War In Ukraine Could “Drag On For A While”: US’ “Best Assessment”

Russia could reposition some of its forces around the Ukrainian capital kyiv to send them to the eastern region of Donbass, where Ukrainian forces have put up fierce resistance, the Pentagon said Thursday. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby also said  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has decided to keep elements of the 82nd Airborne Division in Europe for the time being, as well as a carrier strike group. planes in the Mediterranean. Russia moved a “small number” of perhaps 20% of its troops from kyiv after failing to capture the city, and continues to be the target of Russian airstrikes, Kirby said. “It is unclear exactly  where they will go, for how long and for what purpose,” he said, “but we  see no indication that they will be sent home.” The Pentagon spokesman said the “best assessment” is that the troops “They will be moved, probably to  Belarus, for repair, resupply and use elsewhere in Ukraine. He noted that Russia has helped it to” restore” its operations in the Donbass region. “That could be a destination,” he said. Sergei Rudskoi, a senior Russian military official, said last week that the first phase of the military campaign in Ukraine was completed and that troops would now focus on “the main objective of liberating Donbass”, which is already partially held by Russian delegates. Kirby noted that the Donbass region had been disputed for eight years and that the Ukrainian army was “very active” in the area. “It could drag on for a while,” he said.”It may not just be a matter of days and weeks, it may be much longer than that. It’s really hard to know. The Pentagon spokesman said Austin has decided to keep elements of the 82nd Airborne Division in Europe and the USS Harry S… Truman aircraft carrier  in the Mediterranean. “They’re not going anywhere, anytime for the foreseeable future,” Kirby said. want to be able to monitor the situation on the ground and make the best and most flexible decisions in real time Kirby said the United States had also received indications that some Russian forces had left the area around the  Chernobyl nuclear power plant affected by the accident. “We know that they are leaving  the north to go back to Belarus,” he said, adding that “it was not necessarily  done because of health risks or some kind of emergency or  crisis in Chernobyl”. not being able to  say “definitely” who was now in charge of Chernobyl, the site of a  nuclear accident in 1986.