In a bleak turn underscoring the urgency of getting more weapons into more Ukrainian hands to fend off Russian attacks, Russian forces have captured 42 villages in the hotly contested Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials said. “Today 42 villages were added to the list of those that have been occupied,” an aide to President Zelensky said, adding, “this is at the expense of the Donetsk region.” 

That admission comes on the heels of Vladimir Putin’s claim that Moscow has now taken control of besieged Mariupol. The city council says up to 9,000 of its residents have been buried in mass graves, and satellite imagery appears to confirm that grisly claim. 

The council also says that up to 22,000 Mariupol residents may have already been killed in the Russian offensive. 

Meanwhile, Kremlin forces continue to blockade the Azovstal steel plant, a decision that in the British defense ministry’s assessment was taken by Mr. Putin in order to contain Ukrainian resistance at Mariupol and free up Russian forces to be deployed elsewhere in eastern Ukraine. An estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters are holed up at the giant steel mill. 

Russia is bolstering its forces inside Ukraine as it refocuses on the east and has added three more battalion tactical groups since Wednesday, a senior U.S. defense official said. That brings the total number of Russian battalion tactical groups in Ukraine to 85. According to the Pentagon, though, Ukraine now has more tanks on the ground than Russia as weapons from the West pour into Ukraine at a fast clip. 

Eight weeks into the war, the Biden administration’s decision to dramatically ramp up delivery of artillery guns to Ukraine signals a deepening American commitment at a pivotal stage of fighting for the country’s industrial heartland. The Kremlin will view the inflow of arms as a provocation; whether it will respond with anything more than indignant rhetoric remains to be seen.

“We’re in a critical window” of time, President Biden said Thursday in announcing he had approved an additional $800 million in battlefield aid that includes 72 of the U.S. Army’s 155mm howitzers, along with 144,000 artillery rounds and more than 120 armed drones that will require training for Ukrainian operators.

The arming effort, announced after Mr. Biden had a closed-door meeting with the Ukrainian prime minister at the White House, includes 10 anti-tank weapons for every Russian tank currently in Ukraine from the U.S. alone, Mr. Biden said, maintaining Washington will continue to share “significant, timely” intelligence with Kyiv.

This brings to $3.4 billion the amount of security assistance provided since Russia began its invasion February 24 — a staggering amount of aid for a country to which the United States has no defense treaty obligation.

Britain is doing more than just providing additional military aid to Ukraine. As reported in the Daily Telegraph, Prime Minister Johnson confirmed for the first time that dozens of Ukrainian troops were being taught to use armored patrol and troop carriers as Mr. Putin stepped up his offensive in the east. 

“I can say that we are currently training Ukrainians in Poland in the use of anti-aircraft defense and actually in the U.K. in the use of armored vehicles,” Mr. Johnson said.

That is not the only noteworthy statement to come from Downing Street this week. With respect to the prospects for peace talks, the prime minister employed some colorful language. “I really don’t see how the Ukrainians can easily sit down and come to some kind of accommodation,” Mr. Johnson said Wednesday on a flight to India. “How can you negotiate with a crocodile when it’s got your leg in its jaws?”

Those remarks point to the primacy, at this stage of the war, of slugging it out, something with which even the EU seems to tacitly concur. Pravda Ukrainina reported that the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, acknowledged that the European Union has agreed to purchase heavy weapons for free transfer to Ukraine. 

“We have already allocated 1.5 billion euros through the European Peace Facility,” Mr. Michel saud, “and we will do even more.” He added that the EU has an understanding of the need to supply heavy weapons to Ukraine, but that weapons purchases will not be announced.

A significant problem — as evidenced by the Russian capture of dozens of villages in Donetsk — is that while the weapons are coming, the Russians are already there. They have been deploying their own additional artillery to the Donbas region in recent days, along with more ground troops and other material to support and sustain what could be a long fight for terrain in Ukraine’s industrial heartland.

An unidentified Western official told Britain’s Sky News, “The Russians have concentrated sufficient force such that if they were to use it intelligently they might be able to surround and destroy a very significant portion of Ukraine’s armed forces, some of its best forces, and make territorial gains which would then be very difficult to dislodge.”

Should that transpire, there could be ramifications down the line for Ukrainian territory west of the Dnieper River, too — including the capital region.