Thread by @DanLamothe

A senior U.S. defense official just released an updated assessment of the war in Ukraine as of early Sunday evening in Washington. Basic updates:

"We’ve observed limited changes on the ground over the past day. Russian forces continued efforts to advance and isolate Kyiv, Kharkhiv and Chernihiv across the north and east are being met with strong Ukrainian resistance."

"There does not appear to be any significant movement along the Russian axes. Leading elements remain outside these city centers. We cannot give specific distances today.

"The convoy continues to be stalled."

"We assess that the Russians have now committed inside Ukraine somewhere near 95% of the combat power they had amassed along the border."

"We’ve observed fighting in the south near Kherson and Mykolaiv. We cannot independently verify reporting of Russian forces firing on protesters in Kherson."

"We have not observed an amphibious invasion in or near Odessa, nor do we assess that one is imminent.

"We’ve observed continued ongoing fighting and efforts to encircle Mariupol. There continue to be reports of wide-spread utility outages (water and electricity)."

"We cannot independently verify claims of ceasefire violations," senior U.S. defense official adds.

Senior U.S. defense official:

"In the airspace, we continue to observe that the airspace over Ukraine is contested. Ukrainian air and missile defenses remain effective and in use. The Ukrainian military continues to fly aircraft and to employ air defense assets."

"We are aware of the Ukrainian military’s release of videos and numbers of Russian aircraft shot down," senior U.S. defense official says. "We cannot independently verify those incidents, but neither are we in a position to refute them."

"Both sides have taken losses to both aircraft and missile defense inventories," senior U.S. defense official says. "We are not going to speak to numbers. We assess that both sides still possess a majority of their air defense systems and capabilities."

"As of today, we assess that approximately 600 Russian missile launches have occurred since the invasion began," senior U.S. defense official says.

"We believe the Ukrainian people in most parts of the country still have means of communication, access to internet and the media," senior U.S. defense official says.

Pentagon says it cannot corroborate any reports of cluster munitions or thermobaric weapons in U.S., can't say whether the Russians are calling up reserves, and can't say whether any Russian naval infantry have been loaded on any "LSTs," a kind of landing craft.

Pentagon also will not corroborate Ukrainian reports that Ukrainian forces have shot down one Russian Su-25 fighter jet, two Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers, two Russian Su-30 SM planes, and four Russian helicopters today.

Finally, Pentagon says it cannot corroborate reports that Russian dropped 1,000-pound bombs near Chernihiv.

This update in text form came instead of background briefings. It is not online, but you've now seen what I'm seeing.

Would anticipate backgrounders return tomorrow (Monday).

Observation: Journalists will continue to ask the Pentagon for additional information. But they don't have nearly the same visibility of this war that they do of the ones they are involved in directly.

As always, getting a clear picture of what is happening on the ground requires layering numerous sources. Even then, there will be gaps in knowledge.