A senior U.S. defense official said Tuesday that the Russian military’s advance on Kyiv has “stalled” because of logistical issues, while Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of war crimes after an apparent strike on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
“We generally sense that the Russia military movement to Kyiv is stalled at this point,” the official said in a briefing to reporters on Tuesday. The official noted that a 40-mile long convoy of Russian military vehicles, seen in satellite imagery, has not made meaningful progress toward the capital city in recent hours.
Some Russian troops may be running out of food, while the U.S. has indications that several Russian units may have surrendered without a fight, according to the assessment. A “significant number” of Russian soldiers are “very young men drafted into service,” according to the official.
“Many of them weren’t even aware that they would be sent into a combat zone,” the official said of Russian forces.
However, the U.S. has assessed that Russia has now committed over 80 percent of troops mobilized on the Ukrainian border towards the war effort. Russia has also occupied the cities of Berdyansk and Malitopol in southern Ukraine.
With the Russian invasion in its fifth day, the Twitter account for Ukraine’s parliament posted a picture of the Kyiv TV tower after it was hit in an apparent missile strike. Ukrainian emergency services said five people were killed in the attack, according to Reuters.
“Russian forces have just fired at the #Kyiv TV Tower,” the post read.
Russian forces have just fired at the #Kyiv TV Tower.#StandWithUkraine #StopRussia #StopPutinNOW pic.twitter.com/Prf3WMB4gt
— Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (@ua_parliament) March 1, 2022
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s president Zelensky slammed an apparent Russian missile strike on Freedom Square in Kharkiv.
“Today, Russian troops shelled Kharkiv using rocket artillery,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video posted on his Facebook page late on Monday. “This is, without any doubt, a military crime. A peaceful city. Peaceful residential neighborhoods. Not a single military object in sight.”
Zelensky claimed the attack left “dozens” dead in a speech to the European Parliament later on Tuesday.
“This is the price of freedom,” Zelensky said. “This is terror against Ukraine. There were no military targets in the square—nor are they in those residential districts of Kharkiv which come under rocket artillery fire.”