Putin has now committed about two-thirds of his combat power, the combat power that was arrayed against Ukraine, not total combat power of the Russian military, but the combat power that he applied to this invasion, about two-thirds of it has now been committed inside Ukraine, which means he still has a third outside Ukraine, which is not insignificant.Īs of this morning, we assess that they have launched now more than 320 missiles. And that means that the Ukrainians are still using both aircraft, and their own air and missile defense systems, which we believe are still intact and still viable, though they have been, as I said yesterday, there's been some degradation by the Russians.Īs for Russian force posture, we today assess that, Mr. The airspace over Ukraine is still contested. And the Ukrainians will put up a resistance there. And our assessment is that Mariupol is defended. Down in the south, where they have had a little bit more success, and aren’t facing quite the same sustainment challenges that they are in the north, we talked about this amphibious assault the other day we believe that assault now has drawn those forces combined with ground forces that - that have also moved up towards Mariupol that they've - they've drawn themselves to within about 50 kilometers from Mariupol from the city center of Mariupol. So, when I say a number like that, I'm referring to the city center, not the suburbs, but 30 miles from the city center, 30 kilometers excuse me from the city center. Geographically, we assess that the Russian forces still remain about 30 kilometers from the city center in Kyiv. We have seen reports that, as I said yesterday that some reconnaissance elements were in Kyiv and, and we've seen reports that we have no reason to doubt, that some of these Recon elements are actually wearing Ukrainian uniforms to try to disguise themselves and what they're doing.īut they have been in some cases identified by locals, and by the Ukrainian military, again, right out of the Russian playbook here. But clearly, that continues to be, in our view, their goal. We still, as of this morning, have no indication that the Russian military has taken control of any cities. Although we believe that they are facing some logistics challenges as well on their advanced down north to Kyiv.
This is most particularly acute in their advanced on Kharkiv.
We continue to observe that they have experienced fuel and logistics shortages. We, overnight over the last time since we talked, we do continue to see Russian momentum slowed they continue to face a stiff resistance. And that includes in the strategic deterrent realm, and that is as far as I'm going to go on that question. I would just tell you that we remain confident in our ability to defend ourselves and our allies, and our partners. And we do not talk about our - the specifics of our strategic deterrent posture, so I'm not going to qualify that further. And escalatory because it is clearly potentially putting at play forces that could that if there's a miscalculation could - could make things much, much more dangerous.Īnd the next question you're gonna ask me is, have we changed our strategic deterrent posture.
We believe that this is not only an unnecessary step for him to take but an escalatory one, unnecessary because Russia has not ever been under threat by the west or by NATO and certainly wasn't under any threat by Ukraine. We have no reason to doubt the validity of these reports. We - so, again, I'm on background to Senior Defense Official.
#DEFCON STATUS UPDATE#
Before I go in with the sort of situational update as we see it, I know that the first question I'm going to get asked is about this order by Mr.
#DEFCON STATUS HOW TO#
It's SDO, sorry to be a couple minutes late here, spent the last five minutes just trying to figure out how to use the phone system and dial the 10 different numbers that needed to dial to get in here. SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL (SDO): Good morning, everybody.
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