(Moscow) Western military and intelligence aid to Ukraine is preventing Russia from “quickly” completing its offensive on its neighbor, the Kremlin said on Thursday, nevertheless assuring that all its objectives will be met.
Posted at 6:52
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov further assured the press that the humanitarian corridors were “working” on Thursday at the Azovstal metallurgical plant site to evacuate civilians from this last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the strategic port. from Mariupol.
“The United States, the United Kingdom, NATO as a whole constantly share intelligence data with the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Combined with weapon supplies […]these actions do not allow the operation to be completed quickly,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters, reacting to a publication published on Wednesday in the New York Times.
According to this newspaper, citing anonymous sources within the American services, the information provided by the United States to the Ukrainian army made it possible to target several Russian generals near the front.
These Western actions “are however not able to prevent” that the objectives of the Russian offensive in Ukraine are fulfilled, underlined the spokesman of the Kremlin.
He also assured that the Russian army respected the ceasefire it had announced the day before for Thursday to allow the evacuation of civilian refugees at the Azovstal factory site.
“The corridors are working there today,” said Mr. Peskov, denying statements from Kyiv that fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces was underway for control of this steel plant.
“The Ukrainian side and especially (the fighters) who have taken refuge on the site of the factory are known to fabricate a lot of lies,” he assured.
According to the Kremlin, no assault is underway in Azovstal, Vladimir Putin having ordered to besiege the site to make the Ukrainian units give in, cut off from the world.
This resistance as well as civilians are concentrated in the vast network of underground galleries of the steelworks which are difficult to storm or destroy by bombardment.