While many Russian forces have left the area surrounding Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, U.S. officials still say the city remains under threat.
A senior U.S. defense official told reporters on Wednesday that they have seen a complete withdrawal of Russian forces near Kyiv and Chernihiv, though the threat remains based on Russia’s air capabilities. Russia has launched more than 1,450 missiles since the beginning of their invasion.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday, “I don’t think any of us are ready to say, ‘Well, the threat to Kyiv is over.’ I don’t even think the Ukrainians would say that,” days after officials noted last week that Russian troops appeared to be turning their attention to the Donbas region, in the southeastern part of the country, and away from the capital.
The latest moves by Russian forces come nearly six weeks after their invasion of Ukraine began, and they still have been unable to accomplish their main goal of conquering Kyiv through a confluence of factors, including a stronger-than-expected Ukrainian resistance and a series of self-inflicted problems.
They’ve begun “to retreat away from Kyiv” for what Kirby described as “refitting, resupplying, and then repositioning elsewhere,” hence making the appearance of an “occupation of Kyiv” a “diminished” possibility. But “they can and have” continued “to strike Kyiv from the air,” and the city remains “vulnerable to air attacks.”
FORMER MARIUPOL RESIDENT ‘CAN’T DESCRIBE THE HORROR’ SHE WITNESSED IN UKRAINE
Similarly, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday that despite the “renewed ground offensive in eastern Ukraine,” Russian forces “will likely continue to launch air and missile strikes across the rest of the country to cause military and economic damage — and, frankly, to cause terror, including against cities like Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and Lviv.”
“Russian forces are already well on their way of retreating from Kyiv to Belarus as Russia likely prepares to deploy dozens of additional battalion tactical groups constituting tens of thousands of soldiers to the front line in Ukraine’s east,” Sullivan continued, adding that should the Russians have success in the southeastern part of the country, the Pentagon expects “that Russia could potentially extend its force projection and presence even deeper into Ukraine.”
There have been new accusations of war crimes levied against Russian forces for their alleged actions in Bucha, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, after hundreds of bodies were found buried in a mass grave and other civilians were found shot and killed with their wrists bound behind them and other signs of torture.
The defense official called the Bucha attack “premeditated” and “very, very deliberate,” noting, however, that “it’s not the first time in this last 41 days or 42 days of conflict where the Russians have been committing war crimes, and it’s not the first example of brutality as brutal as it is.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Biden administration announced sanctions on Wednesday going after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adult children, a day after it announced the authorization of an additional shipment of up to $100 million in military supplies following the reports out of Bucha.
