Russia is “revising its war aims” to focus on the eastern part of Ukraine, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday.
“The Russians have realized that the west will not break,” he said from the White House briefing room podium, adding that the Russian military is “repositioning its forces to concentrate the offensive operations in eastern and part of southern Ukraine rather than target most of the territory.”
PENTAGON: ‘SMALL NUMBERS’ OF RUSSIAN TROOPS LEAVING KYIV, ‘NOT A REAL WITHDRAWAL’
The United States believes that Russia will now attempt to “surround and overpower” Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine.
A senior U.S. defense official told reporters earlier on Monday that roughly two-thirds of the Russian troops near Kyiv and Kharkiv had retreated back toward Belarus.
“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.
Similarly, the defense official stated, “We continue to believe … that they’re going to be refitted, resupplied, perhaps maybe even reinforced with additional manpower, and then sent back into Ukraine to continue fighting elsewhere. Our best assessment, and it is only an assessment, is that they will be applied in the eastern part of the country in the Donbas region, but that is an assessment only. We haven’t seen them begin to move.”
Over the weekend, Russian forces’ alleged actions in Bucha, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, prompted new calls of war crimes.
In Bucha, hundreds of civilians were found buried in a mass grave on Saturday, according to Ukrainian officials, while the town’s mayor said 300 residents were killed by Russian troops. Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, said on Sunday that the bodies of 410 dead civilians had been found so far.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Russians have denied responsibility for the deaths in Bucha, and they have accused the Ukrainians of planting the bodies in the street, while the New York Times reported that an analysis of satellite images of the area rebuts their denial.
The defense official said the Pentagon couldn’t independently verify the claims but added that they had “no reason whatsoever to refute the Ukrainians’ claims about these atrocities.”
