployed on 10 May to guard a chest-high trench in Donbas against the odds.

We were shelled constantly during the day. There was not 10 minutes without Russian shelling, he said, describing a fearful human cost: Every day one person was killed and another couple wounded. Big losses, really big losses.

On the seventh day, 16 May, it was over. A Russian drone had hovered over Oleksandrs position near Avdiivka and, armed with the location, the invaders hurled one shell, then another, closer, and finally a third, closer still.

It felt as if he had been hit by a stone in his right arm, Oleksandr said, but it was worse: I looked at my sleeve and then I tried to move my hand. It was just hanging. Hastily he applied a tourniquet and sought refuge behind the lines.

Now, Oleksandr lies in a crowded part of a hospital in the central city of Dnipro, his wounded right arm held in place by four scaffolded pins, telling a story of how ordinary frontline soldiers like him faced the full weight of Russias artillery bombardment with little or no hope of answering back.

Ukraines heavy guns could only fire one time to their 10, Oleksandr said, repeating a familiar statement made by the countrys armed forces, while the Russian forces suffered far fewer casualties. There was nobody to shoot at, the soldier complained. The Russian artillery was out of rifle range and in his part of the front, the invaders made no attempt to gain territory.

Oleksandr was left holding a line, trying to survive in a constant state of terror. I was wearing a helmet the whole time, and I was sure that whenever I got to take it off my hair would have gone grey. When he spoke to the Guardian, some colour remained.

Over the past fortnight or so, Ukraines president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and key figures around him have begun to emphasise the human cost of Ukraines defence, against Russias new tactic of artillery bombardment. The number killed each day could be as many as 200, with 800 wounded, advisers to Zelenskiy have said.

Morale among the soldiers in hospital remains high, but their personal stories also illustrate the desperate nature of the defenders fight and how Ukraine improvised an enlarged military to defend itself against the unprovoked Russian invasion, using every human resource to hand.

Perhaps the biggest surprise with Nikolai is his age: the former hospital worker is 60. He volunteered at the start of the war, starting with the defence of Kyiv in late February and March. Ask him why he was willing to risk his life, and, as he lies in his hospital bed, he simply holds his hand to his heart, holds his breath and sighs.

We just didnt have enough time to become true soldiers, there was literally not enough time because they [the Russians] went straight from Belarus down to Kyiv. We were training on the go, and basically getting our experience in real battle, added Nikolai, who had no combat experience prior to February.

After Kyiv, Nikolai was stationed on the southern front around Huliaipole, 50km south-west of Zaporizhzhia, where Ukraines forces have been making small, localised gains. But the cost to personnel remains high on what is supposed to be a quieter part of the battle line.

Out of a unit of 20, 15 people were injured by shelling, one was captured and one was killed, Nikolai counted. Those wounded from artillery fire included himself, a casualty of Russian counterattack on a fluid section of the frontline, leaving him with long-term damage on the lower part of his right arm.

We had been digging a trench for about 40 minutes, then there was a shot followed by an explosion. I tried to cover myself with my arms but my right arm was hit. I knew I was injured seriously because I couldnt cut open my sleeve to apply first aid, the 60-year-old began. Worse was to follow. Later, as I was waiting to be evacuated, a shot went through my cheek. It came through and grazed an artery.

At first Nikolai assumed he would survive, but it took three hours to get safely behind the frontline to paramedics. Such was the blood loss it was coming out the back of my neck that he was starting to lose consciousness. I began to think I might die, he said, but he remained sure that he had done the right thing by signing up to fight.

For Ukraines leaders, such stories serve to emphasise the necessity of closing the artillery overmatch as the country lobbies for greater western weapons supply. While the US on Wednesday committed to sending 18 more M777 howitzers, on top of 108 already sent, it falls short of what Kyiv thinks it needs to kick out the Russians. Some key figures want a total of 1,000.

The gap suggests a high rate of sacrifice may be required by Ukraines soldiers for some time, raising the question of whether the country can sustain more than 20,000 casualties a month while weapons from the west arrive in smaller numbers than hoped.

Both wounded soldiers, though, insist Ukraines fight against Russia is necessary. Nikolai said he volunteered so his grown-up son, Dima, who lives in Southampton, Britain, didnt have to come home and join the war. I want my generation to fight so my kids can just bring up their grandkids and live in peace.

As for Oleksandr, when asked if he had been put in a situation where he could not win, in a five-foot trench facing Russias artillery might, the former electrician was momentarily circumspect. I shouldnt answer that, he said. So would he do it all again, knowing what he did now? Yes. There is no doubt. Who else will?

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A shot went through my cheek: the human cost of Ukraines defence - The Guardian

The Defense Department is still weighing all options and the decision to send four more HIMARS is not yet final, one of the DoD officials said, noting that U.S. contributions to Ukraines effort are made in consultation with allies and partners.

The decision will be based on Ukrainian immediate needs, the official said.

The two DoD officials asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record. A spokesperson for the Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The administration expects to approve a number of additional HIMARS in the upcoming package, a third U.S. official said, though this person stressed that the next tranche of aid is still being developed at the Pentagon level and the final number could change at the last minute.

We expect to be transferring more HIMARS and more [guided] rounds soon, the person said.

Even though the number of HIMARS would be doubled, top Ukrainian officials say they need many more such systems, along with longer-range munitions, to destroy Moscows artillery across a battlefield that stretches for hundreds of miles.

The Russians are 200 kilometers on our land, Oleksandra Sasha Ustinova, a member of Ukraines parliament, told POLITICO. To shoot them there, we need a long range to be used on our territory, because otherwise, its just a ping pong game of artillery.

Ustinova said the four HIMARS already approved wont be enough. We asked for 10 times more, she said.

The internal discussions about sending more HIMARS come as top Ukrainian officials traveled to Washington this week to plead for additional aid to help their forces counter Russias steady advance in the Donbas. Ustinova and other officials spent the week meeting with lawmakers as well as administration officials, they said. On Saturday, Russian forces were slowly taking territory in the city of Severodonetsk, one of the last remaining Ukrainian strongholds in the region.

The Lockheed Martin-made rocket systems are a step up from the M777 howitzers towed artillery with a range of 20 miles the U.S. has been sending to Ukraine. The first group of 60 Ukrainians have wrapped up training on the HIMARS, and the four systems already approved to be donated will be delivered to the front lines by the end of the month, Gen. Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Brussels this week.

Top U.S. officials say the new rocket launchers, along with precision munitions, will prove effective in countering Russias advancing forces in the Donbas.

If they use the weapon properly and its employed properly, they ought to be able to take out a significant amount of targets, Milley said. That will make a difference.

But Kyiv is asking for more a lot more. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is calling on the West to supply 300 rocket launchers, 500 tanks and 1,000 howitzers.

If Ukraine is not given weapons, heavy weapons, air defense and missile defense today, then we wont be able to survive this war, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar told POLITICO this week.

But not only does Kyiv want hundreds more rocket launchers, officials are also pleading for longer-range munitions. HIMARS can be outfitted with rockets that can strike targets nearly 200 miles away, but the Biden administration so far has decided not to provide the longest-range munitions for fear of provoking Vladimir Putin into escalating the conflict.

Ukrainian officials say they need the longer-range munitions to gain a critical advantage on a battlefield that now stretches for hundreds of miles.

The problem is the front line is about 800 miles now, David Arakhamia, the majority leader of the Ukrainian Parliament and chief negotiator between Russia and Ukraine, told POLITICO. Kyiv needs to be able to destroy Russian air defense systems from hundreds of miles away so that Ukrainian forces can use drones and other weapons without worrying they will be shot down.

The White House fears that Ukraine would use long-range rockets to strike targets inside Russia, but Arakhamia said Kyiv has assured Washington that the weapons will be used only inside Ukraine.

We are ready to sign any guarantees in written format, he said, even offering to vote on it in parliament. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov recently wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin making that guarantee, Ustinova said.

Still, the U.S. official said they did not expect the administration to approve long-range projectiles in the upcoming package.

Ustinova said 500 soldiers are dying or wounded on the battlefield each day.

One of the strategies the foreign partners are looking at is exhausting Putin. Im sorry, we are exhausting our own people. We are literally losing our people, she said. Four HIMARS is nothing.

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U.S. officials weigh doubling the number of rocket launchers sent to Ukraine - POLITICO

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi (left), German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (second left), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (center), French President Emmanuel Macron (second right), and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis meet at the Ukrainian presidential compound Thursday in a collective show of European support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Ludovic Marin/AP hide caption

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi (left), German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (second left), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (center), French President Emmanuel Macron (second right), and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis meet at the Ukrainian presidential compound Thursday in a collective show of European support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

KYIV, Ukraine Four European leaders took the train to Ukraine's capital Thursday and met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a show of unity for a country struggling to hold back the Russian military.

In the eyes of many Ukrainians, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi have all been too accommodating toward Russia.

For each of them, this was the first trip to Ukraine since the war began, and doing so jointly was a clear attempt to show strong European backing for Ukraine. The fourth leader, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, is already seen as a solid supporter of Ukraine. His country has taken in some 800,000 Ukrainian refugees.

The leaders held talks their talks with Zelenskyy at the heavily fortified presidential compound on a hilltop overlooking the city. At an outdoor press conference afterward, the four visiting leaders, all in suits and ties, stood on either side of Zelenskyy, in his trademark olive t-shirt.

Zelenskyy said he trusted the commitments made by the leaders, though no new assistance for Ukraine was announced.

"I am very happy with the discussions we have had today," he said.

The four leaders arrived in Kyiv by train because Ukraine's civilian airports have been shut down by the war. Air raid sirens went off shortly after they arrived.

The European leaders first visited Irpin, a suburb of the capital where Russian troops were accused of widespread abuses in the early days of the war.

French President Emmanuel Macron (center), German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (right), and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi travel by train to Kyiv after departing from Poland. The three leaders met later with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to talk about the war in Ukraine. Ludovic Marin/AP hide caption

French President Emmanuel Macron (center), German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (right), and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi travel by train to Kyiv after departing from Poland. The three leaders met later with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to talk about the war in Ukraine.

Macron denounced what he called the "barbarism" of these attacks and said there were signs the Russians had carried out "massacres."

The French leader said his trip was intended as "a message of European unity for the Ukrainian people, support now and in the future, because the weeks to come will be very difficult."

Ukrainian leaders have also been upset with Scholz, the German leader, who has said Ukraine should not lose the war, but has not gone so far as to say it should win in its fight with Russia.

But after visiting Irpin, Scholz was sharply critical of Russia, saying the damage "says a lot about the brutality of the Russian war of aggression, which is simply out to destroy and conquer."

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy welcomed the U.S. announcement Wednesday that it's sending an additional $1 billion in military aid that includes heavy weapons for the outgunned Ukrainian military.

"It's yet another sign that Western support for Ukraine is here for good," Zelenskyy said in his regular late-night address. "I'll keep asking for necessary weapons and equipment, but the bravery and skillfulness of our service members can't be imported."

Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine broke down weeks ago and no new talks are on the horizon.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (left), and U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley speak at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday. The NATO defense ministers are meeting to discuss the war in Ukraine. The U.S. announced an additional $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine, which includes heavy weapons. Olivier Matthys/AP hide caption

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (left), and U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley speak at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday. The NATO defense ministers are meeting to discuss the war in Ukraine. The U.S. announced an additional $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine, which includes heavy weapons.

"How can the country that rapes our women be allowed save face?" Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Zelenskyy, told NPR in an interview this week. "What do we need to win this war, to have this war come to an end? We need weapons."

Podolyak is Ukraine's chief negotiator, and in the early weeks of the war he led a team that met several times with Russian representatives. As evidence of Russian abuses mounted on the battlefield, the Ukrainian public turned against such talks.

In a poll last month, more than 80% of Ukrainians said they were unwilling to give up territory for peace, even if it means a prolonged conflict, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

Podolyak said if Ukrainians cede territory to Russia now, even if under a temporary ceasefire, there are no guarantees Russia would not invade again later.

"A cease-fire would be a de facto Russian victory," he said. But, he added, "We are ready to agree to something so long as this [Russian] threat does not persist."

For now, Podolyak and other Ukrainian leaders say Ukraine desperately needs more artillery to combat the Russian forces that are making grinding progress in the eastern part of the country. After weeks of heavy fighting, the Russians are on the verge of capturing the city of Sievierodonetsk in the Donbas region.

Podolyak posted a wish-list of weapons on Twitter, which included requests for 1,000 howitzers, 1,000 drones and 500 tanks. He said this would give Ukraine "parity" with Russian forces.

He stressed that Ukraine is increasing dependent on Western weapons because it is running out of ammunition for its aging Soviet-era arsenal. Additional ammunition for those weapons is not widely available outside of Russia.

Ukraine has been transitioning to NATO equipment in recent years, but Podolyak says it takes European buy-in for Ukraine to fully transition to more modern systems which are made and sold worldwide.

But as long as the Russians have an advantage in artillery by a ratio of 10-to-1 or more, Ukraine will continue to struggle on the battlefield, he said.

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Ukraine welcomes US arms and leaders of France, Italy, Germany and Romania - NPR

Bottom line right now, we just need to get as much as possible across the border, a U.S. official said, referencing potential storage facilities in Poland and other nearby countries.

The Biden administration and European allies have been working for weeks to build out the European Unions solidarity lanes, a patchwork of ad hoc rail and truck land routes out of Ukraine, with the eventual goal of shipping the bulk of the grain to Romanias seaports, so it can reach fragile countries across Africa and the Middle East reeling from food shortages and severe drought. But for now, theyre trying to keep it from being stolen by Russian forces or spoiling in makeshift containers inside Ukraine as the fighting continues.

Ukrainian officials are warning that the storage problem will get only worse with the summer harvest. As Biden made his remarks about the silo plans this week, Ukraines deputy food minister Markiyan Dmytrasevych was warning members of the European Parliament his country will be short 10 million to 15 million tons of grain storage by October.

That is why we have an urgent need to set up temporary grain storages, Dmytrasevych told the European lawmakers.

The EUs Maja Bakran said Wednesday that the EU is cooperating with like-minded international partners, like the U.S., U.K., Canada [and] Japan, to ramp up land-based exports. They have welcomed the solidarity lanes and are certainly contributing in the implementation, she said.

The EU hopes that its overland plan could help increase exports by several million tons per month. Ukrainian officials also said this week theyve been working to create more storage capacity within the country. Theyre currently exporting only a fraction of the 5 million to 6 million tons of grain per month that normally is exported via Ukraines seaports during its summer wheat harvest, which begins in just a few weeks.

Everyone wants to help, we just dont know how. If we could do teleportation [of the grain] it would help a lot, an EU official said.

There are still immense logistical problems to work out, a second U.S. official said of the overland plans. The biggest hurdle: The land routes require exponentially more time and money to operate than shipping grain via Ukraines Black Sea ports. Biden in his remarks earlier this week noted the rail gauges between Ukraine and Poland do not match, so grain needs to be unloaded from rail cars and transferred to new rail lines at the border. The silos aim to speed up that laborious process.

The sea route is obviously the most efficient and most effective route, but its also the most problematic because you have to have Russias permission, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in an interview on Friday after food security meetings at the United Nations earlier this week. In a sense, you have to have Russias agreement. And what is the cost and price of that?

Vilsack noted the overland routes challenges with the differing rail systems, which is why the president suggested at least getting grain moved to temporary storage facilities in Poland.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack speaks at a press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C.|Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The U.N. continues to lead talks with Russia about reopening Black Sea access to ship Ukrainian goods. But U.S. officials are skeptical the talks will ever reach a resolution, given Moscows demand for sanctions relief in return for partially lifting its blockade. Vilsack said he discussed the Black Sea efforts during a meeting with the U.N.s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, who is leading the U.N. negotiations.

I expressed to him that I continue to have some reservations and some concerns about whether Russia is truly approaching these negotiations in good faith, Vilsack said.

Turkish officials have signaled an openness to acting as a security guarantee for Ukrainian grain exports against Russian attacks in the Black Sea, but European officials say Kyiv isnt currently open to the Turkish plans or another alternative that involves shipping grain through Belarus, which has been fighting on Russias side in the war, since both options likely require sanctions relief. European officials are also looking into trying to increase exports through Ukraines Danube river ports, but its expensive and would be able to move only some of the volume.

Vilsack announced this week that the U.S. would also partner with Ukraine to rebuild and strengthen Ukraines agriculture sector, a key piece of the countrys economy. He said the increased transparency on crop production and other data from Ukraine could help cut down on foreign countries instituting food export restrictions as well as market speculation thats helped drive up commodity and food prices since Russias invasion.

Biden told a virtual gathering of nations at the Major Economics Forum Friday that with Russias war driving up inflation worldwide, threatening vulnerable countries with severe food shortages, we have to work together to mitigate the immediate fallout of this crisis.

Garrett Downs, Hanne Cokelaere and Christopher Miller contributed to this report.

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Biden races against time to unlock Ukraine's trapped grain - POLITICO

WASHINGTON Russias war in Ukraine is making clear to the U.S. Department of Defense that it must get logistics and sustainment right in the Pacific theater, the Pentagons No. 2 civilian said Monday.

Russias logistics and sustainment failures during its three-month-old invasion of Ukraine are a very hard lesson for Moscow, and the U.S. as well, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said at a DefenseOne event.

The Russians are operating on their own border, and yet we saw [their] substantial logistics challenges. For the United States to be effective in the Pacific, we already have a significant logistics challenge [to overcome], worsened by the reliance that we have on fuel, Hicks said. Making sure we understand how to go after that logistics challenge is one lesson that we can extrapolate, if you will, from what we see today.

Russias invasion of Ukraine almost immediately faced challenges with logistics and difficulties getting food, water and supplies to troops. It failed in its early objective of taking Kyiv and occupying a large swath of Ukraine, and has now concentrated most its forces in eastern Ukraine.

Hicks on Monday praised U.S. logistics and information sharing in coordinating allies to arm and equip Ukrainian forces. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is set this week to convene a third meeting of the U.S.-led Ukraine contact group, which has more than 40 member nations.

Beyond concerns about contested logistics, Hicks theres a strong business case for the Pentagons efforts to adopt electric vehicles as the car industry moves in that direction. While not an overnight issue, DoD is motivated at a strategic level to free that tether to fossil fuel.

I think theres a lot we can do to move the system, and when we do that were going to help ourselves with that combat credibility, particularly in places like the Pacific where the logistics lines are very long, Hicks said.

U.S. President Joe Biden signaled during a visit to Japan last month he would use military force to defend Taiwan if it were ever attacked by China, only to clarify later that strategic ambiguity remains American policy. China, meanwhile, has stepped up its military provocations against democratic Taiwan in recent years, aimed at intimidating it into accepting Beijings demands to unify with the communist mainland.

Islands in the Pacific including Guam, Hawaii and Kwajalein have virtually no local fossil fuel resources and their energy needs, including those of U.S. military installations they host, are met by imported petroleum, Hicks has said previously.

U.S. military commanders in the Pacific have warned they lack the capacity to rearm and refuel in the event of a conflict.

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has proposed $1.02 billion in funding through 2027 to improve logistics, maintenance and prepositioning equipment for its China-focused Pacific Deterrence Initiative. The request came in April as part of the commands share of the fiscal 2023 budget request, which projected $27.1 billion for PDI overall through 2027.

Current theater logistics posture and capability to sustain the force are inadequate to support operations specifically in a contested environment, the request reads.

The Pentagons decision in March to shut down its massive Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, over water contamination problems, without a clear plan in place to fund and reconstitute this capacity, has only magnified existing logistics challenges, said Eric Sayers, a former senior adviser to U.S. Pacific Command who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Ukraine reminds us that without a robust combat logistics fleet for the Navy, aerial refueling, and heavy lift, we just flat out wont be able to sustain and shift combat power around the theater in the ways that will be required before and during an intense military operation, Sayers said. In short, the Congress should be devoting the same level of oversight to Indo-Pacific Command fuel requirements as it does to Navy fleet size or Air Force fighter procurement.

With reporting by the Associated Press.

Joe Gould is senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry.

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Russia-Ukraine war is teaching the Pentagon a lesson about the Pacific - DefenseNews.com