U.S. official says Ukraine appears to have several key battlefield objectives
A Pentagon official said on Monday that Ukraine appears to have achieved several of its key battlefield objectives as Kyiv moves to strengthen its military position against Russia ahead of winter. The upbeat assessment by Celeste Wallander, Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Security Affairs, came on the same day that Ukrainian forces achieved their biggest breakthrough in the country's south since the war began.
Ukrainian troops burst over Russian lines and advanced rapidly along the Dnipro River, threatening supply lines for thousands of Russian troops.
Wallander noted the latest efforts under way in the southern region of Kherson as recent successes in Kharkiv and Donetsk.
Wallander told the Center for Strategic and International Studies that Ukraine seems to be on track to achieve all three of those objectives right now.
The defeats for Russia have sparked public criticism of the generals running Russia's war and prompted Moscow to order a partial mobilization of forces.
A U.S. military official, briefing Pentagon reporters on condition of anonymity, said that Washington - which is arming and advising Ukraine's military - still hasn't seen a large Russian reinforcement of its troops in Ukraine.
The official said that there were relatively small numbers of Russian reinforcements but nothing large-scale at this stage of the game.
Kyiv gave little information about its latest gains in the south, but Russian sources acknowledged that a Ukrainian tank offensive had advanced dozens of kilometres along the river's west bank, capturing a number of villages along the way.
Wallander said that Ukraine's goal is to push back the Russian bridgehead on the Western Bank of the Dnipro in Kherson.
She said that it would be a big defeat for Russia because it pushes back Russia's ambition to take Odessa, which was one of the stated objectives earlier this year.
It will give Ukraine a better defensive position to ride out of what is likely to be a tamping down of the hot fighting over the winter. The attack in the south mirrors the tactics that have brought Kyiv big gains in eastern Ukraine since the beginning of September, where its forces swiftly seized territory to gain control of Russian supply lines, cutting off larger Russian forces and forcing them to retreat.
On Friday, Ukraine recaptured Lyman, the main Russian bastion in the north of Donetsk province. That opened the way for it to advance deep into Luhansk province, threatening the main supply routes to Moscow captured in some of the war's bloodiest battles in June and July.
Wallander said that Ukraine's capture of Lyman would affect Russia's ability to supply, resupply and move forces all along that forward line of conflict.