John Kirby made the statement at a briefing on Tuesday night, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
Ukraine’s ‘swift and stunning’ advances
Commenting on Ukraine’s successful advance in the east and south, Kirby said: “I think what you’re seeing is certainly a shift in momentum by the Ukrainian armed forces.”
Kirby later told a TV interview: “They certainly have some momentum, particularly up there in the northeast part of the country,” adding that Ukraine’s advances have been “swift and stunning.”
The US official also said: “Certainly in the north, we have seen Russians evacuate, withdraw, or retreat from their defensive positions, particularly there in and around the Kharkiv Oblast.”
Kirby stressed: “They have left — they have left fighting positions. They have left supplies. They have — they’re calling it a repositioning, but it’s certainly — they have withdrawn in the face of Ukrainian Armed Forces that are clearly on the offense.”
Russia remains ‘an acute threat’
At the same time, the US official cautioned: “these are some dramatic events we’re watching, but it’s war. And war is unpredictable.”
He said he would leave it to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to say if he felt the counter-offensive marked “a turning point.”
Kirby agreed with the Pentagon’s assessment that Russia remains “an acute threat.”
“[T]hey have met with many problems of their own making in Ukraine. There’s no question about that. But it’s still a very large and very powerful military,” he said.
“And Mr. Putin still has an awful lot of military capacity left at his disposal, not just to be used in Ukraine, but potentially elsewhere,” Kirby warned.
He added that Russia had responded to battlefield defeats by attacking Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.
Kirby also stated that Washington would unveil new military assistance for Ukraine in a matter of days.
“I won’t get ahead of future security assistance packages. I do think you’ll see another one here in coming days,” the official told reporters at the White House.
Wednesday is day 203 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Source: IAR, PAP, whitehouse.gov, edition.cnn.com, thehill.com