As the Russian/Ukraine offensive enters day two, the Ukrainians appear to be showing fierce resistance against the more powerful and heavily experienced Russian armed force.
According to reports, Russian Vladimir Putin, despite an overwhelming advantage of military personnel and ammunition, may be in for a surprise as the Ukrainian forces show an unusual determination and resilience to hold forte and defend their country.
“We do assess that there is greater resistance by the Ukrainians than the Russians expected,” the official said. “They are fighting for their country.”
Despite threatening and relentless attacks by the Russians of the capital, Kyiv, and other major cities like Kharkiv and small-but-strategic cities like Rivne, none have fallen under the Russian control yet as the Ukrainian air defenses remain largely intact.
Former CIA director David Petraeus reportedly expressed shock at the high level of resistance which the Russians are facing in the hands of the Ukrainian armies.
“They are encountering more significant resistance and more determination than I think they expected,” Petraeus said.
“The Russians have not collapsed the Ukrainian command and control,” Petraeus said. “They haven’t taken even remotely a major city yet….This has to be unsettling to them.”
Still, Petraeus said he expects the Russians will eventually defeat the Ukrainian army.
“They’ll defeat the Ukrainian conventional forces, that’s again, not in question,” he said. “It’s how long it takes, how determined can they be as they’re taking very tough losses.”
Western Ukraine, which borders NATO member Poland and where the U.S. and other countries are maintaining a diplomatic presence in the city of Lviv, “remains largely undisturbed,” the official said.
And while a Russian amphibious assault involving thousands of soldiers was underway west of the city of Mariupol in the Sea of Azov, the official said the assumption is that those forces are bound for the Donbas region, which is a pro-Russian area where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian forces for months.
“Contrary to great Russian claims, and indeed President Putin’s sort of vision that somehow the Ukrainians would be liberated and would be flocking to his cause, he’s got that completely wrong, and the Russian army has failed to deliver, on Day One, its main objective,” British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said.
Wallace’s assessment came as the outskirts of Kyiv were being pounded by Russian missile strikes and machine guns were being handed out to civilians preparing to defend their city from the invaders.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has shed his tailored suits and is now dressed for battle in hunting gear, has refused to leave Kyiv and has been pleading for Western governments to take tougher measures against Moscow.
“I think they are going to fight,” James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral and former top NATO commander, said of the Ukrainians on NBC’s “TODAY.” “The government in Kyiv has handed out 18,000 rifles to the populace. They are restricting all men age 18 to 60 from leaving the country. Clearly Zelenskyy, he’s out of his suit. He’s wearing his hunting gear. This is going to be a tough fight for the Russians.”
“It’s definitely our view that the Russians intend to invade the whole of Ukraine,” Wallace told Britain’s Sky News, adding that Moscow is already “behind its hoped for timetable” and has lost more than 450 personnel.
There has no doubt been casualties on both sides but the exact numbers could not be immediately verified.
The Ukrainian Department of Defense claims the Russians have suffered 800 casualties, a figure Moscow disputes.
NBC News has not confirmed the numbers of any injuries or deaths on either side.
Putin insisted his military is winning the war and continued to cast the biggest European invasion since World War II as a defensive measure.
“Our soldiers are successfully fulfilling the task of protecting our people and our Fatherland,” he told Russian media.
Igor Konachenkov Chief Spokesman for the Russians , despite contrary evidence, insisted that the “Russian armed forces will not carry out any strikes against the residential areas of the Ukrainian capital.”
But already footage has emerged of residential apartment buildings in Kyiv that had been hit by what appeared to be missile strikes. And thousands of residents have already been hiding in shelters and in subway stations, their sleep made impossible by fear and the wailing of warning sirens.
“Currently, Kyiv is being under attack from the north and south,” Veronika Melkozerova, executive editor of The New Voice of Ukraine, said on MSNBC. “Every Ukrainian is going to fight, and it is not going to be an easy ride for Russia.”
Petraeus said Zelenskyy and his countrymen have made believers out of the doubters who questioned whether Ukraine would have the will to fight Putin’s forces.
“We’ve got answers to that,” Petraeus said. “They will fight, and by the way, it appears that the citizenry is determined to fight as well.”
With Reports From NBC News