Russia unleashed a string of attacks against Ukrainian rail and fuel facilities on Monday, striking crucial infrastructure far from the front line of its eastern offensive, which Britain said has yet to achieve a significant breakthrough. Meanwhile, two fires were reported at oil facilities in western Russia. It was not clear what caused the blazes. As both sides in the two-month war brace for what could be a grinding battle of attrition in the country's eastern industrial heartland, top American officials pledged more help to ensure Ukraine prevails.
In meetings with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Sunday, the American secretaries of state and defense said Washington had approved $165 million sale of ammunition for Ukraine's war effort, along with more than $300 million in foreign military financing.
“The strategy that we've put in place – massive support for Ukraine, massive pressure against Russia, solidarity with more than 30 countries engaged in these efforts – is having real results,” Blinken told reporters in Poland the day after the meeting.
Speaking on Monday to top officials at the Prosecutor General's office, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the US and its allies have tried and failed to “split Russian society and to destroy Russia from within”. When Russia invaded on February 24, its apparent goal was a lightning offensive that would quickly take the capital and perhaps even topple the government in Kyiv. But the Ukrainians, aided by Western weapons, bogged Putin's troops down and thwarted their push to Kyiv. Moscow now says its focus is in the eastern region of the Donbas, but one senior military official says it also wants to control southern Ukraine. While both sides said the campaign in the east has begun, it has yet to gather steam.
