On Day 28, a defense official said Russian troops north of Kyiv are digging in.
Here are highlights of what a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Wednesday on Day 28:
Russian troops face major setback east of Kyiv and moving into defensive positions
In a significant movement, Ukraine’s military forces have pushed back Russian forces east of Kyiv to 55 kilometers from the city center, according to a senior defense official.
For weeks, and as recently as Tuesday, Russian forces have been kept at bay approximately 20 to 30 kilometers from the center of the capital city.
The ability to push back Russian forces nearly twice as far as where they had been for weeks is in line with what the official had said on Tuesday were indications that in some areas Ukrainian forces were attempting to retake territory taken by Russia. “Ukrainians are not only in some of these places up sufficiently defending they’re going on the offense in some of these places and actually pushing the Russians backwards, or in the case of Kiev, they’re, they’re basically forcing them into a defensive position,” the official said Wednesday.
Ukrainians pushing back Russian troops in Cherniviv
Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops in the city of Chernihiv, northeast of Kyiv, have also succeeded in slightly pushing back some of the Russian forces that have surrounded the city for weeks
Russian troops now prioritizing operations in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region
More US troops going forward to eastern Europe?
The official said that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is always assessing the U.S. military presence in eastern Europe and has not “taken off the table” the possibility “that he will flow more forces in from the United States or reposition from elsewhere in Europe.”
Russia has lots of missiles left to use
According to the official, Russia has now launched more than 1,200 missiles into Ukraine, but “we still assess that they have the vast majority of their of their assembled available inventory of surface to air missiles and cruise missiles available to them.”