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The U.S. defense secretary said Ukraine’s capture of Lehman from Russia in eastern Ukraine was an encouraging battlefield success that will create new dilemmas for the Russian military.
“It’s important, of course. We’re very encouraged by what we’re seeing right now,” Lloyd Austin told reporters in Hawaii.
The capture of Lehman was Ukraine’s biggest battlefield victory since last month’s counteroffensive in northeastern Kharkiv.
Mr. Austin noted that Lehmann was on a supply line that Russia uses to push its troops and materiel down the south and west.
“Without those routes, it would have been much more difficult. So it created a kind of dilemma for the Russians going forward,” Mr Austin said.
“And we think the Ukrainians did a lot of work to get there and start taking the city.”
Mr. Austin did not say whether he thought the Ukrainian occupation of Lehman could prompt Russia to escalate, even as U.S. officials have widely condemned Russia’s nuclear rhetoric in recent days.
“What that means in terms of potential escalation, I’m not going to speculate. But for the battlefield it means the Ukrainians continue to make progress,” Mr Austin said.
“They continue to ask the Russians what they have to solve. Again, we all have to be inspired by what we’re seeing.”
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