“Roughly several hundred” Americans are with the tens of thousands of Ukrainians who have fled within the last day amid Russia’s invasion, according to a senior defense official.
The Pentagon official’s admission to reporters about Americans citizens or dual nationals on Friday morning provides new insight into what’s going on with Americans who have been warned for weeks to leave that country before a war broke out. The war began on Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the beginning of the operation early Thursday morning local time, and shortly thereafter, troops entered Ukraine from Belarus going south, Crimea going north, and from the east.
While thousands of Ukrainians have fled west to Poland, others have stayed to fight.
The senior defense official told reporters that in their assessment, Russia is experiencing more pushback from Ukrainian forces than they expected in their path to Kyiv. The United States has previously said that Russia had amassed “between 169,000 and 190,000,” troops along Ukraine’s border, and roughly a third of them have advanced into Ukraine.
The troops heading “towards Kyiv we assess is going slower than the Russians had anticipated it going,” the official added. “They’re meeting more resistance than they expected.”
One hundred thirty-seven Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 316 were injured, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday.
Zelensky, in a video address to his people earlier in the day, accused Russian forces of targeting him.
“According to our information, the enemy marked me as target No. 1, my family as target No. 2. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state. We have information that enemy sabotage groups have entered Kyiv,” he said.
U.S. officials have reiterated concerns for the Ukrainian head of state.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he’s “convinced” of Putin’s plan to remove Zelensky, while a senior defense official told reporters earlier that day, “We still believe … they have every intention of basically decapitating the government and installing their own method of governance.”
