US says Ukraine’s chances of victory ‘not high’ due to Russian combat power
The top US general said Ukraine's chances of any near-term, outright military victory were not high, as Russia still had significant combat power.
"The probability of a Ukrainian military victory - defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine to include what they claim as Crimea - the probability of that happening anytime soon is not high, militarily," General Mark Milley, chairman of the US's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news conference at the Pentagon on Wednesday.
Milley underscored that Russia still had significant combat power inside Ukraine despite suffering some battlefield setbacks.
While playing down the prospect of a military victory for Ukraine, Milley said, "Politically, there may be a political solution where...the Russians withdraw. That's possible."
Russia has been conducting a "special military operation" in Ukraine since February this year in order to defend the pro-Russian population of the two regions against persecution by Kiev.
The war has spread ever since to include other regions in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Kiev has defined a military victory as forcing Russia out of all the territories that are currently under the control of Russian troops throughout Ukraine in addition to Crimea.
Ukraine's Crimea peninsula voted overwhelmingly in favor of joining Russia in a referendum held in 2014.
In the same year, the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk broke away from the ex-Soviet republic, refusing to recognize a Western-backed Ukrainian government there that had overthrown a democratically-elected Russia-friendly administration.
Ever since the beginning of the war, Western countries have been pumping Ukraine full with advanced weapons, something that Russia says would only prolong the tension and undermine the chances of its political resolution.
Milley, meanwhile, reassured Ukraine that Washington would support Kiev in, what he called, defending itself for as long as it takes, echoing comments made by Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin at the same event.
The United States has exceeded all of Ukraine's other Western backers in terms of arms support, having provided Kiev with a whopping $8.5 billion so far in military aid.
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