Russia using blood-thirsty scorched-earth policy to wipe our city off the map, says Ukrainian commander
A HERO leading the defence of a Ukrainian hell city has told of his troops’ ordeal battling Russians who have up to 50 times their firepower.
Commander Petro Kuzyk said Vladimir Putin’s invaders were employing a scorched-earth policy to raze towns and cities to the ground before seizing them.
The embattled army chief begged for Western weapons to hold back the tyrant’s tide as he prepared to be encircled in Severodonetsk.
Commander Kuzyk, who leads a battalion of the National Guard defending the city in the eastern Luhansk region, said his artillery shells were running out.
After falling back from the nearby destroyed city of Rubizhne to defend the strategically vital pocket of territory, he described the huge task facing defenders.
Up to 500 Russian shells per hour were raining down on their positions.
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As explosions rocked his bunker, he said: “We have intelligence that huge columns of tanks are moving in the direction of Severodonetsk.
“This tactic has been tested, it does them little good, but thanks to massive shelling, they can move forward — because they are destroying positions, trenches and buildings step by step.
"They did not capture Rubizhne — they wiped it off the face of the earth.”
His defenders were still killing and driving back the Russians whose commanders, believed to be following direct orders from Putin, use murderous tactics.
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But he pleaded: “We are catastrophically short of artillery systems, accurate, counter-battery systems that destroy enemy artillery from a long distance.
"We do not have enough multiple launch rocket systems that hit the target.
“We need to more or less close the sky — it’s either serious air defence systems, or fighter aircraft. To give you an idea of the ratio — on our one projectile, they produce an average of 20 to 50.”
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He added: “It is wrong to rely solely on the heroism of soldiers. They are heroes anyway, they have surpassed any Nato standards. Nato soldiers cannot be compared to ours.
“But they must at least be protected and supported.”
Missiles are vital
THE West must send more missile systems to Ukraine, Boris Johnson warned yesterday.
The PM said Russia was “chewing up ground” in the Donbas region.
The Ukrainian forces needed multiple launch rocket systems to defend against shelling.
And he added that Russia’s assault was “continuing to make gradual, slow, but I’m afraid palpable, progress”.
But Mr Johnson ruled out hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough.
Invaders lose 46th colonel
RUSSIA has lost its 46th colonel of the conflict.
Reservist Lt Col Alexander Kalnitsky, 60, suffered fatal shrapnel wounds while leading Cossack fighters.
Pictures show his funeral in Novopokrovskaya village, Krasnodar.
A source said he was deputy chief of staff of the Kuban Cossacks.
He took part in the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and in Soviet times graduated from an anti-aircraft missile engineering school in Kyiv.
His death follows that of two veteran pilots.
Major General Kanamat Botashev, 63, was killed while piloting an Su-25.
And 63-year-old Nikolai Markov — the 45th colonel known to have died — was downed over Luhansk.