Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via REUTERS
The Ukrainian government is plotting a counteroffensive against Russian forces in a matter of weeks, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Tuesday.
“They’re contemplating an offensive in in the spring and that’s just weeks away,” Austin told reporters in Brussels following a meeting of Ukraine’s Defense Contact Group. Allies will “help Ukraine hold and advance during the spring counteroffensive,” he added.
The news coincides with Russia bearing down with its own efforts to launch an offensive in Ukraine, to varying degrees of success. Russian forces have been conducting attacks in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine in recent days and continue to attack in the Donbas, U.S. officials said Tuesday. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization warned this week that Russia had already begun some spring offensives.