NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated he was confident that Ukraine is ready to liberate more territories. “I'm confident that they will now be in a position to be able to liberate even more land,” Jens Stoltenberg said on the sidelines of the meeting in the Ramstein format in Germany, news agencies report. The NATO Secretary General stated further that several Patriot air defence batteries had already been delivered to Ukraine. Kyiv has insisted multiple times to be provided Patriot air defence systems to protect itself from the Russian strikes. At the end of March, the Pentagon announced that 65 Ukrainian military personnel had completed Patriot training in the US and had returned home.

“We are actively preparing new brigades and units that will show themselves at the front,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced, and added that “the main task of the state is the de-occupation of our territories, the return of our lands and our people from Russian captivity.”

Meanwhile Russia is continuing its attacks in Bakhmut and launched a drone attack against Kyiv, Poltava and Vinnytsia. The Ukrainian command says Ukraine’s air defence downed 4 of the 5 Shahed kamikaze drones over the country’s Southeastern part, and fought off 53 attacks in the regions of Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka.

The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell stated the EU would do everything in its power to provide Ukraine with artillery shells quickly. Ukraine’sForeign Minister Dmytro Kuleba spoke with Josep Borrell, urging him to facilitate the second tranche of one billion euros for joint procurement of ammunition for Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent writes. “The inability of the EU to implement its own decision on the joint procurement of ammunition for Ukraine is frustrating. This is a test of whether the EU has strategic autonomy in making new crucial security decisions. For Ukraine, the cost of inaction is measured in human lives,” Dmytro Kuleba wrote in Twitter. A month ago the European Union made the decision to deliver more than 1 million new artillery shells to Ukraine, but accord has not yet been reached by all members regarding the conditions for their acquisition.