The State Department said U.S. embassy operations in Kyiv resumed Wednesday, with diplomats returning on a permanent basis to the city. They had previously been temporarily relocated to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv and neighboring Poland.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “the Ukrainian people, with our security assistance, have defended their homeland in the face of Russia’s unconscionable invasion, and, as a result, the Stars and Stripes are flying over the Embassy once again.”
Other Western countries have also been reopening their embassies.
The Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine has been reduced to small units taking limited objectives such as towns, villages, even crossroads, a senior Defense Department official said Wednesday.
The shrunken aims of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion reflect the Russian army’s inability to coordinate its offensive, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe battlefield intelligence. Putin launched the invasion Feb. 24 with the goal of toppling the Ukrainian government.
The Russian war effort continues to suffer from poor communication between commanders, the official said. The smaller units involved in the fighting are not fully manned or equipped, limiting their ability to wage a wider war.
Russian commanders continue to stick with a traditional doctrine that emphasizes artillery assaults followed by a frontal attack with ground forces, the official said. The Ukrainians continue to rebuff many of the Russian movements, which have made limited progress in the east.
Near Kharkiv, the Ukrainian army continues to push back Russian forces farther from the city, Ukraine’s second largest, the official said. Russian forces have retreated to within two to six miles of their border. U.S.-supplied M777 howitzer cannons have been used in the fighting there, the official said.
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