Putin ‘likely still has designs on all of Ukraine,’ Pentagon warns… as official remains tight-lipped over how US will respond to future North Korea nuke tests: ‘Final decisions have not been made’
- Pentagon official believes Putin has not given up on taking all of Ukraine
- Military and tactical failures have so far forced Russia to narrow its war aims
- Russia is razing the city of Severdonetsk in a bid to capture the Donbas
- The Pentagon has also not yet made a final decision on how to respond North Korean nuclear tests
Russian President Vladimir Putin likely still wants to capture much if not all of Ukraine but has been forced to narrow his tactical objectives in war, a top political advisor has said.
The judgement comes as Russian forces inexorably push Ukrainian positions back in the grinding war in the Donbas, although the progress is a far cry from Putin’s original grand war aims to capture Kyiv and decapitate the country in four days.
‘I still think he has designs on a significant portion of Ukraine, if not the whole country,’ Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said, speaking at an event hosted by the Center for New American Security.
‘That said, I do not think he can achieve those objectives,’
‘They may make tactical gains here and there. The Ukrainians are holding up. I do not think the Russians have the capacity to achieve those grandiose objectives.’
Currently the aims are restricted to capturing the rest of the Donbas and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, which were already partially under pro-Moscow separatist control.
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl believes Russian President Vladimir Putin likely still wants to capture much if not all of Ukraine despite the setbacks his army has suffered
The city of Severdonetsk in eastern Ukraine has not yet been blocked off by Russian troops, but they control about 80 per cent of the area and have destroyed all three bridges leading out of it
Ukraine has asked its Western allies to supply an additional 1,000 artillery guns in order to put them on a level footing with Russian forces in the Donbas (pictured, a US M777 howitzer)
North Korea provided this photo of what they claim is a test launch of a hypersonic missile in North Korea last January in a move that signals renewed confrontation with the United States
Destroyed houses after strike in the town of Pryvillya at the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. Russian forces are inexorably pushing Ukrainian positions back in the grinding war in the Donbas
Smoke and dirt rise from the city of Severodonetsk as Ukrainian forces are pushed to the outskirts of the city
Kahl also said the United States has not yet made a final decision on how to respond to any future North Korean nuclear test, a day after America’s top diplomat warned of adjustments to U.S. military posture.
Asked to detail potential short- and longer-term military adjustments, Kahl said: ‘No, because I think the final decisions have not been made.’
‘Any adjustments we may make in our posture will – in the first instance – be done in consultation and close consultation with (South Korea) and with Japan,’ Kahl said, adding he didn’t want to ‘outpace’ conversations.
But North Korea is just one other ball the Pentagon is juggling, with the situation in Ukraine seen as far more urgent.
In response to Ukraine setbacks on the battlefield, Kyiv has written out an eyewatering list of heavy weapons they demand from their Western allies to help them fend off the Russian invaders.
The United States has not yet made a final decision on how to respond to any future North Korean nuclear test (Pictured: North Korean leader Kim Yong-un)
A woman walks past a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul, after North Korea hinted it could resume nuclear and long-range weapons tests, as it prepared for ‘long-term confrontation’ with the United States,
The South Korean Defense Ministry, U.S. and South Korea fighter jets fly over the Korean Peninsula in response to North Korea’s missile tests
Top presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said Monday that Kyiv needs 1,000 howitzers, 300 rocket artillery systems, 500 tanks, 2,000 armored vehicles and 1,000 drones ‘to end the war’.
The eye-watering shopping list amounts to an army’s-worth of Western equipment and goes well beyond both what has been supplied so far and what Ukraine itself has been requesting.
Put in context, 500 new tanks would be more than the UK and Germany have in active service combined, while 1,000 howitzers and 300 rocket launchers is more than the US currently has in active service.
The US has supplied a little over 100 howitzers to Ukraine so far while the US and UK combined are thought to have sent seven rocket systems.
Podolyak published the list amid heavy fighting in Ukraine’s east – where Russia has this week issued a ‘surrender or die’ order to troops defending a key Donbas city – and ahead of a Wednesday meeting in Brussels to discuss weapons supplies.
The city of Severdonetsk in eastern Ukraine has not yet been blocked off by Russian troops, but they control about 80 per cent of the area and have destroyed all three bridges leading out of it, an official said.
‘There is still an opportunity for the evacuation of the wounded, communication with the Ukrainian military and local residents,’ Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Haidai told the Associated Press.
He acknowledged that Ukrainian forces have been pushed out to the industrial outskirts of the city because of ‘the scorched earth method and heavy artillery the Russians are using’.
About 12,000 people remain in Severdonetsk, a city with a pre-war population of 100,000. More than 500 civilians are sheltering in the Azot chemical plant, which is being relentlessly pounded by the Russians, according to Mr Haidai.
Ukraine also wants another 500 tanks which it says are needed to ‘win’ against Russia (pictured, the German Leopard 2 tank which Spain was considering sending to Kyiv)
Zelensky’s adviser said 300 multiple-launch rocket systems are also required, with the US and UK having sent just seven so far (pictured, M270 MLRS)
Ukrainian servicemen ride American 155 mm turreted self-propelled howitzers M109, one of about 100 that the US has supplied
A total of 70 civilians have been evacuated from the Luhansk region over the past 24 fours, the governor said.
Two people were killed and another wounded in the Luhansk region, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Russian Colonel-General Mkhail Mizintsev said a humanitarian corridor will be opened on Wednesday to evacuate civilians from the besieged Azot plant, and take them to the town of Svatovo, 35 miles to the north in territory under the control of Russian and separatist forces.
He said the plan was made after Ukraine called for an evacuation corridor leading to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
Col-Gen Mizintsev, head of the National Defense Management Center, is accused by Ukraine of human rights violations while commanding troops during the long siege of Mariupol, Ukraine’s key port on the Sea of Azov that has been taken over by the Russians.
Russian forces in the last few weeks have pressed hard to capture Ukraine’s eastern industrial Donbas area, which borders Russia and is made up of the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
‘The situation is difficult,’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelesnky said in a news conference with Danish media. ‘Our task is to fight back.’
Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the aid organizations supplying food to people in the Donbas, said fighting in the past few weeks has made regular food distributions impossible.
Now, he said, the remaining civilians in the city ‘are almost entirely cut off from aid supplies after the destruction of the last bridge’.
Ukrainian authorities said on Tuesday that they had received the bodies of 64 defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, in another body swap with Russia.
The statement by the Ministry for Reintegration of Occupied Territories said the exchange took place in the Zaporizhzhia region, but did not clarify how many bodies were returned to Russia.
It was one of several body swaps the warring sides have conducted. Earlier this month Moscow and Kyiv exchanged 160 bodies each.
Meanwhile, Ukraine said its air defense system shot down two Russian cruise missiles targeting the Odesa region.
Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesman for the Odesa regional military administration, thanked the country’s air defense forces for striking down ‘two enemy’ cruise missiles.
There was no independent confirmation and it was not clear if any missiles hit their targets.
Reports of overnight shelling came from other Ukrainian regions as well, with five people were wounded in the Kharkiv region.
Source: Read Full Article
