Slovakia has denied its S-300 air defense missile system it transported to Ukraine has been destroyed by the Russian armed forces.
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"Our S-300 system has not been destroyed," Lubica Janikova, spokeswoman for Slovakia's Prime Minister Eduard Heger said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.
She said any other claim is not true.
Russia claimed on Monday that it destroyed several air defense systems in Ukraine over the weekend, in what appeared to be a renewed push to gain air superiority and take out weapons Kyiv has described as crucial ahead of a broad new offensive in the east.
In one strike announced Monday, Moscow said that it hit four S-300 launchers provided by a European country it didn't name. Slovakia gave Ukraine just such a system last week but denied it had been destroyed. Russia previously reported two strikes on similar systems in other places.
Ukrainian troops have repulsed several Russian assaults in the country's east, British intelligence said on Monday, while Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said thousands of Russian soldiers were massing for a new offensive.
Russian forces were also pushing to establish control over the southern port city of Mariupol, the lynchpin between Russian-held areas to the west and east.
"There are tens of thousands of dead, but even despite this, the Russians are not stopping their offensive," Zelenskyy told South Korea's parliament by videolink.
Reuters could not verify the accuracy of his estimate.
Military equipment maker Rheinmetall is preparing to supply up to 50 used Leopard 1 battle tanks to Ukraine, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Monday, citing the group's CEO.
Rheinmetall could deliver the first tanks in six weeks and the rest over the following three months through its subsidiary Rheinmetall Italia if it gets a green light from the German government, Chief Executive Armin Papperger told Handelsblatt.
Papperger said Ukrainian soldiers could be trained on the Leopard 1 within a few days if they are already skilled military personnel.
Some German government politicians have said it takes too long to train Ukrainians to handle Western weapons, and it was better to send equipment they can operate right away.
Handelsblatt reported that politicians from Germany's coalition government, made up of Social Democrats, the Greens and Free Democrats, and are open to a possible delivery of the Leopard tanks, the newspaper reported.
"You have to be trained a bit more intensively on the Leopard 1. But if the Ukrainians want the tank, a way should be found," Marcus Faber, defence policy spokesperson for the Free Democrats' parliamentary group, told the paper.
Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Monday weapons from Germany for Ukraine should be delivered quickly because Russia's attack from the east is imminent.
"With the decision to support Ukraine with weapons, Germany made an obligation," Habeck said.
Austrian leader Karl Nehammer planned to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday and will call for an end to the conflict. It would be Putin's first face-to-face meeting with a European Union leader since Russia's invasion started on Feb. 24.
About a quarter of Ukraine's 44 million population have been forced from their homes, cities turned into rubble, and thousands of people have been killed or injured.
Russian forces have abandoned their attempt to capture the capital Kyiv but are redoubling their efforts in Ukraine's east. Britain's defense ministry said Russian shelling continued in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Ukrainian forces had beaten back several assaults and destroyed Russian tanks, vehicles and artillery equipment, it said in its regular intelligence bulletin.
The report also said Russia's continued reliance on unguided bombs greatly increased the risk of further civilian casualties.
Powerful explosions rocked cities in the south and east and air raid sirens blared out across Ukraine early on Monday.
The general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said it was likely the Russians would try to disrupt supply lines and strike at transport infrastructure.
Russia's defense ministry said high-precision missiles had destroyed the headquarters of Ukraine's Dnipro battalion in the town of Zvonetsky.
Since Russia invaded, Zelenskyy has appealed to Western powers to provide more defense help, and to punish Moscow with tougher sanctions including embargoes on its energy exports.
Zelenskyy said he had confidence in his own armed forces but "unfortunately I don't have the confidence that we will be receiving everything we need" from the United States.
Mounting civilian casualties have triggered widespread international condemnation and new sanctions.
Ludmila Zabaluk, head of the Dmytriv Village Department, north of Kyiv, said dozens of civilian bodies were found in the area.
"There were more than 50 dead people. They shot them from close distance. There's a car where a 17-year-old child was burned, only bones left. A woman had half her head blown off. A bit farther, a man lying near his car was burned alive."
Reuters could not immediately confirm the reports.
French bank Societe Generale became the latest company to retreat from Russia, agreeing to sell its stake in Rosbank and the Russian lender's insurance subsidiaries to Interros Capital, a firm linked to billionaire Vladimir Potanin.
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The Russian invasion has triggered a barrage of financial sanctions from the United States, Europe and Britain, prompting Western companies to sell their Russian assets.
SocGen had faced mounting pressure to cut ties with Russia and end its more than 15-year investment in Rosbank.
The World Bank on Sunday forecast the war would cause Ukraine's economic output to collapse by 45% this year, with half of its businesses shuttered, grain exports mostly cut off by Russia's naval blockade and destruction rendering economic activity impossible in many areas.
The bank forecast Russia's GDP would contract by 11.2% this year due to punishing Western sanctions.
Russia has tapped a new Ukraine war commander to take centralized control of the next phase of battle after its costly failures in the opening campaign and carnage for Ukrainian civilians. US officials don't see one man making a difference in Moscow's prospects. Russia turned to Gen. Alexander Dvornikov, 60, one of Russia's most experienced military officers and – according to US officials – a general with a record of brutality against civilians in Syria and other war theaters. Up to now, Russia had no central war commander on the ground.
The general's appointment was confirmed by a senior US official who was not authorized to be identified and spoke on condition of anonymity.
But the White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said "no appointment of any general can erase the fact that Russia has already faced a strategic failure in Ukraine."
"This general will just be another author of crimes and brutality against Ukrainian civilians," Sullivan said. "And the United States, as I said before, is determined to do all that we can to support Ukrainians as they resist him and they resist the forces that he commands."
White House press secretary Jen Psaki echoed that thought. "The reports we're seeing of a change in military leadership and putting a general in charge who was responsible for the brutality and the atrocities we saw in Syria shows that there's going to be a continuation of what we've already seen on the ground in Ukraine and that's what we are expecting," she said.
The decision to establish new battlefield leadership comes as Russia gears up for what is expected to be a large and more focused push to expand Russian control in Ukraine's east and south, including the Donbas, and follows a failed opening bid in the north to conquer Kyiv, the capital.
Dvornikov gained prominence while leading the Russian group of forces in Syria, where Moscow has waged a military campaign to shore up Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime during a devastating civil war.
Dvornikov is a career military officer and has steadily risen through the ranks after starting as a platoon commander in 1982. He fought during the second war in Chechnya and took several top positions before being placed in charge of the Russian troops in Syria in 2015.
Under Dvornikov's command, Russian forces in Syria were known for crushing dissent in part by destroying cities, lobbing artillery and dropping what were often crudely made barrel bombs in sustained attacks that have displaced millions of Syrian civilians. The United Nations says the more than decade-long war has killed more than 350,000 people.
In 2016, Putin awarded Dvornikov the Hero of Russia medal, one of the country's highest awards. Dvornikov has served as the commander of the Southern Military District since 2016.
Lt. Col. Fares al-Bayoush, a Syrian army defector, said Sunday that while the situation in Syria is different than in Ukraine because the Russian military was fighting insurgent groups and not Ukraine's professional army, he expects a similar "scorched-earth" strategy.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, meanwhile, spoke by video conference Sunday to a small number of Ukrainian troops in the US who are now returning to their country. The group has been in the US since last fall for military schooling and were given training on new drones the US sent to Ukraine last week for the war with Russia.
Austin thanked the Ukrainian troop members for their courage and service and pledged continued US support and security aid, according to Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. Kirby said the small group was given some advanced tactical training, including on the Switchblade armed kamakazi drones, as well as instruction on patrol craft operations, communications and maintenance.
In an interview Saturday with The Associated Press, Zelenskyy acknowledged that despite his hopes for peace, he must be "realistic" about the prospects for a swift resolution given that negotiations have so far been limited to low-level talks that do not include Putin.
Zelenskyy renewed his plea for more weapons before an expected surge in fighting in the country's east. He said, with frustration in regards to supplies of weapons from the US and other Western nations, "of course it's not enough."
Sullivan spoke on CNN's "State of the Union" and NBC's "Meet the Press. Psaki spoke on "Fox News Sunday."
