Russian forces normally based in the far-eastern reaches of the vast nation are being deployed to the main battle front in Ukraine, the Ukrainian military high command said on Saturday, a sign of the strain on Moscow’s military as it sustains heavy losses in the face of an increasingly well-armed resistance.

Moscow is trying to gain momentum in what the Pentagon has described as a “plodding” offensive in eastern Ukraine, as more powerful weapons from the West reach Ukrainian forces on the front lines.

The Russian soldiers who are being moved are being deployed first to the Russian city of Belgorod, near the Ukraine border, and then to an area around the northeastern Ukrainian city of Izium, the Ukrainian military said. The Russians have been trying to push south from the strategic city, but have met fierce resistance.

At the same time that Russia is adding new troops to the fight, the British military’s defence intelligence agency said on Saturday that “Russia has been forced to merge and redeploy depleted and disparate units” defeated in their push to take Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, to the eastern front, adding to “weakened morale” in their ranks.

While the Russian advance may be slow, the fighting remains fierce, with each side claiming to have destroyed scores of tanks, armoured vehicles and other military hardware in battles and attacks along the eastern front.

The continued bombardments of infrastructure are taking their toll. After the Kremenchuk Refinery, Ukraine’s main fuel producer, was destroyed this week in a Russian airstrike, gas stations across the country started reporting shortages on Saturday.

“The occupiers are deliberately destroying the infrastructure for the production, supply and storage of fuel,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine told the nation in his nightly address. “Russia has also blocked our ports, so there are no immediate solutions to replenish the deficit.”

Russian forces also failed to capture three target areas, Ukraine’s military said, while Moscow said western sanctions on Russia were impeding peace negotiations.

They were trying to capture the areas of Lyman in Donetsk and Sievierodonetsk and Popasna in Luhansk.

New York Times News Service and Reuters

American dies fighting

A former Marine infantryman who left Kentucky to defend Ukraine in March was killed this week while fighting alongside the Ukrainian military, according to his uncle. He is believed to be the first American killed in the fighting.

Willy Joseph Cancel Jr, 22, lived in Kentucky and worked as a correctional officer before his death, the uncle, Christopher Cancel, said in an interview on Friday.

The uncle said that someone who had been fighting alongside the younger Cancel had called his father and said that he had left for a night-time patrol on April 24, and that his unit was overrun by Russian troops. The uncle said that the caller indicated that his body had not yet been recovered.

New York Times News Service