[DOD] SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Hey, good morning, everybody. Get started here.
Not a whole lot of changes to talk about today, certainly not on the ground. By our count now, the Russians have launched more than 1,100 missiles. The only thing that I would say that's different since the last time we had a chance to talk is that we have seen some increased naval activity in the northern Black Sea. The Russians have a little bit more than a dozen warships, different stripes and sizes -- amphibious ships, surface combatants, mine sweeper and some patrol boats that they've got up in the northern Black Sea, and we think that at least some of the shelling that's happening around Odesa is a result of these ships and their activities, the surface combatants.
It is not clear that this is an imminent pre-staging sign of an amphibious assault on -- on Odesa, so it would be -- at this point, we would assess that it would be wrong to conclude that this is somehow an indication that Odesa is under an imminent threat of an amphibious assault, but we have seen increased activity by Russian surface combatants in the northern Black Sea.
And since I really don't have anything other -- anything else to update, I mean, we'll just -- we'll go right to questions. So, Lita?
|