Thread by @Osinttechnical

Senior US defense official background briefing thread-

"Not a whole lot of changes today either... no real changes by the Russians on the ground near Kyiv; still hold them to be about 15 kilometers to the northwest, and still about 30 to the east."

"one reason why think they're so interested in Mariupol, so they can come up from the south, down from the north from Izyum. (We assessed) that the Russians had taken Izyum, and what we're seeing is some significant fighting there by the Ukrainians in an effort to take it back."

"Down in the south, you know, now that we're talking about Mariupol, no -- no real changes from yesterday to talk about with the exception of a couple of things... lots of continued bombardment, artillery and long-range fires in the Mariupol. "

"What we observed over the last 24 hours is that the Russians have likely been firing into the city from the sea, from the Sea of Azov, so just to the south of Mariupol. We assess that they've got about... seven [ships in the Sea of Azov]...

...and -- and we think some of them, at least the surface combatants -- or at least some of the surface combatants have been -- have been shelling into Mariupol, and that -- that wasn't the case yesterday."

"Now, not all of those seven ships are surface combatants. We think they've got a minesweeper in there and a couple of LSTs, but I did want to note that that is a bit of a change from yesterday."

"No changes in -- in the airspace to speak of."

"No real changes from yesterday. We did not observe shelling of Odesa from the Black Sea over the last 24 hours, but we still assess that they have several warships that are in the northern Black Sea... no indication that there is an imminent amphibious assault on or near Odesa"

"We have assessed that for the first time that the Russians may be slightly below a 90 percent level of assessed available combat power. Let me remind, that is of the combat power that they assembled in Belarus and in the western part of their country prior to the invasion."

"no tangible indications of reinforcements being brought in from elsewhere in the country, no... indications of foreign fighters that have flown into the country. We do assess the Wagner Group is active in Ukraine. We think that that activity is largely in the Donbas area"

"no tangible indications that they are making an effort to resupply from outside the theater there, that they're pulling in from elsewhere around Russia. But we do continue to see indications that they are having these discussions...

...and that they are making those kinds of plan both in terms of resupply, and also reinforcement. It's just that we haven't seen that actually taking place."

"We don't see a push from the south towards Kyiv from the Russians. They haven't been able to break out of Chernihiv. So I don't know that we would have assessed Kyiv as encircled."

"I can't verify the accounts of them [Ukrainians] taking back a suburb [Makariv]. I did ask that question this morning anticipating that you would, but we can't confirm it, can't refute it either, but we can't independently verify it."

"What I can say is we have seen, if it is true, it's certainly of a piece of efforts that we have seen Ukrainian endeavor in the last few days to try to take back territory that the Russians have gained, such as I mentioned yesterday in Kherson."

"The Russians still have not been able to take Mykolaiv. And now we assess that before, they were [north to northeast of the city]... we get a sense that they are repositioning themselves to the southern part of the city because the Ukrainians are fighting so hard in Mykolaiv."

"we're definitely seeing anecdotal evidence, anyway, that the -- that the Ukrainians are not only defending well, where they choose to defend, but they are -- they are making efforts to take back territory that the Russians have -- you know, have taken in recent days."

"We do continue to see them defend in a very nimble, agile way... But, again, what we're starting to see are indications that they are now able and willing to take back territory that the Russians have taken."

[On the "leaked" Russian casualty figures] "I'm aware of that incident but we can't declaratively say whether it was hacking or whether it was a protester who did it, or whether the outlet was making some sort of statement. And we certainly can't verify the numbers."

"We believe that they [Russia] believe it's been a problem since the first week. And they have struggled to overcome the challenges and the missteps that they have made with respect to logistics and sustainment."

[On the subject of Russian reinforcements] "Again... of the battalion tactical groups that Mr. Putin has available to him across Russia, he has used about 75 percent in this particular operation.

So I think our assumption would be he'd pull from outside the country first."

"We certainly know that they [Russia] have chem-bio forces available to them. So that's something we would obviously monitor. We would monitor the rhetoric because the rhetoric matters, because of the way the Russians try to set pretexts for activities that they're doing."

"So that's being -- that's being monitored. And then just look to various streams of intelligence. We're doing the best we can to -- to pick up any indications that they have moved chemical or biological weapons into Ukraine...

We just haven't seen that bear fruit yet. And we certainly don't want it to."

"right now we access that in the Black Sea the Russians have about 21 ships...And we haven't noticed that that has changed in any significant way over recent days... Of those 21 ships, a dozen of them are surface combatants and the remaining 9 are amphibious ships"

"We haven't seen any major repositioning by them [Russia] around Kyiv. Again, it's kind of been static, 15 kilometers or so to the northwest and 30 kilometers to the east, they just haven't -- we have not seen a lot of movement on their part."

[On reports that Ukrainians have been taken to camps in Russia] "Yes, we're not a position to corroborate those reports of people getting pulled out of the country and taken to camps. We've seen it. It's deeply concerning, but we're not in a position to confirm it."

"We have seen clear evidence that certainly over the last week or so the Russians have deliberately and intentionally targeted civilian infrastructure, hospitals, places of shelter...

...and we also have indications of behavior on the ground by Russian forces that would likewise constitute war crimes."

"The administration is going to be helping provide evidence to the multiple investigations that are going on. But we see clear evidence that they're committing war crimes through these indiscriminate and intentional attacks on civilian targets and the people of Ukraine."

[On the deconfliction line] "We test it every day and the Russians are picking up. So that's a good thing. There hasn't been any content delivery over the deconfliction line because there hasn't been any need to have that conversation with the Russians"

[Q: has ground changed hands around Mariupol in the past 24 to 48 hours?] "I don't have any -- we don't have any indications that -- that ground has changed hands...I don't know that we would necessarily be able to answer that in real time because it is a very dynamic situation."

"Mariupol is significant for lots of reasons: important port city, important geography with respect to the Donbas, and making it easier for the Russians to reach overground to Crimea. And then also, we think important also as sort of the southern pole of an effort...

...by the Russians to close off the joint forces operations area, the JFO, basically, the Donbas so that Ukrainian forces are pinned down there and are not able to come to the defense of cities further to the west, including Kyiv."

"We still assess that they're [Russia] having trouble with fuel even in the maritime environment; that they're -- that they -- that they're concerned about being able to keep their ships fueled."

"we've picked up some indications that some of their soldiers are suffering from frostbite because they lack the appropriate cold-weather gear for the environment that they're in, they haven't, in addition to food and fuel, even in terms of personal equipment...

...for some of their troops they're having trouble, and we've picked up indications that some troops have actually suffered and taken out of the fight because of frostbite."

"they are having continued logistics and sustainment issues, and again, because the Ukrainians have done a good job frustrating their efforts to resupply, as well as because we don't think they properly planned for logistics and sustainment on the level that they needed to"

"We also still assess... that they're [Russia] having command-and-control challenges of being able to communicate with one another, and without communications, it's hard to, again, get things like logistics and sustainment moving."

End of briefing, full transcript below defense.gov/News/Transcrip…