BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO’s top commander said on Thursday he did not believe the Russian military had mobilized enough troops to carry out a strategic advance in the region around Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine.
Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, said he was confident that Ukrainian forces would hold their lines in the region.
Russia last week opened a new front in the Ukraine war when small groups of highly mobile units quickly advanced across the border into the Kharkiv region, forcing Ukraine to send in troops from other areas.
“The Russians do not have the numbers necessary to make a strategic advance,” Cavoli said at a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, following a meeting of military chiefs from across the transatlantic alliance.
“More precisely, they do not have the ability and capacity to do so, to operate at the scale necessary to exploit any advance for strategic advantage,” he added.
“They have the ability to make local advances and they were part of that. They also suffered some local losses.”
He did not provide figures on the number of troops Russia has deployed in the area.
Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of NATO’s military committee, said at the press conference that he expects “serious improvements” soon in the amount of ammunition Ukrainian forces will receive.
Russian forces have outspent Ukrainian troops, sometimes by a ratio of 10 to one, officials said.
The ammunition shortage in Ukraine was due in part to the months-long delay in passing a major military aid package for Ukraine through the US Congress.
Cavoli said Ukraine’s allies were now sending “large quantities” of munitions and short-range air defense systems and “significant quantities” of armored vehicles that would help counter Kharkiv’s advance.
“I am in very close contact with our Ukrainian colleagues. And I am confident that they will hold the line,” he said.
(Reporting by Andrew Gray, Benoit Van Overstraeten and Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
