The Russian military is adding more of its troops staged at the border into Ukraine roughly 11 days into the invasion.
Of the roughly 170,000 troops stationed along the Ukrainian border in Russia and Belarus, “somewhere near 95%” of them are now within the country, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Sunday evening. This marks a rise from the Pentagon’s 92% estimate on Friday.
The Pentagon “observed limited changes on the ground over the past day” as the Russian forces “continued [their] efforts to advance and isolate Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv across the north and east are being met with strong Ukrainian resistance,” the official said.
Ukrainian forces have launched “direct attacks” on the convoy of Russian forces heading south for the capital, Kyiv, from Belarus, which neighbors Ukraine to the north, according to the update Friday from a senior U.S. defense official. The Pentagon believes it remains “stalled,” which is a characterization the United States has made for days. The defense official said on Thursday that it had been “two to three days” since Russian forces made an “appreciable” advancement.
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Russian forces have had more success in the southern part of the country, in part due to the existing infrastructure in place since the invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014. The Russian troops in the southern half of Ukraine also have a shorter distance to cover to resupply.
“We’ve observed fighting in the south near Kherson and Mykolaiv,” the U.S. defense official added Sunday. “We have not observed an amphibious invasion in or near Odesa, nor do we assess that one is imminent. We’ve observed continued ongoing fighting and efforts to encircle Mariupol.”
Both Odesa and Mariupol are port cities, located along the coast of the Black Sea and neighboring the Sea of Azov, respectively.
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Russian troops have conducted roughly 600 missile launches, a number that rises every day, per the official. Russia’s military has allegedly used cluster munitions, which are bombs that release smaller bombs when they hit the ground and explode, and thermobaric weapons, both of which have resulted in allegations of war crimes.
The Pentagon is unable to corroborate the claims that the Russians utilized these weapons.
