"I don't think it's possible yet to confirm the extent of Ukrainian advances, but they've certainly impacted Russia's ability to move north and south across [the Dnieper River] with their attacks on bridges," the senior NATO official said on Wednesday. "And in terms of future prospects, I'd note that Ukraine is much closer to parity in troop numbers in Kherson than it has been in recent weeks" in the eastern provinces of the country, where fighting has ground on for months.
Attacks in Crimea have been a particularly smart strategy, one official said, because Russia has been using the peninsula as a launchpad for its operations in southern Ukraine.
Russia has also been forced to pull resources from the east "simply because of reports that the Ukrainians might be going more on the offense in the south," John Kirby, the communications coordinator for the National Security Council, said on Monday.
"And so they've had to deplete certain units ...in certain areas in the East in the Donbass, to respond to what they clearly believed was a looming threat of a counter offensive," Kirby said.