Live updates - Ukraine wants rocket launchers sent quickly

Ukraine's foreign minister says the urgency of his country's weapons needs can be summed up in two abbreviations: MLRS — multiple launch rocket systems, and ASAP — as soon as possible.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says the situation in the eastern Donbas region "is extremely bad". The rocket systems could help Ukrainian forces try to recapture places such as the southern city of Kherson from Russian occupiers who invaded Ukraine on February 24.

Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Kuleba said he had about 10 bilateral meetings with other leaders whose countries possess such systems.

"The response I get is, Have the Americans given it to you already?'" he said, alluding to US leadership.

"So this is the burden of being a leader. Everyone is looking at you. So Washington has to keep the promise and provide us with multiple launch rocket systems as soon as possible. Others will follow." "If we do not get an MLRS ASAP, the situation in Donbas will get even worse than it is now," he added.

"Every day of someone sitting in Washington, Berlin, Paris and other capitals, and considering whether they should or should not do something, costs us lives and territories." ___ KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: — Scars of war seem to be everywhere in Ukraine after 3 months — Saving the children: War closes in on eastern Ukrainian town — Sweden, Finland delegations go to Turkey for NATO talks — US to end Russia's ability to pay international investors — UK approves sale of Chelsea soccer club by sanctioned Abramovich ___ OTHER DEVELOPMENTS: LVIV: A regional governor in eastern Ukraine has told The Associated Press that Russian forces are fighting on the outskirts of the city of Sievierodonetsk and a key supply route is coming under pressure.

Serhiy Haidai, the Kyiv-backed governor of the Luhansk region, says Ukrainian forces continue to hold Sievierodonetsk.

But he said "the situation is serious. The city is constantly being shelled with every possible weapon in the enemy's possession." Haidai added in written comments in response to questions from the AP that Russian forces were dropping aerial bombs and accused them of deliberately striking "places where people could be hiding." Sievierodonetsk and the nearby city of Lysychansk are the largest remaining settlements held by Ukraine in the Luhansk region, of which Haidai is the Kyiv-backed governor. The region is "more than 90 per cent" controlled by Russia, he said.

The road between Lysychansk and the city of Bakhmut to the southwest is widely considered crucial to keeping Ukrainian troops in the area supplied.

Haidai said it was "constantly being shelled" and that Russian sabotage and reconnaissance teams were approaching the area.

___ Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued an order to allow a fast track to Russian citizenship for people in two southern regions of Ukraine which are largely held by Russian forces.

Putin's decree, dated Wednesday, could allow Russia to strengthen its control over the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. They form part of a land connection between eastern Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula.

Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin last week visited both regions and indicated they could become part of "our Russian family".

A Russia-installed official in the Kherson region has predicted the region could become part of Russia.

Russia already had a program for fast-track naturalisation of people living in two regions of eastern Ukraine claimed by Russia-backed separatists.

___ MOSCOW: Russian lawmakers have passed a bill which removes age limits for professional soldiers joining the military and could be a way for the Russian armed forces to expand recruitment.

The lower house of the Russian parliament passed the bill in all three readings Wednesday to scrap an age limit of 40 for Russians signing their first voluntary military contracts.

The chair of the parliament's defence committee, Andrei Kartapolov, said the measure would make it easier to hire people with "in-demand specialisms".

A description of the bill on the parliament website indicated older recruits could be suited to operating precision weapons or serving in engineering or medical roles.

Russian authorities have said that only volunteer contract soldiers are being sent to fight in Ukraine, though they have acknowledged that some conscripts were drawn into the fighting by mistake in the early stages.

In recent years, the Russian military has increasingly relied on volunteers. All Russian men aged 18-27 must undergo one-year compulsory military service. Many avoid the draft through college deferments and other exemptions.

___ WARSAW: A leader of Poland's Catholic Church says his recent visit to sites of mass murder in Ukraine led him to conclude that humans have drawn no lessons from previous deadly wars but have only improved their killing methods.

Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, the head of Poland's Bishops' Conference, said that when he prayed last week over the mass graves found after Russian troops left the town of Bucha he had "the sad thought that human civilisation isn't really making any progress on key issues''.

"We've heard so many declarations and incantations over recent decades about such crimes no longer being possible, given the present level of civilisation, but murdering people has turned out to be just as possible as before," Gadecki said in an interview for Poland's Catholic news agency KAI, published this week.

"We do not see any humanitarian progress in the world, apart from technical progress that makes murdering people possible on a larger scale," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)