The United States is not “hand-wringing” over the mass casualties of Russian soldiers in a Ukrainian attack reportedly using US-supplied artillery, a senior White House official said on Wednesday, reports BSS.
The New Year's strike hit a building in the occupied eastern Ukrainian town of Makiivka being used as a barracks. Russia has officially conceded there were 89 deaths, already an unusually high number while Ukraine's military estimates that nearly 400 soldiers died.
Following criticism in Russia over the use of US-delivered weaponry by Ukrainian defenders, including in the Makiivka strike, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Russia is to blame.
There is no “hand-wringing by the administration at all. This is a war. They have been invaded and they (Ukrainians) are striking back and defending themselves,” Kirby said.
“Russian soldiers in their territory are legitimate targets for Ukrainian military action, period.”
Kirby would not give a US estimate of the casualties in an attack that all sides agree was unusually fatal, even by the bloody standards of the now more than 10-month-old Russian invasion.
“I'm not going to get into the casualty count. It is war. And it is in a vicious area of fighting right now. And war is a bloody affair,” he said.
Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan
