Ukraine Suffering High Losses Due to Slow Arms Supplies, Says Zelenskiy

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends the Fourth Crimea Platform Leaders Summit in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 11, 2024. (Reuters)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends the Fourth Crimea Platform Leaders Summit in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 11, 2024. (Reuters)
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Ukraine Suffering High Losses Due to Slow Arms Supplies, Says Zelenskiy

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends the Fourth Crimea Platform Leaders Summit in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 11, 2024. (Reuters)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends the Fourth Crimea Platform Leaders Summit in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 11, 2024. (Reuters)

Ukrainian troops are suffering high losses because Western arms are arriving too slowly to equip the armed forces properly, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told CNN in an interview aired on Sunday.

Russia has been gaining ground in parts of eastern Ukraine including around Pokrovsk. Capture of the transport hub could enable Moscow to open new lines of attack.

Zelenskiy said the situation in the east was "very tough", adding that half of Ukraine's brigades there were not equipped.

"So you lose a lot of people. You lose people because they are not in armed vehicles ... they don't have artillery, they don't have artillery rounds," said Zelenskiy, speaking in English. CNN said the interview had been conducted on Friday.

Zelenskiy said weapons aid packages promised by the United States and European nations were arriving very slowly.

"We need 14 brigades to be ready. Until now ... from these packages we didn't equip even four," he said.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Saturday said Washington was working on a "substantial" new aid package for Ukraine.

Zelenskiy is due to meet with US President Joe Biden this month and will present a plan for ending the war. The main elements are security and diplomatic support, as well as military and economic aid, he said.

The only thing Russian President Vladimir Putin fears is the reaction of his people if the cost of the war makes them suffer, Zelenskiy said. "Make Ukraine strong, and you will see that he will sit and negotiate".

Zelenskiy will also reiterate to Biden demands for Ukraine to be allowed to use US long-range weapons to strike military targets deep into Russia.

Kyiv needs this permission because Russian jets blasting infrastructure had begun operating up to 500 km (310 miles) from the front lines compared with 150 km earlier, he told CNN.



Ukraine Allows Multiple Citizenship as War Drags on

A service member of the 110th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fires a howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a front line in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine June 16, 2025. (Reuters)
A service member of the 110th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fires a howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a front line in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine June 16, 2025. (Reuters)
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Ukraine Allows Multiple Citizenship as War Drags on

A service member of the 110th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fires a howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a front line in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine June 16, 2025. (Reuters)
A service member of the 110th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fires a howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a front line in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine June 16, 2025. (Reuters)

Ukraine's parliament passed a law on Wednesday to allow Ukrainians to have multiple citizenship in an attempt to ease a demographic crisis worsened by Russia's war and to enhance ties with the country's diaspora.

The bill was passed by 243 deputies, lawmakers said.

"This decision is an important step to maintain and restore ties with millions of Ukrainians around the world," Oleksiy Chernyshov, minister for unity, said in a social media post on Facebook after the vote.

Government officials have estimated the Ukrainian diaspora at about 25 million people. Government and analysts estimate the population in the country at about 32 million people now.

Previously, Ukrainian law did not recognize dual or multiple citizenship, meaning that ethnic Ukrainians around the world holding other passports needed to renounce their other citizenship if they wanted a Ukrainian passport.

The issue of multiple citizenship has become even more pressing since Russia's invasion in February 2022.

The war is exacerbating a demographic decline that had started years before.

In 1991, when Ukraine became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the population was 52 million.

But Ukraine saw several large labor migrations in the early 1990s. With the start of the invasion, millions of Ukrainians fled the fighting. Data show that more than 5 million Ukrainians live in Europe as the war is in its fourth year.

Lawmakers said that the new law would simplify procedures for children born to Ukrainian parents abroad and also for Ukrainians who obtain other citizenship by marriage.

It will also make it easier to obtain Ukrainian citizenship for foreigners fighting for Ukraine on the frontlines.

In line with the new law, the government would draw up a list of countries from which dual citizenship was allowed.

The text of the bill does not directly ban Russian citizens from obtaining Ukrainian passports. But it mentions that the government would be able to implement restrictions related to the armed aggression against Ukraine.

Foreigners would have to pass a test to prove their knowledge of the Ukrainian language, history and constitution.