kyiv is worried.
The fighting against Russian troops in eastern Ukraine has reached "maximum intensity", Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Malyar said on Thursday.
"A long and extremely difficult stage awaits us," she also said during a press briefing.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city which had recently begun to return to normal life, four people have lost their lives following new bombardments.
"Occupiers are again bombing the regional center," regional governor Oleg Sinegoubov said on Telegram.
“According to preliminary information, seven people were injured and unfortunately four died,” he added, calling on residents to stay sheltered.
Large numbers of Russian troops
In certain regions of eastern Ukraine where the Russian offensive has been concentrated for weeks, "the enemy is clearly superior, in equipment, in number of soldiers", recognized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday evening.
But Ukrainian forces "are resisting (this) extremely violent offensive", he added in his daily video message.
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“We need the help of our partners, and particularly weapons,” he pleaded, a few hours after his Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba had called for more heavy weapons.
Ukraine wishes to receive mobile units capable of sending several rockets simultaneously.
"It's really the weapon that we really need," said Dmytro Kouleba after discussions with government officials and business leaders at the Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland).
“The battle for Donbass is very similar to the battles of the Second World War,” he explained to the press.
Russia does not want to negotiate
On the Russian side, the authorities still do not seem open to starting a peace process.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov thus considered the peace plan proposed by Italy to be unserious.
“There is talk that Crimea (Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia) and Donbass (separatist region recognized by Moscow) belong to Ukraine with broad autonomy,” he said in an interview with Russian media. RT status.
"Serious politicians who want results cannot propose things like that, those who do are those who want to promote themselves in front of their electorate", he added, in a spade apparently addressed to the Italian minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi Di Maio.
The details of this plan have not been published, but according to the Italian daily La Repubblica the document submitted to the UN provides for four stages: a ceasefire in Ukraine and the demilitarization of the front under UN supervision, negotiations on the status of Ukraine, which would enter the EU but not NATO, a bilateral agreement between Ukraine and Russia on Crimea and the Donbass which would be autonomous but under Ukrainian sovereignty, and the conclusion of a multilateral peace and security agreement in Europe.