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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy personally appealed to U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (Republican-Louisiana) to help deliver “critically important” military aid to Kyiv to help it fend off escalating Russian attacks.
Zelenskiy said he briefed Johnson on the battlefield situation, specifically the “dramatic increase in Russia’s air terror” in a phone call on March 28. He told Johnson that in the past week Ukrainian cities and communities had been hit by 190 rockets, 140 Shahed drones, and 700 anti-aircraft missiles.
The attacks saw power cut to more than 1 million homes and took the country’s largest hydroelectric power plant offline.
“In this situation, quick passage of U.S. aid to Ukraine by Congress is vital,” he said in a readout of the call posted on Telegram.
Zelenskiy also spoke with U.S. broadcaster CBS about the need for military supplies, saying a Russian offensive is expected around the end of May or in June.
“And before that, we not only need to prepare, we not only need to stabilize the situation, because the partners are sometimes really happy that we have stabilized the situation,” Zelenskiy said of the U.S. and Ukraine’s other backers. “No, I say we need help now.”
The interview was released on March 28 after being filmed in an undisclosed bombed-out building in the east of the country, CBS said.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s forces had managed to hold off Russian advances through the worst of the winter months and the situation is “better than it was two or three months ago when we had a big deficit of artillery ammunition.” He acknowledged that invading Russian troops had destroyed some villages as the Ukrainian side ran low on artillery.
A massive military aid package has been stalled in Congress for more than six months, delaying the delivery of crucial weapons and ammunition to Ukrainian troops on the front lines.
The U.S. Senate last month passed a supplementary spending bill that allocates some $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, mainly for weapons and military equipment. But Johnson has not brought the bill up for a vote in the House of Representatives, where his party holds only a slim majority, and includes right-wing Republicans who want to force Congress to prioritize border security.
The delay is having significant consequences on the battlefield as Ukrainian forces run low on ammunition and air defense materiel.
Ukrainian authorities said earlier on March 28 that Russia used kamikaze drones and heavy artillery to strike regions in the center and east of the country in the early hours of March 28.
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The Ukrainian air-defense systems intercepted 26 out of 28 Shahed-type drones over Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhya, the country’s air force said in a statement.
Local authorities in Zaporizhzhya said homes had been struck and at least two people wounded. Acting Mayor Anatoliy Kurtev said five houses had been partially destroyed while 40 had sustained damage.
The central Dnipropetrovsk region’s governor, Serhiy Lysak, said Nikopol was targeted by heavy artillery and drones. Two people were injured by shrapnel while four homes and a power line were damaged, Lysak added.
In Odesa, regional Governor Oleh Kiper said Russia initially launched drones before targeting the region with missiles. He added that there were no casualties in Odesa.
Offices, a shop, and a restaurant were damaged in Kharkiv, but there were no casualties, according to regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov.
Ukrainian authorities said Russia may have used a new type of guided bomb in air strikes on Kharkiv on March 27, in an attack described by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “Russian terror.”
Volodymyr Tymoshko, head of the Kharkiv regional police, said Moscow may have used a new type of guided bomb, which he described as the UMPB D-30.
“It seems that the Russians decided to test their modified bombs on the residents of the houses,” Synyehubov said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba landed in New Delhi on March 28 for a two-day trip to enhance relations and cooperation with India, a longtime ally of Russia.
The Ukrainian chief diplomat will meet his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and hold talks with the deputy national security adviser.
Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin said Russia has no designs on any NATO country and will not attack Poland, the Baltic states, or the Czech Republic but that if the West supplies F-16 fighters to Ukraine, they will be shot down.
Speaking to Russian Air Force pilots on March 28, Putin said the U.S.-led alliance had expanded eastward toward Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union but that Moscow has no plans to attack a NATO state.
“We have no aggressive intentions toward these states,” Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript.
With reporting by AP, Reuters, and CBS
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