Pentagon says Russia appears to be hitting Ukrainian civilians with ‘dumb bombs’

“While we can’t prove a certain dumb bomb is hitting a certain target … what we see manifested is increasing damage to civilian infrastructure and civilian casualties,” the official continued, speaking on the condition of anonymity under terms set by the Pentagon. Avoiding such casualties, the official added, “cannot be aided by the use of dumb bombs.”

Zelensky says maternity hospital bombed, children buried under debris

The U.S. assessment comes as Ukraine accused Russia of striking a maternity hospital in Mariupol, leaving children buried under the debris. Decrying the assault as an “atrocity,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a global challenge: “How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings!” he wrote on Twitter. You have power but you seem to be losing humanity.”

The Biden administration has been adamant it will not involve U.S. troops in the war and thus far has dismissed calls from Zelensky and others to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying enforcement could risk putting U.S. and NATO military personnel in direct conflict with Russian forces. But as the advance on major cities continues, the humanitarian situation is becoming more dire — particularly in places like Mariupol, which, according to the senior defense official, is now “isolated.”

Russia has launched more than 710 missiles, about half of which were fired from locations within Ukraine, according to the official. In the last 24 hours, Russian troops also made gains in their assault on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest population center, moving 20 kilometers closer to the center of the city in the country’s northeast. Russian forces also have moved about 15 kilometers to the north of Mykolaiv, U.S. officials assess, representing another territorial gain. If the southern city falls, it could become a staging ground for a Russian assault on the large port city of Odessa.

U.S. all but declines Poland’s offer to give Ukraine its old warplanes

The Pentagon believes Ukraine still has the bulk of its fixed-wing aircraft “available to them and operational,” the official said, but the Russians have surface-to-air missile systems that “virtually cover the whole country.”

“One has to assume they’re taking that into effect before they decide to fly manned aircraft,” the U.S. defense official said.

That posture appears to have been driving some skepticism in the United States about the logic of sending Ukraine more attack aircraft, as Poland has been pressing to do. On Tuesday night, the United States rejected a Polish proposal to base MiG-29 warplanes at a U.S. base in Germany to be deployed to aid Ukraine at the United States’ direction. The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, John Kirby, said Tuesday in an official response to the Polish offer that it “raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance,” adding “it is simply not clear to us that there is a substantive rationale for it.”

The Pentagon maintains that if another nation wants to consider “the provision of aircraft, that’s a sovereign decision they can make, and they should make on their own in consultation with Ukraine,” the senior defense official said Wednesday.

The United States is taking steps to reassure worried NATO allies, especially those along the alliance’s eastern front, the official said, noting that two U.S. Patriot missile batteries have arrived in Poland to bolster defenses in the case of a Russian attack.