Amid the continued rapid advance of Russian forces in Ukraine's east, and with the Donetsk villages of Vesely Gai and Pushkino (15km south of Pokrovsk) having been captured, Russia is also going after US-made Patriot batteries.
"Russian forces have destroyed four Patriot anti-aircraft missile launchers provided to Ukraine by Western nations," the Defense Ministry announced Saturday.
The statement said that air force jets along with with drones and artillery groups, "destroyed a combat control vehicle, an AN/MPQ-65 radar station and four launchers of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system made in the US."
Zelensky has pleaded with the West to hand Ukraine at least 25 Patriot batteries, and some European countries have recently donated theirs to Ukrainian forces.
This isn't the first time that Russia has taken out Patriots. Back in October the defense ministry said its forces struck "two Patriot launcher stations made in the US" along with a control station and radar set part of the Patriot defensive network.
At that time a Ukrainian member of parliament had revealed that at least one Patriot battery was damaged in the October attack, but Kiev typically doesn't comment on the extent of damage to its Western-supplied weapons systems.
Early last summer the Biden administration took the drastic step of pausing all Patriot deliveries to allies, instead announcing that they would be redirected to Ukraine.
"We’re going to reprioritize the deliveries of these exports so that those missiles rolling off the production line will now be provided to Ukraine," Biden said at the time, with these first shipments having rolled out by late summer and into fall.
Patriot missile batteries have also been sent to to Ukraine from US bases of operations in neighboring Poland. All of this has been controversial as it impacts Europe's home defense.
President Biden at the start of that prior initiative had announced that "everything we have is going to go to Ukraine until their needs are met" amid the broader push to get more European countries to donate weapons.
Meanwhile there are more indicators that Ukraine's front lines are crumbling:
Ukraine's military leadership has replaced the commander overseeing defenses in the eastern Donetsk region where Russian forces are making swift advances, a military official said on Saturday.
General Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, 54, was appointed to head the operational and tactical group Donetsk, replacing General Oleksandr Lutsenko, the official at the General Staff told Reuters.
The weekend report further said, "Lutsenko was criticized by Ukrainian military bloggers and some lawmakers for failing to stop Russian troops' relentless push toward the strategic Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk."