Service members of the 126th Separate Territorial Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine take part in military exercises in the Odesa region on Wednesday. Oleksandr Gimanov/AFP
CNN: Biden officials privately doubt that Ukraine can win back all of its territory
White House officials are losing confidence that Ukraine will ever be able to take back all of the land it has lost to Russia over the past four months of war, US officials told CNN, even with the heavier and more sophisticated weaponry the US and its allies plan to send.
Advisers to President Joe Biden have begun debating internally how and whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should shift his definition of a Ukrainian “victory” – adjusting for the possibility that his country has shrunk irreversibly.
US officials emphasized to CNN that this more pessimistic assessment does not mean the US plans to pressure Ukraine into making any formal territorial concessions to Russia in order to end the war. There is also hope that Ukrainian forces will be able to take back significant chunks of territory in a likely counteroffensive later this year.
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WNU Editor: CNN has a lot of close ties to the Biden administration and the US intelligence community, and reporter Natasha Bertrand covers intelligence and national security stories. I would not be surprised if she has a few good sources in the White House, Pentagon, and the intelligence community, and they use her to pass-on administration thinking and analysis to the public.
So what are they telling her now?
They are telling her that the situation in Ukraine is becoming grim, and Ukraine is currently not in a position to launch a counter-offensive against Russia.