Almost three months after shocking the world by invading Ukraine, Russia's military advancement in Ukraine is "losing momentum" and "not going as planned," according to NATO officials.
“The brutal invasion (by) Russia is losing momentum,” NATO Deputy-Secretary General Mircea Geoana told reporters in Berlin. “We know that with the bravery of the Ukrainian people and army, and with our help, Ukraine can win this war.”
Top NATO diplomats, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, met Sunday in Berlin to discuss added assistance to Ukraine. Also on the agenda was expansion of the alliance to include Finland and possibly Sweden.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met with Blinken on Sunday. He noted on Twitter that more American aid and weapons are on the way.
While Moscow lost ground on the diplomatic front, Russian forces also failed to make territorial gains in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine said it held off Russian offensives in the east, and Western military officials said the campaign Moscow launched there after its forces failed to seize the capital, Kyiv, has slowed to a snail’s pace.
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Latest developments:
►Ukraine's prosecutor's office said Sunday that 227 children have died and over 400 have been injured since the invasion began.
►The U.S. is again accusing Russia of using the U.N. Security Council to spout disinformation and conspiracy theories about biological weapons in Ukraine to distract from its war in Ukraine. U.S. deputy ambassador Richard Mills called the Russian claims “categorically false and ludicrous.”
Will Putin use a nuclear weapon?
From nearly the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has teased the use of a nuclear weapon.
But most political scientists, nuclear arms experts, Western officials and seasoned Kremlin watchers say it's highly unlikely he would detonate a nuclear weapon to break an impasse over Russia's stalled offensive in Ukraine, now in its third month.
"If the conflict in Ukraine essentially remains an overt one between Russian and Ukrainian forces, with the West playing more of a proxy role, if we stay where we are today in terms of Western involvement in the conflict, I see no likelihood at all," said Dmitri Trenin, until recently director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank.
Read more on Putin's strategy here.
– Kim Hjelmgaard
Contributing: The Associated Press
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