Amidst the ongoing war in Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has claimed that President Vladimir Putin’s decision to push in reinforcements to Ukraine’s Kharkiv region is a pointer to the huge losses Russia’s forces are taking in the ongoing conflict.
While speaking to reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Friday after talks with the Western alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Blinken said; ‘there are a huge number of Russian forces that are in Ukraine and unfortunately, tragically, horrifically President Putin has demonstrated that he will throw a lot of people into this at huge cost to Russia, at huge cost to its future’.
Africa Today News, New York reports that this is coming one day after the chief US diplomat had paid Kyiv a surprise visit.
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Earlier, Russian news agencies had on Friday reported that Moscow’s forces were redeploying to the Kharkiv region in response to a large-scale Ukrainian counter-offensive.
The TASS and RIA Novosti news agencies shared video from Russia’s defence ministry, showing the movement of military hardware on a paved road, some with Russian flags and bearing the letter “Z”, a symbol of Russia’s military campaign.
Local Moscow-installed official Vitaliy Ganchev said in televised remarks that “fierce battles” were under way near Balakliya, a town in Kharkiv region that Ukraine said it had recaptured on Thursday.
In another report, the President of the United States, Joe Biden has led international tributes in mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II as her death signifies the end of an era.
Africa Today News, New York had earlier reported that the British’s longest-reigning monarch passed on Thursday at the age of 96 at her Balmoral Castle in Scotland.
In a statement on Friday, Biden stated the Queen was a steadying presence and a source of comfort and pride for generations.