WASHINGTON: Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday said Russia had completed the mobilization of 300,000 reservists drafted to fight in Ukraine, and that 82,000 of those conscripted already had been sent to the front and another 218,000 were in “combat training.”

The announcement, made during a televised meeting at the Kremlin, ostensibly concluded the divisive mobilization drive in Russia, the first since World War II. The draft prompted thousands of men to flee Russia and fueled anti-war protests in the country.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced Friday that it would provide $275 million in additional military assistance to Ukraine.

Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, said the package would include HIMARS ammunition, hundreds of 155mm precision-guided artillery rounds, remote anti-armor mine systems, armored vehicles and small arms.

Ukrainian gunners are facing ammunition shortages on the battlefield in areas stretching from Mykolaiv to Kherson.

“For every one shell that we send, they [Russians] send back five,” Hennadyi, a Ukrainian gunner, told a Reuters reporter.

According to the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces on Friday, Russian forces had shelled 30 settlements in the Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kherson and Mikolaiv oblasts.

The governor of Luhansk said Friday that Ukrainian troops were largely in control, though, of a key road that links two Russian-occupied districts in the east of the country.

Ukrainian troops are slowly pushing eastward into the Luhansk region, aiming to take the Russian-occupied towns of Svatove and Kreminna, 45 kilometers to the south. The towns are the primary settlements in districts with the same names.

“The road from Svatove to Kreminna is practically under the control of the armed forces of Ukraine. Our soldiers are advancing daily,” Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk region, said on national television.

In other news, during a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba demanded that Tehran stop sending kamikaze drones to Russia. The drones have been used by Russia forces to target Ukrainian infrastructure. Iran denies the charge.

(VOA)