Russian forces have moved forward, in the vicinity of Hostomel Airport, by about 5 kilometers (or about 3 miles) in the last day, a senior US defense official told reporters Thursday.
Russian forces continue to “advance their troops” along two parallel lines outside of Kyiv, and in those lines, the closest line has “reached about 40 kilometers east of Kyiv,” the official said.
“We see Russian forces continue to advance their troops, they’re really along two sort of parallel lines there, and we assess that the northern most of those two lines, the closest line has reached about 40 kilometers east of Kyiv,” the official said.
Out of those two lines, “the one that’s to the south of the two which kind of emanated out of Sumy, we also assess that some of [the Russian forces] might have reached approximately 40 kilometers from Kyiv,” the official said.
On the southern line, the official believes Russian forces “might be repositioning themselves back towards Sumy,” but it is not clear how many forces, how fast they are moving back, or why they are doing that, the official said.
The town of Chernihiv is “now isolated,” the official said.
The official also said Thursday that Russian forces have conducted “775 missile launches” of “all stripes, all different varieties” since the beginning of their invasion in Ukraine.
The US has seen “reports of internet outages particularly around Mariupol and Kherson,” over the last 24 hours, the official added.