Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an address, on Tuesday, thanked US President Joe Biden and NATO for their support as fighting in Donbass was “hell”, saying that Kiev’s military continued to be outgunned and outnumbered by Russia. The Ukrainian President appealed to the US and its allies for further artillery assistance such as sending more HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) rocket launchers.

In the five-minute address, Zelensky claimed that the HIMARS has been efficient in causing harm to Russian forces and vowed to inflict more “painful losses”. HIMARS, further claimed Zelensky, “have become synonymous with the word ‘justice’ for our country.”

Earlier the US claimed to have sent 16 HIMARS to Ukraine until now, Russia on the other hand, alleges to have destroyed four of them already; the pentagon and Ukraine have so far denied those allegations.

Thank you @POTUS for your leadership, robust support of 🇺🇦 and understanding that 🇷🇺 is a threat to entire civilized world. Together we are defending values of freedom common to both 🇺🇦 & 🇺🇸. New defense assistance package is bringing us closer to victory

— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 1, 2022

Additional shipments are expected from the US and Zelensky had used the short address to also thank Ukrainian diplomats for arranging for more weapons to flow into the Ukraine battlefields.

“Yet we are unable to break the Russian army’s advantage in artillery and manpower, and this is very much felt in the fighting, especially in Donbass. Peski, Avdeevka, other directions … It’s just hell there. It cannot even be described in words,” the Ukrainian president added. 

On Tuesday, Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov, covering war media with Ukrainian forces, posted an allegedly exhaustive report from Peski, calling the battle a “meat grinder.” Last year, Butusov disreputably filmed himself firing a cannon on the Donbass region under the pretense that its citizens are separatists.

Read more: UN offers probe into bombing of DPR prison for Ukrainian POWs

“All the reserves are spent, the military equipment goes up in flames, and the enemy approaches and takes our positions without any problems after another barrage of artillery,” he wrote. “Right now we are losing Péski, all our human and material capabilities are almost exhausted.”

While Zelensky would not go into specifics, he did state that 32 of the 167 military personnel he is set to honor this week will get their honors after death.

The Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) Territorial Defense Headquarters reported on July 30th the death of eight people and the injury of 15 after Kiev's forces shelled the city of Donetsk.

"Over the past 24 hours, from 08:00 on July 29 to 08:00 on July 30, eight people were killed and 15 more civilians were wounded as a result of shelling by the AFU [armed formations of Ukraine] on the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic," the DPR headquarters said on Telegram.  

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Ukraine's leadership has made it obvious that it is hesitant to begin negotiations with Moscow, noting that his country was fully prepared to resume negotiations with Kiev.

Read more: Kiev forcefully evacuating civilians from areas it controls: DPR