US Secretary of Defense: Putin “abandons” attempts to capture Kiev

Minister Lloyd said Austin During congressional hearings, he said, “Putin thought he could control himself Ukraine Capture the capital very, very quickly. He was wrong. “

He told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “I believe Putin has abandoned his efforts to control the capital and is now focusing on the south and east of the country.”

For his part, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Army, General Mark Millie The outcome of the protracted war is still uncertain.

“The war will last a long time … there is still a big war in the southeast, where the Russians want to form forces and continue their offensive. So it is not yet clear how this will end,” Millie said.

Ukraine has received about 60,000 units of anti-tank systems from the United States and its allies, and the Ukrainian military uses anti-personnel landmines, forcing the Russian military to fight at the most vulnerable levels, General Milli noted during the same session. .

The West supplied the Ukrainians with about 25,000 units of various anti-aircraft organizations, which prevented them from controlling Russia. Ukrainian airspaceAccording to a U.S. military official.

He noted that the Ukrainian military is now asking for tanks and artillery to repel Russia’s next attack.

“The terrain (southeast) is different from the north. It’s very open and favorable for armored operations on both sides … they can benefit from more tanks and artillery, that’s what they ask for.” The U.S. military chief of staff explained.

The Secretary of Defense seems to have agreed with what the United States thought, at least at the beginning of the conflict. Ukraine It can not regain control of the divided areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, located in the Basin. Donbass Moscow recently announced that it will focus on its operations there.

Responding to questions from Republican Senator Tom Cotton about the nature of the information that US military intelligence is sharing with Ukrainians, Austin clarified that it does not yet cover secession.

“We provide them with intelligence to carry out operations,” the defense minister said at the beginning of his response Donbass.

But when Cotton asked him if he had been asked about information on areas under the control of pro-Russian separatists since 2014, he admitted that the instructions given so far to military investigators were “not clear”.

He added, “We want to make sure this is clear to our forces … that is the purpose of the new instructions (which) will be issued today.”

She was US intelligence He announced the beginning of the war in Ukraine with remarkable accuracy, but he did not expect fierce Ukrainian opposition. Intelligence feared that Kiev would fall within 48 hours and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr would be ousted. Zhelensky Immediately replace it with a pro-Russian system.