Officials in the administration of US President Joe Biden told Congress, Friday evening, that ukrainian capital kiev It might fall quickly, as Foreign Policy reported that Biden had halted arms control talks with Russia.
According to the New York Times, he told Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, “They told lawmakers that Kiev was under siege from the north, south and east and its downfall was likely.”
The US Secretary of Defense confirmed that Washington would continue to provide military equipment to Ukraine, but he admitted the difficulty of doing so due to Russia’s control of Ukrainian airspace.
And the Bloomberg news network had said Thursday that the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, might fall within hours, with the destruction of air defenses.
Prior to that, US officials told Newsweek that they expected the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, to fall to incoming Russian forces within days, and that the country’s resistance would be effectively neutralized shortly therefollowing.
From the destruction of buildings in the Ukrainian capital Kiev
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Moscow’s focus, as indicated by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s signals, would be to encircle Ukrainian forces and force them to surrender or destroy them.
They expected Kiev to be captured within 96 hours, and the Ukrainian leadership to fall in regarding a week.
Russian attacks on the Ukrainian government and military institutions, combined with ground offensives to seize strategic points, appear to be only the first phase of what may be a more comprehensive ground campaign.
A former senior US intelligence officer, who has extensive experience in dealing with Russia, expressed his predictions for the scenario of the Russian military operation.
“After the aerial and artillery bombardments are over and the ground war really begins, I think Kiev will fall in just a few days,” the senior US intelligence officer told Newsweek. “The Ukrainian army may hold out a little longer, but it won’t last long.”
And the British Ministry of Defense said, on Friday, that the Russian army is trying to advance towards the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, from a new axis, following it failed to control the city of Chernihiv.
The ministry said on Twitter that Russian forces were still more than 50 kilometers from the city center of Kiev, noting reports of sporadic clashes in the northern suburbs of the Ukrainian capital.
